Note (11JUL2022): Independence Day was marked by more mass shootings. Like Pavlov’s dog, the usual response from The Left ensued with calls for restricting sales and use of guns; a number of Republicans in Congress support the concept. Curiously, in the 1950s there were more guns per capita than today; yet, there were no mass shootings. What changed? Plenty. Demographics, for one. Then, 85% of the American population was Euro-Caucasian; now, barely above 50%. Then, a comprehensive, Judeo-Christian fabric bound the nation together; now, that fabric is in tatters. The list goes on.
Stop with the calls for restricting guns. The Second Amendment is less for protection against criminal individuals and more for protection against criminal politicians usurping power unconstitutionally.
Stop with simplistic explanations invoking subjective mentalisms. The problem is more fundamental and objective as described in the novel, Retribution Fever. Therein also is presented a solution — scientifically-based not politically-based. The Chinese government has embraced Biobehavioral Science. The American government has not. The Chinese are winning. We are losing as Western civilization commits suicide.
-End-
“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 of 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 their Safety and Happiness.” –Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
In crafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson had chosen these words carefully, structured their syntax, and combined the sentences formed to create a document rich in content and poetic in style. Jefferson was a student of ancient languages as well as Middle English and well knew the nature of the document being created. Actually, the document represented less a declaration of independence and more an invitation to war extended to France and Spain — an invitation accepted by those two great powers; thereby, allowing the rebellious but theretofore poorly armed “Patriots” ultimately to defeat the mighty and theretofore victorious “Redcoats” of the British Crown.
Its actual intent notwithstanding, as a consequence of Jefferson’s extraordinary ability, the Declaration of Independence became and remains the foundation of the conceptual essence of these United States of America, oft quoted and widely revered. It can continue to serve in the future as such for a reïnvigorated nation. Recall that in the first federal election only 31,000 Americans voted, all of them required to be male Caucasians and to own property — a democratic republic albeit one vulnerable to becoming bastardized into a republican democracy.
A democratic republic is not a democracy direct or representative. A democratic republic entitles as many citizens to vote as practicable — practicable not possible. Entitles by what means? By a constitution in whatever form that constitution may take. A democratic republic optimizes success.
In its fullest sense, a democracy grants the right to vote to as many residents as possible — possible not practicable. A democracy guarantees failure.
[Optional Note: In fact, the real date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence was not the 4th of July 1776 but the 2nd of July when only two men signed the document, John Hancock and his secretary, Charles Thomson. The former date comes from the date of printing placed onto the first copies, 200 in number. The pictured affair for the signing occurred on August 2nd. The final signature came in 1781. Because it quickly had become the generally accepted date, July 4th became the official but incorrect date. Contrary to the portrayal on the revised two-dollar bill in 1976 of the signing that reflected ideological propaganda, no Negro signed the document nor even was present at the signing.] -from the novel, Retribution Fever
Concept of Being
For Jefferson, the concept of being for the new nation was to be found in a limited government deriving its just power from the consent of the governed and safeguarding the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not of happiness but of the pursuit of happiness.
Nobility
The Declaration had appealed to a nobility that transcended the selfish, self-serving proclivities common to all mankind. It is a nobility based upon a belief in God and the practice of religion, especially Christianity. The document calls to all Americans to dedicate themselves to concepts of national being that hopefully will safeguard the nation from the individual citizen while safeguarding the individual citizen from the State. In recent years, that hope has been dashed on barren rocks of hollow amorality, relentless greed, unbridled licentiousness, and self-destructive disregard for consequences.
Religion
Until those recent years, Christianity in its various forms had functioned as a bonding force in these United States; bonding from within the various Christian sects, admittedly often at odds among themselves. As religion weakened, that bonding weakened. Politics with its lust for power and lack of shame became the new religion. Consequence? The bitter fruit of dissolute corruption.
“If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
Questions
This Independence Day, we Americans might take a moment amid the celebrating to ask ourselves the following three questions: Who are we? What are we? Where are we?
We may not like the answers. Like our mother-country, the once-Great Britain, are we committing national suicide? If so, Independence Day has become a day of sorrow.
“An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” -Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)