Happy Rebellion Day

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Submitted by adam ricketson on Tue, 2007-07-03 18:00.
On Independence Day, you may be invited (and pressured) to participate in rituals demonstrating unconditional submission to the government, such as pledging allegiance. In these situations, remember the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who publicly renounced their allegiance to their former government. Remember that these rituals are in opposition to the spirit of this holiday, where we celebrate a document that declares the innate human right to "alter or abolish" one's own government when it becomes a threat to liberty.
 
Not only have authoritarians hijacked The Fourth for the celebration of the state, but they also use it to promote a cult of the soldier. They promote the absurd and insulting claim that our liberties were given* to us by soldiers; again, perverting the meaning of this holiday. The Americans who led the struggle for independence recognized that certain rights were essential to prevent the return of tyranny, and they made these rights sacrosanct by listing them in the constitutions for the new governments that they created (e.g. the Bill of Rights). 
 
Only a tyrant would minimize the importance of these liberties (among which are speech, assembly, publication, and privacy). The misled soldier is the enemy of freedom, not its defender; it is the reporter who assures that soldiers point their guns in the right direction. Only an idiot would deny that there is often risk in the exercise of these essential liberties--that many people (including Americans) have made great sacrifices to bring information to the public or to organize non-violent opposition to tyranny. As important as the role of soldiers is, many others play a role that is no less essential.
 
When we criticize the American government, we may be told to "love it or leave it". On Independence Day, we are reminded that the government is not America--America is the people. Each of us is part of America, just as each of us is a part of humanity, and we strive to reform the government so that we will not have to fight it in the future. We must resist every step towards slavery. If we permit our enslavement, resistance will be impossible--our lives will be in the hands of our masters. This existential truth is enshrined in a Revolutionary era motto: "Live free or Die."
Cross posted to Daily Kos 
 
* Footnote: Soldiers protect our rights, they don't give them to us. Just as soldiers protect our rights, the threat to our rights comes from other soldiers. What makes our soldiers different from enemy soldiers? It is the very institutions (academia, journalism, civil society) that are dismissed by the cult of the soldier.

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protecting rights, rather than granting rights

#3951 On Tue, 2007 07 03 18:58 adam ricketson said,
Footnote: Soldiers protect our rights, they don't give them to us. Just as soldiers protect our rights, the threat to our rights comes from other soldiers. What makes our soldiers different from enemy soldiers? It is the very institutions (academia, journalism, civil society) that are dismissed by the cult of the soldier.
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Obviously, on the 4th of July we look to the Declaration of

#3953 On Wed, 2007 07 04 02:35 ka1igu1a said,

Independence as the founding document in proclaiming the source of our rights in a liberal society.

IIRC, Zell Miller read that poem at the last GOP convention. Obviously any nation-state needs a military for self-defense, but the notion that our rights have been "given" to us by the soldier is patently false and is in fact "un-american," in the truest sense of the meaning of that word.

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Happy 4th to all!!

#3956 On Wed, 2007 07 04 10:31 John said,

I read this 4th of July entry at the Liberty Papers earlier today.

Heck, when you look at the taxes that led the colonialists to rebel and compare them to what gets taken out of your paycheck every week, its hard to understand what they were so upset about.

Seriously, the lesson of 1776 isn’t so much that George III was a good guy, but that we’ve forgotten the warning of Thomas Jefferson that:

[T]he price of liberty is eternal vigilence.

We’ve let freedom be eroded, little by little, to the point where the idea of the state being allowed to put surveillance cameras on street corners to “watch” us seems natural. We’ve let privacy become a charade to the point where the Social Security Number has in fact become the National ID that it’s advocates promised it never would become. We’ve let government involvement in the economy expand to the point where a trillion dollars in tax collections seems like a trivial amount.

I don't think the Founders would like the way many have come to view "the Nation" and the role of government. But hey, that's just my little opinion. Maybe they meant for their intent to evolve....not.

Again, Happy 4th to all. Enjoy.

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Other than perhaps hamilton,...

#3958 On Wed, 2007 07 04 20:59 ka1igu1a said,

I imagine most of them would be abhor the scope of the federal government today...
I suppose, paraphrasing jefferson, that's why a little revolution now and then is a good thing.

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nm

#3957 On Wed, 2007 07 04 20:58 ka1igu1a said,

nm

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