"Hey, baby. It's the fourth of July"

Today the United States celebrates Independence Day. It is the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. With that document the thirteen contiguous colonies of North America declared that collectively they were no longer part of the British empire. Following closely on the heels of this declaration was the War of Independence, also known to those of us in the U.S. as the Revolutionary War.

Today, no doubt, a lot will be written about the U.S. Constitution. 17 September, however, is Constitution Day. Because it was on 17 September 1787 that the United States Constitution was signed. This was a bit more than four years after the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the newly formed United States of America was signed. It was by signing the Treaty of Paris that Great Britain recognized the United States as a sovereign nation, thus reliquishing all claims and ending the American War of Independence. Between 1783 and 1787, the charter of the new nation was much-maligned Articles of Confederation.

Like the Bible for many American Christians, for a lot of (the same) people the Constitution serves a totemic purpose. In other words, the more someone invokes the Constitution (or the Bible), the less likely they are to know what's in it. But today is not Constitution Day. It is not Memorial Day. It is not Veteran's Day. It is not Armed Forces Day. It is Independence Day. The Declaration of Independence remains the seminal document of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence is our nation's ur document.

Fourth of July, by Childe Hassam, 1916

The heart of the Declaration of Independence is constituted by the following:

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

The assertion that there are rights that precede the state and that those rights are granted by God is a bold assertion. Certainly, it is a bolder assertion now than it was 249 years ago. According to the Declaration, securing these rights is why governments exist.

First among these rights is the right to Life. Without this right, other rights don't really matter. What does it mean to be free and happy if you're not alive? Safety, as the document notes, is necessary for Happiness. These are the founding principles of the United States. While most if not all of the founders likely had a more restrictive view of the things they declared than we now have, the Declaration of Independence nonetheless provides a framework within which a more expansive view of these principles can be worked out, like the words found in the Consititution's preamble about forming "a more perfect union."

Far from being a call to permanent revolution, the Declaration goes on to insist that "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes." War, as General Sherman asserted, is hell. Most revolutions find nations worse off than they were before, even if in different ways.

I am okay with incomplete thoughts today. Like many, I worry about the future of our country. We are in crisis and, in my view, have been for the past several decades. What we're experiencing now is a culmination of sorts. One thing about a crisis according to its medical meaning- "a moment during a serious illness when there is the possibility of suddenly getting either better or worse"- is that afterwards things are never the same; maybe better, maybe worse.

When it comes to politics and political engagement, I have benefitted greatly by reading Michael Wear's book The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life. Yesterday, I listened to an interview with Michael on Steve Cuss's Being Human podcast. I am going to transcribe a portion I found very relevant:

There's this term by this professor at Tufts, Eitan Hersh, "political hobbyism." A political hobbbyist, if you asked them if they were burnt out by politics, they'd say "Yes." But if you said, "Oh, well, have you been going to too many housing meetings... or have you been knocking on too many doors?" They'd say, "No, I haven't done any of that. But I did spend five hours on Reddit last night really tearing into this argument that I don't like." In other words, they're producing political content, but they're not acually participating in politics itself. They feel a kind of responsibility but they're channeling it through means that are sorta most accessible to them. And frankly, the most gratifying

Dopamine is a helluva a drug.

Our traditio, "4th of July," is a song by one of my favorite all-time bands, X. As stated in a nice article on this song, X has "produced a series of albums with broader mainstream appeal [than other L.A. punk bands of their era], including one with a perfect song for America's birthday."

Happy Fourth of July!