My Two Cents
While serving out a home quarantine waiting for COVID-19 testing facilities to reopen after a long holiday weekend, I had time to go back and read a document I hadn’t really read in many years.
It begins with words many of us memorized in elementary school: 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.
The Founding Fathers were setting the stage for declaring this fledgling nation’s break from England.
“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.”
How often have we heard those exact same words lately as our nation grapples with the differences among its citizens? How do we balance our own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness when it seems to be in direct contrast to the person standing next to us? How can we achieve a happy medium?
It continues: 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 year 2020 began with one example of this and the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. We’ll hear strains of it grow louder as we approach November.
I’m not sure any of us are suggesting the citizens abolish it, but the election will be our opportunity to alter our government, if we so choose.
“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.”
The Declaration of Independence then goes on to list grievances against the King of England detailing why the United States of America should be free of the crown’s control. Today, we celebrate the signing of the document that set our nation on the path toward what it is today.
Enjoy the parade, fireworks and being with family and loved ones. I encourage you all to pause for a few minutes and read the document that got it all started.
Bill Crist is the publisher of The Snyder News. Comments may be emailed to publisher@thesnydernews.com.