“We The People” Some thought from a Proud American on Independence Day Every year at this time we celebrate the anniversary of our Nation’s independence. In particular the signing and passing in to law of the Declaration of Independence. That along with the other associated document, the Constitution with its Amendments are recognized at the groundwork for what paved the way for our unique form of government that is the United States. Some of the more memorable lines that are often quoted from these are “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and “We the People of the United States, In Order to Form a More Perfect Union” (You can’t write the last one without grammar-check flipping out…) How easy it is to forget the thought and work that went in to these. In the time of the Declaration being signed in to law, with its iconic statement, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, many of it’s supporters were in fact, slave owners. While slavery is no longer in the US, we now have the world’s largest Prison Populating per capita. The United States has less than 5% of the worlds population and 24% of the worlds prison population. African-Americans make up roughly 13% of the population of the US and a staggering 38% of the population of US prisons. (Wiki) I’m not pointing out these facts to create any friction or claim that the Republic is a hoax. I’m simply stating that it needs work and that we HAVE been working on it for over 200 years. Yet for some reason there is a large segment of the population that feels that our pointing out these facts somehow makes us un-American. Now look at the phrase, “…in order to form a MORE PERFECT UNION”. Now we can argue the grammatical correctness of that statement all day long but what this suggests to me is that the Founding Fathers knew we were FAR from perfect and suggested we should continue to strive for perfection as a Nation. The words, “More Perfect Union” suggests to me “Work In Progress”. I believe that our Nation was built on the principle of constant improvement. Constant refinement. A nation of free-thinkers who challenged the status quo and fought for change. People like Martin Luther King whose vocal opposition to oppression WAS the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher who first proposed the idea of teaching Evolution in our schools. Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet “Common Sense” got us thinking about the idea of independence from Britain. Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin reshaped the thinking of slavery in the North. These and countless other Americans took the risk of exposing what they thought was in need of change and did what they could to change it against accepted norms. Were they Anti-American? Contraire! They were GREAT Americans! So in closing I offer this; This Nation of ours, this GREAT experiment is far from over. The United States of America is a Living Breathing thing of beauty. Like all living, breathing things it is not meant to sit back and admire, cursing all that dare suggest change as “Anti-American”. Like all living, breathing things it needs to be nurtured, pruned, cared for and loved. Our Founding Fathers made it clear when they said, “…in order to form a MORE PERFECT UNION” that it was up to us and those that come after us not to waive the flag. Not to regress. Not to knock others for attempting to affect change. And DEFINATLY not to sit back on our laurels and admire how great we are. BUT to work together and form “A MORE PERFECT UNION”. Happy 4th of July!
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 02:30:01 +0000
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