In the 1770s and 1780s, a ragtag collection of citizen soldiers waged a war of independence against the most powerful empire on the planet…
…and defeated them.
Two hundred forty-four years ago today marked the start of this wonderful, aspirational, fantastic, heaven-blessed, messy, delightful, powerful, flawed, and glorious experiment called the United States of America which has delivered unimaginable levels of freedom to hundreds of millions of people here in the US of A and contributed massively to the freedom of hundreds and hundreds of millions more around the world.
That experiment had multiple severe flaws baked into the design which are taking a long time to correct, yet the aspirational dreams then drove and still drive that wonderful experiment to constant improvement.
Before our independence, anything resembling a democracy had been absent for so many long centuries. Apart from the ruling elite, ordinary people were merely the subjects of their ‘betters.’ Common folk only had the very few rights and freedoms that those born to power consented to give them, like crumbs thrown from the table. You and I would only have been able to do what those controlling us allowed us to do.
And then came those rabble-rousing founding fathers.
The results of this grand experiment in self-government, not tried before, has produced fabulous results.
- Political freedom.
- Economic freedom.
- Religious freedom.
What does that birth of freedom mean for you and me?
You have the right, yes, a right, to pursue happiness as you define happiness. Not as some pompous, self-important bureaucrat in London or D.C or Sacramento defines happiness for you, but as *you* define happiness.
This doesn’t mean you have the right to a live of ease with whatever you want provided to you by the government.
No. That is just a very nice, pleasant form of submission to others controlling you.
Instead, you can put your life together as you wish to do so, with the goals you wish to define, and move forward in the way you want.
What’s not to celebrate?
Happy birthday America!
For a short description of this day, consider a photo of a sign on a store’s door I saw years ago while browsing the ‘net:
Closed on July 4
in observance of
Brexit 1776
If you are looking for a brief description of the string of events which led to signing the Declaration of Independence and the follow-on events leading to full independence, check out Kelly Phillips Erb’s explanation of No Taxation Without Representation And Other Reasons America Declared Independence.
Portions of this discussion previously posted on 7/4/17 with multiple updates. This celebration of freedom will be posted on several of my blogs.