Nothing deep or thoughtful…
Tag Archives: Independence Day
Plugging away…
It’s Monday. More specifically it’s Monday before the long Independence Day weekend. By itself, that would be all the reason by brain needed to be vaguely uninterested and disengaged for the next four days. I’m sure that’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to say out loud. I should be filling this space with key words like “commitment,” “dedication,” and “focus,” in case any of the bosses stop by to have a look around.
In my defense, though, it’s not just a response to a three-day weekend. Those are common enough – and while I surely appreciate them, they’re not usually enough to drive me completely to distraction. Tacking on an extra four vacation days to round out the second (and last) nine-day weekend of the summer, though, is a different animal altogether.
The first half of the year – the good half with plague restrictions and social distance and encouragement to stay home – seems to have slipped by effortlessly. I don’t in any way imagine the back half of the year – the part where we’re supposed to get back to an approximation of “normal” from the before times – will be nearly as pleasant. That means whatever days off I scrape together from here on out are going to be carrying an increasingly heavier weight of expectations.
So yeah, I’m just over here plugging away and trying to get through the week with as little fuss and headache as possible… and maybe looking out over the next six months and figuring out where I want to jam in the remaining 123 hours of vacation time to get the most bang for my buck.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
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 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 depriving us in many cases, of the benefits 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 Brittish 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.
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
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
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
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 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 depriving us in many cases, of the benefits 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 Brittish 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.
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
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
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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 Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
I’ll just leave this right here…
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
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…
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Real independence…
Independence Day week is, in my opinion, second only to the week between Christmas and New Years in terms of how little actual productive work takes place inside Uncle’s vast machine. It’s true that not everyone takes the week (or four days) off, but for the most part the number of people on vacation approaches the point of critical mass where it becomes nearly impossible to get anything accomplished if it requires more than two people to be part of the decision-making or work flow. I’m sure there are plenty of old hands who might deny what I’m telling you, but experience tells me that this week is a dead zone for productivity. No matter how many memos you cram into the pipeline, if there’s no one there to read them on the other end, it’s just so many trees falling in the forest.
I’ve always felt like this week was the civilian equivalent to an operational pause – a breather before the long march through summer towards Labor Day and the close of the fiscal year. There are still plenty of people giving the illusion of getting something accomplished, but I suspect that if they were all honest at least half the emails they send are greeted with an out-of-office message. By early in the day Thursday, you’re going to find even the most dedicated of employees giving up the illusion and watching the clock with the rest of us poor dumb working stiffs.
That’s just part of the magic joy that is the trinity of three-day weekends in the summer. They feel different. They’re special. Maybe they hark back to being fourteen and having the whole summer stretched out in front of us like a never-ending weekend. Or maybe we just appreciate the reminder of the life we can look forward to in 20 year, 11 months, and 1 day… if we were so inclined to count the amount of time until we’re eligible for retirement.
Talk about celebrating a real independence day.
What Annoys Jeff this Week?
1. Rednecks with explosives. There’s something about Independence Day that makes the rednecks in Ceciltucky especially susceptible to doing stupid shit. Maybe it’s just the long day of drinking cheap domestic beer combined with too many hours in the sun, but I have no idea what makes them think setting off mortar-style fireworks in a relatively dense subdivision makes any sense at all. Trust me, your half-acre yard isn’t nearly as big as you think it is. Then again they’re still better than the asshats up the hill who will undoubtedly commemorate the nation’s independence with “celebratory gunfire.”
2. Egypt. Surprise! The revolution that knocked off the long-time president-for-life of Egypt is in the process of imploding. One only needs to look to the history or revolutionary uprisings to find that they have a nasty tendency to devour their own young. Our own revolution of 1776 is perhaps an outlier because we broke ties with the colonial past, but opted to replace the royal government of George III with a republican government that operated with similar institutions and powers rather than attempting something more like a wholesale change of society. I’d go so far as to speculate that for the average citizen, living under as a citizen under President Washington instead of a subject under King George didn’t change their day to day lives all that much at the micro level. How’s that for sacrilege on Independence Day? Now our associates who are trying to completely remake Egypt? Yeah. That’s a whole different ball of wax. I’m only surprised that it took a year to really get sideways.
3. Buttons. I learned something new yesterday. Apparently the buttons, zippers, and other fasteners on men’s and women’s clothing are on opposite sides. I had spent the last 35 years blissfully unaware of this fact… and now that I know about it, it bothers me. It’s not the button location that bothers me so much as the idea that something so simple in daily life has eluded my notice for so long. It’s left me pondering what other little details on everyday life I’ve managed to avoid noticing.
A message on your birthday…
Today is the 236th anniversary of American independence. It would be exceedingly easy to wrap this post up in the flag and let it be. I’ve done that often enough in the past. Like most other birthdays, we don’t spend much time on the 4th looking at the things we collectively got wrong. That’s ok. We don’t go to Great Uncle Leo’s 100th birthday party and remind him about all the times he screwed up. It’s just tacky. But still, there are going to be plenty of blog posts, news articles, and talking heads eager to point out every flaw. There are plenty of other days in the year to do that. I like to think of today as the perfect opportunity to look see beyond the mindless cheerleaders and the cranky detractors and look at our country for what it really is: a work in progress.
Our founders knew times would change and they gave their fledgling republic the flexibility to change with them. We’ve made some really, really bad decisions as a country… and then we’ve changed direction to right those wrongs. We’ll make more bad decisions in the future and in time we’ll correct those too. Part of the joy of America is that we don’t usually stay on the wrong side of history for very long. In 1776, the United States was one of the few examples of a working republic in a world ruled by hereditary monarchs. Almost two and a half centuries later, only a handfull of monarchs are left and most of them exist as heads of state and not heads of government. As a new founded country we went to war against piracy on the high seas rather than paying tribute, we fought brother against brother to decide what kind of country we would be, passed up the opportunity to gather an empire of our own, stood up against laundry list of tyrants bent on world domination, and then more or less built the modern world. At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader, America is kind of a big deal.
For good or bad, right or wrong, she’s my country and I’m incredibly thankful for having been born a citizen of this great republic.
Inner teenager…
It’s Friday. Before a three day weekend. I’m more than a little surprised that there are more than three people even in the office pretending to work today. Even with a mostly full staff pecking away at their keyboards, it’s painfully obvious that the biggest game in town today is watching the clock roll on towards 4:00… or 3:01 if the powers that be keep up with long-standing pre-holiday tradition. Either way, it’s safe to say we can mostly write today off as professionally useless.
On a related note, I’m usually accused of being a 60 year old man at heart, but long weekends have a tendency to bring out my inner teenager. The anticipation of being turned loose. The rush of heading out the door. Rolling down the windows. Turning the radio up. Forgetting about work for a few days. For me, at some basic level, that’s what freedom feels like. Maybe that’s not such a bad way to kick off the Independence Day weekend.
Musings on the 4th…
It’s hard to come up with a new 4th of July blog that doesn’t repeat the same things I have said year after year. I’m not going to go on about the laurels due the giants of the American founding and I’m not going to rail against the useless hippy bastards that want desperately to think the world is a place of sunshine and puppy dogs rather than the dangerous place it is. All I can really say is that today is the Independence Day, the High Holiday for those of us who pray at the altar of republicanism (that’s a small ‘r’ in case you missed it).
Even I’m not arrogant enough to proclaim that the United States infallible in our actions, but I will argue vehemently that we have done the best we could with the world we inherited from the failing empires of Western Europe. In good times and in bad times, I remain unashamed to say before you and before the world that I love my country. For me it has been a land of opportunity that has given far more than I had any right to hope for while demanding so little in return. I know I’m biased, but I don’t shrink from saying that taking all things as a whole, my country is the greatest on earth, not necessarily because of the global reach of our military or our role in global trade, but because of the nearly unlimited opportunities available to this son of a cop and a teacher. I couldn’t possibly ask for more than the chances I’ve been given… and for those yet to come.
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