• Home Page
  • About this website
  • Biography
  • Dr. B's Notes
  • Contact
Richard S. Beam

​95       Independence Day

7/1/2017

0 Comments

 
As I write this the Independence Day weekend (which will last through Tuesday this year) is underway and we are about to engage in our usual frenzy of food, parades, family gatherings and FIREWORKS!  When I was growing up in Evanston, Illinois, fireworks were limited to children running around with sparklers trying to avoid getting burned by the magnesium (usually) based “sparks” which can heat the metallic stick which supports them to somewhere between 1800 to 3000°F.  The skyrockets, Roman candles, bombshells, etc. were restricted to licensed professionals and neither available for the general public to buy or use.  Of course, that was not true everywhere and it certainly isn’t true here in Omaha where most of the many places to buy such items (there are many) are, in fact, sponsored by various charities.  I confess that that has amused me a bit since I learned it was true as the injuries resulting from the misuse of such items may well require charitable services, but that’s not really the point.  No, the point is that we, as citizens of the United States, are celebrating the birth of our nation.
 
In point of fact, of course, the nation was simply being declared to be in existence, it didn’t actually have any real shape, form, or structure yet.  The Declaration was truly just a statement that we weren’t just a bunch of rebellious colonialists, but that we were (at least according to us) a new nation.  And, in the second paragraph of that statement, we stated that; “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…”.  These are lofty ideals, worthy, in my opinion, of being celebrated, as well as defended. 
 
When the War of Independence was over (sort of, at least) we tried to set up an actual, functioning government to allow us to accomplish these goals.  It took us a couple of tries, but, eventually, we created what I think is a rather marvelous document (the Constitution) which has gone a long way towards making it possible to achieve this difficult task.  It hasn’t proven to be perfect, but it’s been better than most people probably expected and, since it contained a process for fixing things which didn’t work completely satisfactorily, it’s worked pretty well. 
 
One of my favorite parts of it, however, is the Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  I’m especially fond of it because it seems to set out more explicitly than the Declaration of Independence does what we should expect from our government.  It’s supposed to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”.
 
The hard part, of course, has always been to live up to this high standard.  After all, when we created these documents, we didn’t start out too well by current standards.  Citizens (originally) were only property owning, white, males.  Females couldn’t (of course) be citizens, nor could Negroes (they were just property, at least in many places and usually didn’t even count as full humans) and those “savages” whom we had mostly chased off of the land we former Europeans wanted, didn’t really count as people.  Oh, yes, we established “treaties” with their “nations” when it suited us, but we have a poor record of honoring those treaties and we did set out rather methodically to destroy their culture, religion and society.
 
Some of this has changed over the years, although it took a Civil War to establish recognition of Negroes as people and 150 years later we still haven’t fully come to grips with the problems of racial bias, etc.  If anything, racial and ethnic prejudice, etc. has been worse for a good part of the time.  Any student of American history is, or should be, aware of the many forms of anti-immigrant laws and practices which were a feature of the American scene for much of it’s history.  No, we have a long history of prejudice and prejudicial actions against women, Negroes, Irish, Italian, German, Spanish, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Christians of many denominations, other religious minorities, LBGTQs, those who are old, infirm, fat, ugly, uneducated, homeless, addicted,  and (probably) others I can’t think of.  This is all there in our history, although we don’t tend to talk about it (let alone teach about it) because we know that it’s nothing to be proud of.
 
On the other hand, it’s not unfair to say that, overall, things have improved for most people in the less than 250 years since we declared ourselves a country (a VERY short time in the history of civilization), but we do need to be a little cautious about pretending that we are anything close to perfect, let alone permanent.  Still, we (somehow) do seem to, make progress towards living up to our ideals in some sort of fashion.  We aren’t there yet, but I think we are trying, in spite of the shenanigans of politicians who are more interested in being elected (or reelected) than in accomplishing anything to “promote the general Welfare.”
 
So I’m going to fly my flag on the Fourth (unless it rains, as I do not have an “all-weather” flag) and I expect to go out to watch some fireworks and get together with some of my family to celebrate the occasion.  I AM proud of my country, but I think a good citizen’s job is to work to make it better, even if that means disagreeing with other citizens at times about what the country stands for and how we should proceed in the process of forming a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defence, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty.  I have read the Constitution.  I’ve studied our history.  I recognize that we haven’t always been perfect, but I’m also trying to make us better.  How about you?
 
Food, parades, and fireworks aren’t the answer.  Solving problems takes work!  So have a good time this weekend, then let’s get down to the job of being what we say we wish to be.
 
LLAP
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Just personal comments about things which interest me (and might interest others).

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly