by Clay Barham

In America, the Fourth of July is the day we celebrate the announcement, to the world, that a new kind of governing ideal had come to stay.  It celebrates a letter, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, sent to King George III and the rest of the world telling them a new way of life has proven itself in America, and Americans want to retain that way.

That letter, rippling across the world, caused furious opposition toward America, disturbed all the rulers and elite who managed the lives of their subjects.  It told the world that, no longer would the rule of the few over the many be the only way a nation existed.  It said a new kind of government, from the people up, growing in America, that individual freedom was superior to the interests of the tribe as defined by its ruler.

It said Americans held these truths sacred, that though we grow and thrive in our inequalities, we are born equal before our Creator and the law.  Each individual had the right, given by God, to live free, pursue his or her own interests, aspirations, talents and skills as long as they hurt no one.  Furthermore, men are not subject to the rule of a few and no man was superior to another. 

The world had never known this kind of condition.  It was shocked by it.  How could it be possible that ordinary men and women could be as great as the ruler, the aristocracy and the elite? What gall!  What kind of preposterous notion was this?  Everyone knew there were the few better people who were meant to rule the majority of uneducated, uninspired riff-raff.  How can anyone even conceive of the ordinary riff-raff deciding for themselves what is in their best interests?  However, the letter went out and a war was fought in an effort to cancel its provisions, which failed.

Did America's new idea of how to live prove itself?  America, with only five percent of the world's population controls over twenty-five percent of the world's wealth and has been the one nation, among all, setting the standards for the rest of the world.

Today, Americans are on the verge of cancelling that letter. Too many today prefer to be managed riff-raff and no longer responsible for themselves.  The task of living free is too difficult. We have arrived at a time when Americans are rejecting the contents of that letter, the Declaration of Independence, and want to return to the Old World ways, where the few elite rule the many.  In the coming election, we are looking for the return of the elite few who will shape and manage our lives as they see fit.

Write a Blog Response to this post, or Make a Contribution to support the Populist Party.