The Glair - US and the WorldHappy Birthday
The United States has been and still is and will remain for the foreseeable future the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. For a variety of reasons, not simply because of military and economic strength, though those are in and of themselves important reasons since the military and economic force of the United Sates is so often employed in rescuing the helpless, defending the defenseless, and in fights against enemies such as terrorists, who would murder women and children, and oppress and enslave men whenever such opportunities for malignant cruelty arise.
The United States of America, for all her flaws, both obvious and subtle, still remains the last, best, and in many cases only defense, and hope of all that most civilized peoples consider greatest among human virtues.
It is an unusual, though hardly unique, time in human history: terrorists are attacking our allies and friends in Great Britain and Iraq, disrupting nations in Africa and Asia, seeking bloodshed and mayhem in Afghanistan. Rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea seek advantage and to foist psychological, human, and material destruction throughout the world while they simultaneously cannot afford or will not attempt to feed, clothe, educate, shelter, or provide energy to their own citizens. In many corners of the world some power, force, nation, or individual is restless with the idea of their own supposed greatness and determined to plant disorder and chaos so that they may benefit from the wake of entropy they disperse outwards like ripples left by bloated and waterlogged reptiles in a stagnant swamp.
Many hope to profit, seeking to exhaust America, and her allies, both old and new, hoping to overwhelm us with a sense of hopelessness, hoping to isolate us abroad and to isolate us within our own minds and worldview, so that we collapse from without, or collapse from within. It matters not to them, as long as we collapse. Because then the world would be as free reign to such individuals, give free reign to such self-absorbed powers, and because they would feel free to take rein and lead where they will no matter what pointless path they trample or how many innocent men, women, and children they cut down in the pursuit of their own dark ambitions.
Against such malignant proclivities stands this nation, in this time, at this moment of history. Imperfect though she is, though her reach is ultimately limited (as is always the case with all such great and singular powers), though she cannot alone save the world, the United States of America still (and if true to her own best instincts always will) stand as both bulwark and beacon, as defensible frontier and as proclaimed invitation for, all those around the world, no matter who they be, or where they live upon this globe, who desire to thrive, prosper, live in peace, build, and create a newer, better world. Our ideals are not merely our own, they are for all men and women, all children, all nations, for all time, or they are for no one, not even ourselves. All men have every right to be free, all men should be personably responsible and live in service for others, all people should have the opportunity to live and to thrive as long as they do no harm to others, all living men and women should be free to pursue their own best virtues. All men should be free to worship as they please, to speak what is upon their minds, to exist without the threat of slavery, oppression, or condemnation from those who have another and less wholesome idea about the meaning, purpose, and pursuit of life. All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, not just Americans, though as Americans we can never lack the courage to fearlessly proclaim these truths to the world beyond our immediate borders. Individuals should be free to thrive and succeed, free to engage in commerce, free to live without threat of murder and execution and terrorism from men bent upon a course of decay, destruction, despair, and ultimately degeneration of the broadest and surest kind.
America has intrinsic in her inception and coeval with her conception ideals and virtues and concepts and philosophies of human nature, conduct, and society which are a credit to mankind in general and which are pleasing and blessed by Divinity in particular. As such she is not just the Leader of the Free World, she is the protector and defender and the hope of the World that Would be Free, and as such, as true Citizens of the First Hope and as real Men of the Great Hope, let us not forget our duties or dismiss our obligations either to ourselves, our posterity, or to that lonely and yet to be liberated segment of the world yearning to be free, to live free, and to live well.
We are the Makers of Manners, we are the Liberators of Life, we are the Fortress of the Future, and we are the absolute and unbending Premise of the Present in this world and in this time.
We are free men, free born, and yet, when the time comes, when we are able, we shall also strive to lift up those like ourselves, around the world, who also cry out to be Independent and at Liberty from oppression. So join us in this Eternal Cause, and we shall be your brothers. Fight with us, for your own sakes and for the sake of everyone else who would be free, who would do their own best duty in their own best way, and we shall be your friends, and we shall not fail you.
Happy Birthday America.
God Bless You, and never forget that you war forever in the good cause.
And although at times exhausting, that is a far better and more noble and more selfless cause than any other.
© JWG, Jr. 2007
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
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 harass 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 benefit 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 British 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.
New Hampshire:Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:John Hancock, 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 York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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