Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
233 years ago, a group of men (and the women who supported them) committed treason against the Crown of England. There was a passion, a drive, a desire to be free that produced a nation born of liberty. Committed to single purpose, to rid themselves of the tyranny of the distant Crown, they fought a battle that stained the ground, clouded the rivers, and filled the air with the burning smell of gun powder.
That was 233 years ago.
Today, what was a cause to shed blood for is barely a resemblance of its former self. If at this point you feel that I’m talking about carriages and top hats, I’m going to have to ask you to continue reading with more urgency than you have ever experienced. This letter… it is about you.
233 years ago, this nation was formed with some very lofty ideas in mind. The establishment of a government that empowers itself from the confidence of the people, and enacts its will as long as that will holds dear to the constitution. The establishment of a sectarian society in which religious freedom is guaranteed. A nation in which its citizens were secure in their property and papers. As one can imagine, it didn’t take long for the stories of a land of free men circled the globe and called deep into the soul of many a family.
What we have created though is a nation far, far different from the ideas set forth 233 years ago. We sit here with a government that empowers itself through corruption and greed, ensuring corporate interests that paid for election campaigns get their repayment in the form of ink and pen. For the eight years prior, we saw an administration that viewed the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, as nothing more than very old toilet paper upon which to wipe their asses upon. We see a society where God has become such a mythical power that many will take up arms in defence of ‘His Word’, killing others simply because they do not believe as they do. We’ve been left with a nation whose government has routinely spied upon its people since the early part of the 20th Century. Today, a different story runs around the globe, and it is one in which we are the boogeyman.
If it is hard to see, I’d like you to open your eyes.
233 years later we have a disparaging class war that is getting more virulent with each passing hour. The wealthy continue to sip champagne and drive their expensive foreign cars, while whisking to the District of Columbia in a private jet to beg the Government for more money, our money. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I haven’t been able to afford to even fly coach for over 4 years, much less buy two of the cheapest tires available for my car. Yet some rich bastard has the gaul to fly to the District of Columbia and ask for money? I don’t care if he came by fucking donkey cart. I guess he should have realized his seven figure salary plus perks might be playing a part why the ship he commands is on fire and sinking faster than the bilge pumps can go. Meanwhile, you and I are stuck on the bottom where our options are to either crack the last casket of Rum and be shitfaced when it all goes wrong; or hold our breath and hope we survive.
In 233 years we have developed a society that worships credit. I don’t dare fantasize that I’m not part of that mess. I have debt, and a lot of it. Not nearly as much as friends who have gone to college on student loans, but I have my own share. Yet, I sit looking at the website for University of Massachusetts and pondering taking out some student loans to get a Certificate of Journalism from their institution. A piece of paper that says I know how to write.
La-tee-da, I’m already doing it. However, paper speaks volumes. I wonder maybe if all that it really says is how willing you were to put yourself in debt for a piece of paper that says some douche-bag told you how to write.
Friends, let us not continue the fallacy of today. Let us not continue to carry this burden. Let us tell the wealthy corporate bastards they can pay their own way. Most importantly, let us take a lesson from our brethren in Iran who have something we don’t have: balls.
That’s right, I didn’t stutter. We don’t have balls. Do I see anyone heading to the District of Columbia reminding our elected officials that the first words of the Declaration of Independence is “We The People”, and how the rest is a license to revolution? You may ask “What about you? Why haven’t YOU got off your fat ass an gone to D.C.?”
I’m ready to go once enough of you are willing to put rubber to pavement.
I’m not saying revolt. I am saying go and remind them that we still retain that right.
But, instead I am afraid many will find it easier to sit at home and grumble, drinking the kool-aide being dished out by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and, O’Reilly. Perhaps you find Lou Dobbs more to your liking, finding various reasons to blame all our hardships on the Mexicans.
Here’s a newsflash: we wouldn’t have as much of an illegal immigrant problem if the affluent didn’t find their cheap labor such an appealing resource.
No, instead we’re going to wave our flags this Subordination Day and listen to music about how real men die in war, and how America is this beautiful place of freedom with freedom on the side. I’m not sure which to call it anymore, Subordination Day or Delusion Day. Either way it is NOT Independence Day.
As I do every year, it is time to read the document that brought us to where we are today. Read it, and don’t skim over it. These words and phrases are the most important ones your eyes will ever have the distinguished honor of witnessing.
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.
I don’t expect anyone to actually give a damn this year, much in the way no one has actually given a damn in years past. However, I hope maybe, just maybe I have reminded you that freedom means recognizing when you’re in slavery, and that Blind Patriotism is the ultimate perversion of the vision of our Founding Fathers.
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