Independence Day thoughts

The celebration of Independence Day brings to mind parades, houses decorated with flags of all sizes, fireworks and barbeques. It is a day to remember the Founding Fathers of our great country and of all the men that followed in the beliefs that they risked life and limb to define and secure. These were all men that believed in the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and then later solidified in the Constitution of the United States. It’s easy to call them patriots.

The beauty of the country we live in is that the men and women that question the government when they believe it isn’t following the foundation set by the Founding Fathers is that we can also call them patriots. They are doing their duty as citizens to create an open society where debate is welcomed and even required. This Fourth of July I am reminded of one great patriot that did just this. Frederick Douglass is that man, and despite the issue he was speaking about being much different than the one we face today the words he spoke on that Independence Day so long ago still ring true.
“Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.” ~Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852
On this Independence Day I am ashamed of the barbarity the Bush Administration has propelled our country into with its paranoid ideology that is full of lies and deceit. We are the hypocrites of the world when we say we are trying to spread democracy into countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout Central America. Yet in our very own country our phones, internet and bank records are secretly being watched by the government, when anyone who dares challenge the “thinking” of the current administration are called unpatriotic or worse “traitor”, and when women and mothers who have lost loved ones in this war of lies are ridiculed for publicly mourning and speaking out against what changed their lives forever. Yes, we are hypocrites and barbarians in our comfort and apathy for not holding our government true to the foundation that the very basis if this country was founded upon.
I love the principles that my country was founded upon. I admire the men and women who have risked and sometimes given everything to defend it- even the hard to swallow patriots that dissent. Thank you, Mr. Douglass, all these years later.