What is Independence Day, really?

So, it’s the Fourth of July again. Independence Day.

On the TV and in the newspapers, we are being reminded to get ready for the Fourth by going to Lowe’s to get a new grill, or to get those delicious King’s Hawaiian buns ready for our holiday burgers! Yum!

Can’t have a holiday without the feast, right?

So, as America prepares to celebrate another year of Independence, it got me thinking about how we got like this: I mean, how did the Day of Independence become a day of fireworks being shown on TV by the weatherman, M*A*S*H marathons on TV Land, and some guy eating a hundred hot dogs?

Is this what independence means?

I think most Americans have no real clue what July 4th really means, what we did on that day, as a nation. So, like any red-blooded American, I Googled it. Here’s what I found.

I went straight to the source of all this holiday reverie, the U.S. Constitution. No wait, that’s another holiday. Wait…we don’t actually have a holiday for the Constitution, which is the actual founding document that started the nation.

Whoops!

But we do have a holiday on the Fourth of July, and that day celebrates the Declaration of Independence, actually written before July 4th, 1776, but dated the fourth. But signed on the Fourth: well, not really. Most of it was actually signed later. But it was dated July 4th, so we celebrate the birth of our nation on that date. Got it?

Well, to be honest, the nation wasn’t actually born, or established, on July 4, 1776. It’s just the date they put on the document that they sent to the King. The King: you know — of Great Britain. Never heard of him, you say? Isn’t he the guy that makes those fabulous Hawaiian buns?

George, King of England — as we colonists like to say — was a bit of a tyrant. At least that’s what the Declaration of Independence states. And we didn’t like it, so we told him that we were done with all that, as of July 4th or sometime around then.

And ever since, we’ve been free, right?

Well, not exactly.

OK, so we got together and wrote this letter — this DECLARATION — to this King, who was a tyrant, and told him he was mean, and we were going our own way, and to shove off. Somebody get me a hot dog, cause I’m ready to party…what?

Alright, let’s actually read the damned thing and see if we can find out exactly what was written, by whom, and when. Then hot dogs.

So, the very first thing I see that sounds familiar is this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Self-evident that all men are created equal? The Founding Fathers actually stated that all men were created equal? That’s not right: after securing their own freedom from the King, these rich dudes sat down and wrote the Constitution, which created the United States, but intentionally counted Blacks as only ⅗ of a man, which if I remwember from math class is not equal to one whole person. And Indians didn’t count as anything! WTF!

OK, let’s move on, cause I’m sure that’s a typo or something.

Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I’ve definitely seen this before. Trouble is, I’ve also seen — even recently — people who only care about their own pursuits, and those folks who were running this nation for a while — straight into the crapper.

The great push to “Make America Great Again” will always ring hollow for anyone who has never been able to pursue life on their own terms, liberty — otherwise known as freedom — or any definition of happiness. George Floyd comes to mind.

Right now, we’ve got Republicans running around like their hair is on fire bashing something they don’t even understand: Critical Race Theory. Did these folks ever once stop to consider that the Natives and the Africans in the 18th and 19th centuries were denied citizenship in this land of freedom? We took all they had, including their very lives, yet told the King — who was usurping his ass off with our rights — to back the fuck up! Many of those crying for freedom themselves owned slaves, yet they had the nerve to call out the King for what he was doing? What hypocrites! To cry for liberty while denying millions the same.

How can we “make America great again” when it took hundreds of years after the Declaration of Independence to actually give liberty to the majority of the people in America? Don’t we have to first become great before we can make ourselves great again?

Sounds like those Founding Fathers were in this only for themselves.

It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

These ‘people’ the Founding Fathers are referring to here are themselves, of course, feeling oppressed by the ‘tyrant king,’ while conveniently forgetting the slaves they were constraining back home on their plantations.

It took Blacks in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ another 200 years before they could even vote! And today, we see Republicans in Congress blocking voting rights bills, and Republicans in state legislatures doing all they can to constrain free voters.

Perhaps it is time to throw off such government.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people.

For centuries in the United States, white men have held all the power, all the control, and all the wealth. When challenged, they have cheated in elections, passed reprehensible Jim Crow voting laws, and murdered people-Americans! They did all of these ‘tyrannical acts’ while refusing to pass laws to protect the rights of free Americans to vote with the liberty they demanded from the King!

Today, the nation is crumbling, yet ‘He’ in Congress refuses to pass various bills for the relief of the people: police reform comes to my mind. Voting rights too.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.

They’re talking about Trump here, right? I mean, we have a twice-Impeached former president who persistently lies about his election loss with the full intent on getting people who support his “Big Lie” elected to office. Isn’t this exactly what we said King George was doing to us?

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.

You’re kidding me right: more Trump? Let’s build a wall to keep out the foreigners — after calling them rapists and murderers — and we’ll get Mexico to pay for it! If they show up anyway, we’ll rip their children from their arms, and lock them in cages. And we’ll deny them due process, while complaining constantly about ‘witch hunts.’

No one treated immigrants worse than our own former president, not even the King.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.

You sure this declaration was written for the King, and not for Trump? Denying and ignoring subpoenas; blocking investigations into the 2016 election. Tax fraud, bank fraud, political chicanery up the wazoo. Wow! We don’t even have to mention that little insurrection, do we?

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

Here we go again. When we raise our own army of idiots to fight made-up battles over election fraud, we have usurped our own the people. Just like the King. Maybe that’s why Trump thinks he should be treated like a King.

I agree. Let’s treat him just like Louis XVI.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution.

Are you sure they didn’t write this letter to Trump. I mean, every snotty thing they said the King was guilty of is exactly what Trump did to us. Like denying our own intelligence agencies in favor of Russia.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.

I told you: January 6, 2021. That was too easy.

(H)as endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages.

Even in one of our founding documents, we attacked the Natives, the people who had saved early settlers/colonies, only to have treaties broken and their land stolen. Who has been usurping who?

How can we declare anyone free if we are still treating the Natives like this? We are the savages!

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.

Donald Trump. Again.

(A)ppealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Wealthy Whites put everyone living here at that time at risk of death for their own benefit. After the success of the revolution, freedom came only to the wealthy Whites, not to others.

So much for Independence.

Seems to me, George Carlin had it right.

Wow, that is one crazy-assed letter, er, uh Declaration. We bitched and complained about the King, while we were just like him. What’s worse is that in 245 years, we haven’t improved much: we just got rid of the worst tyrant this nation has ever known!

Frederick Douglass, in his great speech, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” spoke about freedom, and liberty, and all that that Americans love to celebrate so much. He did not mention hot dogs.

Douglass said, “It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God.”

Douglass really rocked it in this speech: he knew how to get the White folks to see what hypocrites they were.

“Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow.” Here Douglass is telling the folks listening that they should be glad the nation is still young: we can blame our ignorance on our youth. Because we are young, we can not yet see the error of our ways when it comes to claiming freedom while owning slaves.

Frederick Douglass makes the point that to seek independence was “to side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor.” He makes this argument while Blacks themselves are still being oppressed, while slavery still exists, not by a king in a faraway land, but here and now, in the midst of all this ‘freedom’.

He reminded his audience that oppression makes a “wise man mad,” and that the Founding Fathers were wise indeed to throw off the yoke of tyranny. But what he was really saying was ‘you all a bunch of damned hypocrites! You put the whole of the people on the chopping block for independence, then after getting it, told the African, the Native, and your women to FUCK OFF, you ain’t free!’

I can almost hear him saying it, just like that.

So, we celebrate our independence from the evil King right? Or are we just celebrating replacing one tyrant with another?

I’m not sure what the hell we are celebrating, to tell you the truth.

This evening, as I spent a few minutes in front of the TV, I saw a story that, to me, denies reality.

The story was of Kate McCue, who has become one of the first women chosen to Captain a major cruise ship. The show mentioned that she has like a zillion followers on some social media site. Then the show said that her hairless sphynx cat, Buck Naked, has 50,000 followers on Instagram.

50,000 followers? for a cat!?

I can’t get 50 people to read an article I spend all day writing!

Was this the purpose behind the Declaration of Independence? Is this why the Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes — and the lives of everyone else in the colonies — so 50,000 people can follow a cat online?

Some might say that is exactly the purpose of freedom: to give each of us the right to choose how to live, what to do with our lives and such…and you know, to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?

But I disagree.

First, I don’t think we are there yet: I think we are still not free as a nation. The rabid racism that permeates every American life today has a grip on our lives stronger than any king ever could. The tyrants in Washington, D.C., and in our state legislatures, continue to deny people those same unalienable rights the founders demanded from the king. The right to be treated fairly, justly, and not be abused by those in power.

When that happens, America can start celebrating its independence.

America is the greatest nation on Earth; unfortunately, America has never been great for so many Americans. From the Natives, who had the land taken from them, to Africans who were kidnapped and brought here against their will, to women who were denied many legal rights, America has never lived up to that aspiration fully. It did give freedom and wealth to the white landowners, who today still use their power to write or deny laws; cause elections and voting rights to be altered; and suppress millions in the pursuit of their own life, liberty, and all that money.

Keep your hot dogs, your parades, your fireworks. Keep your idealistic ideas about the Fourth of July, and for that matter keep your Independence Day.

When we have true freedom, true liberty for all, then I’ll celebrate. When we stop acting like tyrants, and start acting like “one nation” then I’ll celebrate. Instead of spending our time grilling burgers, maybe Americans should spend Independence Day working to secure actual independence for all Americans, including those who come here in search of a new life, just like our own ancestors did.

There is no independence until we all are independent. If there is still tyranny at the helm, guiding our actions for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the many, we are not independent.

We have only changed tyrants.

© Timothy J. Sabo