The Fourth!

[Guinevere]

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

~~John Adams

In 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, 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 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 Brittish 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.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

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



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



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

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 Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

[MajGenl.Meade]

[liberty]

Traitors all of them, right Meade. It is might that makes right. Those that have the power rule the weak, but that is not the way it should be for an American: A free people are not ruled but governed; that means the people are sovereign and the government merely the instrument of their will under the Constitution.

[Econoline]

[Long Run]

Best break up letter ever, they say.

[BoSoxGal]

I have zero enthusiasm for this holiday this year; our economy in tatters, millions hungry and on the verge of homelessness, millions infected and tens of thousands dead with tens of thousands more set to die in the coming months, racism rampant and preached loud and proud from the bully pulpit, police out of control and the biggest incarceration system on the planet now lousy with virus on top of the racism. I could go on and on, and all the redneck ‘Murica!! bleaters who just have to rub shoulders drunkenly today will only make things worse.

Fucking shithole country to beat all other shithole countries; America first! Indeed.

[Econoline]

BSG, read this (from Charlie Pierce, yesterday):

This Fourth of July, We're in Another One of Those Moments Where the Great Bluff Gets Called

---

It is the same bluff Frederick Douglass called in 1852, and Dr. King called in 1963.

---

This is a great year to have a Fourth of July. This is a great year to have a Fourth of July because we are in the middle of another one of those historical moments in which the great bluff gets called, loudly, raucously, and in the public square. You remember that great bluff. It is the bluff that Frederick Douglass called in Rochester in 1852.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

It is the bluff that Dr. King called in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds.”

It’s the one that is being called by thousands of people in the streets, and by the removal of every memorial to every traitorous gossoon, and by defiant young people who are pushing all their chips to the center of the table. This is the bluff they’re all calling.

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’s it. A pair of sentences, albeit a pair top-heavy with history from the moment the ink sank into the parchment. The slaveholders who attached their names to it knew somewhere in their dark hearts that they had placed a landmine in the middle of the future of their new nation. The men who did not keep slaves knew they profited in one way or another from what slaveholding Thomas Jefferson, in a paragraph that was excised from the final draft, referred to as an “execrable commerce,” an “assemblage of Horrors,” and a “piratical Warfare.”

They built a slaver nation on those two sentences and dared posterity to call their bluff, to prove them wrong, and to denounce them as high-minded hypocrites while working to finish the job those two sentences started. They were not stupid men. They would understand completely why these moments come along in which their bluff gets called. They couldn’t bring themselves to figure out, or summon the guts to admit, that commerce in human beings was as execrable a practice as Jefferson said it was, before he clipped that passage from his Declaration.

Noah Feldman, the author of an excellent recent biography of James Madison, wrote in The New York Times about how the question of racism and slavery was beyond even Madison’s supple mind to confront plainly.

The tension between Madison’s aspirational beliefs and his highly constrained actions continues to be America’s own tension. Like Madison, contemporary United States society rejects racial inequality in principle. But also like Madison, a majority of Americans — as reflected in our democratic institutions — are ultimately unwilling or unable to make the costly changes that would be necessary to achieve equality in practice.

In fact, Madison brought a slave named Billey to Philadelphia with him, and Billey imbibed so much of the rhetoric about self-evident truths that Madison refused to bring him back to Virginia, lest Billey spread the word in the slave quarters about all the high-minded yapping the white folks were doing about liberty. Madison wrote home that, while he would not bring Billey back, he couldn’t punish him “merely for coveting that liberty for which we have paid the price of so much blood, and have proclaimed so often to be the right, and worthy pursuit, of every human being.” Instead, Madison sold Billey into indentured servitude and, when his term of indenture was up, Billey changed his name to William Gardner, became a successful Philadelphia merchant, and even handled some business up north for Madison.

Later, during the Constitutional Convention, Madison swung with the odious Three-Fifths Compromise, and for the deal that would allow the slave trade to continue, but he hated having to have done so. Ultimately, he settled on abolition and transportation because he thought that white Americans would refuse to live peaceably if Black Americans were equal. On this subject, it is fair to say, James Madison’s mind spun like a top.

But that’s the point. It was the problem they couldn’t solve, the knot they didn’t have the boldness or courage to unravel. They left it to us, their posterity, to summon the brains and the guts to do so, and we’ve done a pretty mediocre job of it, all things considered. We elevated them to their pedestals, but, in reality, we’ve let them all down. We have these moments, though, when all the ambivalence clears away, and calling the bluff seems worth the risk. Here we are again, with another chance, another strong hand to play against the ancient bluff.

So, this is a great year to have a Fourth of July. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, and wear the damn mask, and hold these truths, always, to be self-evident.

(Emphasis in the penultimate paragraph is mine; I also corrected Charlie's oopsie on the year of MLK's speech.)

[liberty]

I have zero enthusiasm for this holiday this year; our economy in tatters, millions hungry and on the verge of homelessness, millions infected and tens of thousands dead with tens of thousands more set to die in the coming months, racism rampant and preached loud and proud from the bully pulpit, police out of control and the biggest incarceration system on the planet now lousy with virus on top of the racism. I could go on and on, and all the redneck ‘Murica!! bleaters who just have to rub shoulders drunkenly today will only make things worse.

Fucking shithole country to beat all other shithole countries; America first! Indeed.

You might be right about this shithole country; why else would blacks want to leave.

”Ghana has a message for African Americans: Come home
Ghana has a message for African Americans in the wake of George Floyd's death: "Africa is your home." Officials in Ghana's capital Accra are inviting Americans to live and invest in the West African nation. CNN's Stephanie Busari reports.
Source: CNN”

That is ironic; the descendants of the people who sold them into slavery are now asking them to return.

[Long Run]

[dales]

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:51 am
I have zero enthusiasm for this holiday this year....

Arbor day is coming up in September.

Perhaps you'll feel better by then?

[Joe Guy]

I'm going out on a limb and predicting BSG won't be too excited about Arbor Day.

[Scooter]

You might be right about this shithole country; why else would blacks want to leave.

Ask all your dumbass cracker buddies who are rioting in the streets armed to the teeth, screaming "tyranny" about wearing masks and not being able to get a haircut.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm going out on a limb and predicting BSG won't be too excited about Arbor Day.

Oh leaf me alone, sap.

[Joe Guy]

Oh leaf me alone, sap.

You shouldn't bark at me. I'm rooting for you to feel better.

[Long Run]

Even shady topics are pun-stable.

[Scooter]

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

I’m not alone, at least.

American patriotism falls to lowest point in two decades, poll finds
Less than half of US adults said that they are ‘extremely proud’ to be American

[Bicycle Bill]

Somebody else once put it in a different way, but it pretty well sums up my feelings on the matter....

"I love my country, but I fear its government."

I've always been proud to be an American, even with all its warts and missteps and failings over the past 250 years, and I still am proud to be an American .... but I am ashamed of the face that our president and his administration is currently presenting to the world.  If somehow I would be allowed to make one statement before the UN, one that everyone would get to hear or read, it would be "Please excuse us .... something is broken and we're trying to fix it.  We aren't all like this."

-"BB"-

[Gob]