Regarding the Semiquincentennial of The Declaration of Independence

In case anyone is curious as to why I felt no inclination, let alone motivation, to write anything here in honor of this year’s most auspicious July 4th holiday, allow me to explain the reason. July 4th is Independence Day, a holiday established to celebrate the founding of The United States of America, and this year’s Independence Day was supposed to be special because it was ostensibly that country’s 250th birthday. But it was not that. Or at least it was a birthday only in the sense that one might, for sentimental reasons, continue commemorating a loved one’s birthday after he has died. For The United States of America is no more.

Yes, of course there is still a geopolitical entity calling itself The United States of America. But if, as Americans themselves used to believe, their nation above all others was to be identified chiefly with its founding principles, rather than with a mere physical location or the random occupants thereof, then that country no longer exists. It did not survive to see its 250th birthday. Its great founding document, The Declaration of Independence, has certainly survived, as a glorious piece of paper still capable of reminding anyone who bothers to examine it what the country founded on its premises was intended to be. But the distance between those premises and the geopolitical entity that today dares to pretend it has a right to celebrate the Declaration as its own is now so vast — that ancient oasis of modern political philosophy now so unrecognizably tiny and befogged from the current vantage point — that any remaining doubts about the possibility of something reasonably consistent with that document ever rising from the ashes of its national self-immolation have been swept away entirely by the winds of nihilism, mindless materialism, and pure irrationalist folly.

I actually took the time to carefully re-read the Declaration on July 4th — unlike, I dare say, 99.9 percent of Americans, who have probably never really read it through and perhaps would vaguely recognize only the first few sentences. That is a shame, and much more than a shame. For if more of them retained the capacity to comprehend such noble and stark writing, they would see, among other interesting things, how much of that document’s litany of reasons for risking everything on a war of independence against the British crown would be equally applicable as charges against the current government of the faded country that occupies the land that was so bitterly fought for by men of such substance as is no longer visible there today, in this new “America” that has redefined itself as a marketplace of pleasures rather than of ideas, a comfort-anaesthetized madhouse of grifters, idolators, and envy-driven bullies who daily defecate on the land, the courage, and the bequest of the men who signed their names at the bottom of that precious document two hundred and fifty years ago — John Hancock’s name famously standing large and proud atop the list — as they pledged their blood and honor to each other, and their allegiance to their countrymen and to the cause of practical freedom on this Earth.

Alas, if only they were here today, those noble heroes of the founding of a nation that is no more, to bear witness once again for The People against their real or would-be oppressors. If only, for that matter, there were any such People today on behalf of whom one could, or would care to, bear witness against oppressors.

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 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 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 transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences….

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.

If only, if only, if only. But we no longer live in such a world, and there are no longer such men. Certainly not in the country that still dares to mock and dishonor the name of the The United States of America, having reduced patriotism to a campaign T-shirt, bravery to the sub-Roman spectacle of grotesquely infantile bloodsport for cash, wisdom to cynical cleverness at gaining one’s personal material advantage, and freedom to the various comforts of perpetual childhood.