Independence Day

Saturday, July 4, 2009 by Dick.

Here’s a revolutionary idea.

Independence Day commemorates our declaration of independence from the King of England. The revolution officially began two days earlier when the Second Continental Congress approved the legal separation of the American colonies from Great Britain, a resolution proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia in June. After voting for independence on June 2, Congress debated and revised the Declaration itself for two days and approved it on July 4.

In the centuries since, only the current Congress has moved with anywhere near the speed, since the current Congress has passed trillions of dollars of spending on millions of pages of bills in less than 100 days.

The Declaration of Independence fits on one page.

In Peoria just one hundred fifty-five years ago Rep. Abraham Lincoln said,

Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a “sacred right of self-government.” … Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. … Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it.

Lincoln spoke of the enslavement of persons. Today our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust by a government that would enslave We the People, taking more and more of our rights and our land and our life’s blood to its own purpose.

Two hundred thirty-one years ago today, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum and an artillery salute for the soldiers who fought off the foreign monarchy that did enslave us. Now it is time to mark July 4 with a double ration of electoral salute to those who would be the modern monarchy of government.

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