Eric Shaw Quinn

On the 4th of July, we celebrate an idea.

There was no battle that day, no event, nothing actually changed.   The Declaration of Independence probably wasn’t even signed that day.  But on July 4, 1776, a group of men agreed upon
the words that changed the world as few words have before.

I think that’s amazing. A holiday for an idea.  An anniversary of editorial consensus.  A celebration of words.

July 4th is a celebration of words.

How powerful words are, how inventive.  In the beginning there was the word.  And then there was everything else.  Doctors theorize that the reason we don’t
remember our earliest years is because as babies we don’t yet have words to name and describe our experience.  That means words are the very essence of thought. We literally create our experience of life by describing it with words.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect (sic) their Safety and Happiness.

Along with the memorable “When in the course of human events” paragraph that proceeds this one, these are the words from the Declaration most familiar to me.  I re-read the document before I sat down to write today.  What surprises me is, aside from the two crowd pleaser paragraphs I remembered, the rest of the declaration is a list of grievances against an unjust ruler.  And what a list.  “HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burned our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People,” is pretty descriptive of the theme of the piece.  The framers contend that genuine wrongs, harm and violence had been done to the colonists..  Even so, the majority of their grievances express the longing of our founders for a strong central government of their own choosing.  They wanted a judiciary, they wanted an elected house of representatives and they deeply resented and deplored the fact that no such representation was available to them.

Lately I hear a lot from the people who think Paul Revere was warning the British and that Concord, Massachusetts is in New Hampshire.  They seem to believe the whole point of the
American Revolution was to do away with government altogether so that we might be “free.”  In fact, from the gate it would appear the Founding Fathers — and probably the mothers, too – stated
very clearly that what they most wanted was the freedom to “form a more perfect UNION, establish justice, insure domestic TRANQUILITY, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .” as they later wrote when they described the government they wanted in the US Constitution.

Powerful words.  I highlight some that seem forgotten lately in the mad rush of selfishness that describes the age in which we are now privileged to live only because of the freedom these men fought and died to give us.  Many of those who have benefitted most from our grand experiment in self-government spend their efforts and their character seeking to get out of their responsibility while screaming the house down about their rights.

Today is the day we celebrate not the rights of individual states to vote out the rights of minorities (Yes, I’m talking to you Mr. President) but our hard earned right to form “a more perfect union.”  The Fourth of July is not set aside to commemorate the rights of people to threaten to seek “second amendment remedies” but to “establish justice and insure domestic Tranquility.”  They did not fight the ensuing revolution to protect the right of every man to keep every penny he can ring out of gaming the system, from the Boston Tea Party forward. We fought to “promote the general welfare.” That means not just to benefit people who’ve lucked out and wound up with everything but the welfare even
of people who’ve had the bad taste and lack of foresight to be poor or sick or old.

Words are powerful.

We use them very carelessly in the pursuit of the sale or the job or the object of our affection or the election.  The framers of the declaration spent a month deciding on the perfect 1,300 words to describe their reasons for taking leave of a king who had “plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burned our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People” and to assert their right and their yearning to have their own government.

Lately, people who would seek to be President can’t take the time to differentiate between actor, former socialist and Franklin Roosevelt supporter John Wayne and mass murderer John Wayne Gacy.  Today, people call themselves patriots but
express disdain for their responsibility to the government that has provided us with the lives we celebrate, even as they demand the very rights that government has afforded them.  That includes paying for it, if I’m not being clear enough. It is a privilege worth celebrating to help pay for the government of the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world.

Lovely Downtown Somalia

For those who don’t want to pay their taxes, for those who don’t want a strong federal government that does the very things those men risked everything to declare they wanted their government to do on that long ago 4th of July may I recommend Somalia? There they have no taxes, no pesky government regulations, in fact there’s not much of anything at all.  In Somalia you can keep all the rocks and sticks you can eat, unless some pirate or warlord steals them from you.  You can take all your big guns.  You’ll need them when the pirates come to call.  But best of all, when you’re in Somalia, those of us who actually want to live in the United States and are willing to pay for the privilege of citizenship here won’t be able to hear your endless whining.

Now that would really be something to celebrate.

So, to those of you out there who actually do celebrate the ideas that created these United States and the commitment to one another that those men declared with such courage on that July day in that city of brotherly love, those of you willing to take responsibility for keeping and maintaining that commitment, I wish you a Happy Fourth of July.

And to those of you who think the Boston Tea Party was about those early patriots not paying their taxes I say:  See Scenic Somalia!

Scenic Somalia Awaits!