(Vanity) A Politically Correct Fourth of July, Part I: The Declaration of Independence

In honor of which, I thought it appropriate to take a moment to walk through history and recall first, why and how we got here, and to post the actual lyrics AND a bit of background on some common patriotic songs.

Part I will be a VERY brief background to the Revolution, and the Declaration of Independence.

Part II, to follow later to day, will look at the actual lyrics of a number of patriotic songs. Most of them, going beyond the first verse, are enough to make any self-respecting liberal or ACLU member soil themselves.

This is politically correct: not in the damnable Soviet or Communist sense, but in the literal sense of "correct".

The United States, before they became the United States, were a series of British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America. In alphabetical order, they were:

Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Virginia

It is often difficult to pick out a single thread from the tapestry of history and identify it as a unique cause of subsequent events, but it is fair to say that the problems between the British Colonies and Mother England had their roots in the Seven Years' War. This war is best known in the United States as the French and Indian War, but there were many other theaters and sets of combatants, from the Bourbons of France to Frederick The Great of Prussia(*), all fighting over colonial holdings, various disputed territories, and trade interests.

While the British Empire did well territorially during the war (they gained both Florida and large areas of modern day Canada), the financial effects, and some of the geopolitical consequences, were more serious. Great Britain began trying to placate some of the other inhabitants of the New World, as well as looking to the colonies as a source of revenue to help pay off war debts. For example, the Proclamation of 1763 forbade westward expansion by white settlers beyond the Appalachians; and the Quebec Act (later to be included as one of the intolerable acts) allowed religious toleration, but eliminated local legislative government in favor of a governor appointed by the Crown: which was taken as a dangerous precedent by the 13 colonies.

But the more immediate problem was money. By 1764, a year after the end of the Seven Years' War, Britain's national debt was some £130,000,000. (Chump change for today, but quite significant back then.) In addition, it was decided to keep some 10,000 British troops stationed in the colonies -- partly to help administer colonial holdings, partly because the officers had friends in Parliament. Parliament passed a series of measures, from the Stamp Act (which required the purchase of a stamp, to be affixed to legal documents and newspapers), to the Townshend Acts, which replaced the Stamp Act. The Townshend Acts were intended to be more palatable to the colonists, as they were taxes imposed on items imported into the colonies. However, the Townshend Acts prompted even more unease than the Stamp Act, leading for example to the prosecution of the Boston merchant John Hancock (yes, that John Hancock) for smuggling--defended by John Adams (yes, that John Adams)--and later to the Boston Massacre, where British Regulars fired into a crowd of civilians. Ironically enough, the soldiers were defended by John Adams (yes, that John Adams) in the interests of a fair trial. Even more ironically, Parliament moved for a partial repeal of the Townshend Acts on the day of the Boston Massacre. They were to be replaced by the Tea Act in 1773. (Yes, that Tea Act. The one of Boston Tea Party fame. As Sarah Palin said, "Party like it's 1773!")

The problem between Mother England and the Colonies could be summed up as follows: Britain had taxed its local inhabitants as much as they could stand -- the Prime Minister under George III, the Earl of Bute, had been burned in Effigy (in England, not the Colonies) for a tax on cider. So Britain had decided to get money by taxing the colonies instead. The colonies, however, objected on both practical and philosophical grounds. The practical grounds were that the colonies were being taxed for others' benefit, not their own; and the philosophical grounds that they did not have any say in either the levying or disbursement of the taxes ("No Taxation without Representation.") It did not help matters any that Britain threw this back in the face of the colonists, remarking that if, for example, Philadelphia, did not have direct representation in Parliament's House of Commons, neither did Manchester, back in England. Both Philadelphia and Manchester had "virtual representation," since those elected to the House of Commons were supposed to represent the interests of the British Empire as a whole.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to Adopt the Declaration of Independence (not July 4th, although that is the date commonly given as its signing date). It does a far better job than any words here can, to describe the grounds upon which our Country was born:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[Note again, "endowed by their CREATOR" -- rights flow from God, and are secured by government; and when government fails to secure these rights, it is the DUTY of the people to institute a new government.]

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
     He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
     He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
     He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
     He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
     He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
     He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
     He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
     He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
     He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
     He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
     He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
     He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
     He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
     For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
     For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
     For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
     For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
     For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
     For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
     For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
     For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
     For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
     He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
     He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
     He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
     He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
     He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[Notice again the invocation of God: "...the protection of divine Providence." And the last line "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" was not mere window dressing on insincere showboating. Many of the signers paid terribly for their defiance of the crown. Click here for Rush Limbaugh's classic piece The Americans Who Risked Everything.

(*) Frederick, Maryland is named in honor of Frederick the Great, in recognition of his efforts in Continental Europe during the Seven Years' War, which enabled Britain to focus on other theatres of war, and to build up its naval forces. Pitt boasted of having 'won Canada on the banks of the Rhine.' Small world.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

Here’s what I sent out to my email lists this morning:

Harvard “study”: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing-advises DemocRATS not to participate in them.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2742548/posts

Imagine if this country were actually founded upon Harvard’s wimpy rejection of metaphysical certitude and the politically correct leftist embrace of relativism?

Here’s how today’s Democrats would write up our “Declaration”:

We hold these preliminary observations to be more or less adequate, at least convenient for the time being, that all cultures have equal validity, and that each culture has its own ideas about rights and entitlements and so forth and so on and blah blah blah. In our case, we have hit upon this idea — no offense, but we have this tentative notion — subject to further studies, of course — that we would like the government — that would be your government — to cut us some slack so that we can do what we want to do — basically acquire property and “do our thing,” whilst trying not to infringe upon anyone else’s thing...

Anyhoo, it is our culturally conditioned idea that Governments — not all of them, of course, but ours — should actually derive their power from the people, although we have respect and tolerance for the contrary view that you folks hold. Nevertheless, some of our more headstrong citizens think that we should be able to form a government based upon these vague hunches of ours, which, after all, are as good as your hunches. No, that was rude — let’s just say that our hunches are different than yours, and leave it at that.... No one can presume to be a judge of whose hunches are best.... At any rate, since, as the saying goes, “different strokes for different folks,” we.... ~ Gagdad Bob
HERE: We Hold These Truths to be Self-Serving http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-serving.html

<>//<>

“...ultimately the Left is at war with God. .. With God “dead,” there is no lawful underpinning for individual rights, which the Framers also thought were gifts of God (and therefore unalienable from human nature itself). The Left understands that the State cannot be seen as the legitimate dispenser of human rights as long as God is on the scene. And so: God must go. .. -bettyboop 2007 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1767662/posts?page=50#50

<>//<>

The “culture war” — is not just about politics or values, but is ultimately rooted in competing visions of reality.

“At the very core of our national discombobulation, this very problem We no longer speak the same language. We don’t recognize the same historical records. We don’t share the same values, principles, hopes, dreams or morality. ..... After years of agitprop by well placed activists, we’re past any possible rapprochement.” ....
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2011/06/round-one-of-culture-war-is-vs-isnt.html

Politics has to do with one’s philosophy of government, and more generally, of the relations between men and society.

Democrats (like all leftist collectivists) believe in growing the BIGGEST “nanny-state” GOVERNMENT possible, with them in charge of everyone’s lives, of course, since “they know best”, and everyone else is just an incompetent dumb-ass that doesn’t know what’s good for him.

Conservatives (classical liberals like the Founders) know that government is a “necessary evil”, and that it should be as small and as close to “we the people” as possible so as not to get out of control, and that the Federal government should be shrunk back to its Constitutionally “enumerated” powers. All other powers belong to the State and local governments.

Now if anyone actually believes that it is possible to reconcile these two diametrically opposed worldviews (visions of reality), that person is DREAMING.

I will NEVER “compromise” with any collective mentality... I value freedom too much.

“He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. “

Sounds like the DemocRATS and their chosen “leader” in 2011, doesn’t it?

July 4th: What its Really all about
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
July 2, 1776 is the day that the Continental Congress voted for independence

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

I N CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [in authority over their own lives], 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

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