It’s the Fourth of July. Happy Independence Day! I embrace
the opportunity to share necessary insights on our country’s sovereign legacy,
and the sobering challenges facing it.
Our American culture is getting overrun, sadly, by radicals
determined to displace or redefine Independence. Instead of recognizing liberty
as protection from arbitrary force, the term has become a benefit, an
entitlement from the state, something which must be taken from others then
granted to us—by force. In other words, a disturbing contradiction is wiping
away our political culture, the values we uphold, and which uphold us.
Liberty is not something we need to gain, as much as realize
that we possess. The only thing that we can give one another in regards to
liberty is a greater awareness of it. The most deafening (yet thankfully
defeated) criticism of this true, negative (i.e. removal of something) conception
of liberty occurred during my college days. I went to UC Irvine (the same
school where students recently deemed the American Flag an offensive
appropriation of nationalism or something like that).
I was a French major, and had my fill of French theory, too.
Mostly snobby, convoluted, suffused with chronic rejections of power, confused
with truth. Interesting discussions ensued, all in a nice accent, though. From
Foucault, Barthes, and Derrida (a distinguished professor at my Alma Mater UC
Irvine, where I am writing this essay now), the French “critical theory”
mindset would laid out to me and others a moral relativism based on challenging
every context and value within text, a speech, or any other form of
communication. This literary theory was called “deconstruction.”
Sadly, its overly Marxist (and ultimately abusive) overtones
indicated a subversive rejection for what is true, and what is not true. Like I
said, it was moral relativism. If no morals, then no mores, and then there
would be no more civil society. No civilization, and no liberty, even the
liberty to challenge the notions of truth and error, right and wrong, good and
evil.
So, permit me to deconstruct the deconstruction (read,
anti-American) mindset, which is set on turning minds away from the wonderful
revelation found—and founded—in the Declaration of Independence, the signing of
which we celebrate on July Fourth. One of deconstructionist Derrida’s first
articles “Declarations of Independence” took on the stunning power and yet
controversial uncertainty of the phrase “and by Authority of the good People of
these Colonies”.
Who were these “people”, and really, can there be a final
meaning to define this singled-out group?
Derrida assesses the
status of “the people” as the sovereign guarantor of the constitution. Derrida
asserts that the people is not only radically indeterminate and internally
differentiated but also temporally deferred and so can never be presented as
such.
A few problems. The Declaration of Independence is not our
Constitution. Too many liberals make this elementary, uneducated mistake.
Second, “the people” are not deferred as much as redefined,
and only because We the People, whether you and me today, or generations to
follow, must lay claim to the extravagant yet real promises outlined in the
Declaration of Independence.
The understanding of natural rights—freedoms of speech, the
press, and religious; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—these values
were handed down in doctrine long before, but would take generations of
erudition and conflict to crystallize. The Declaration of Independence did not
create our rights. It merely spelled them out (with John Hancock’s elaborate
signature at the bottom) to a roguish empire grown too large for its preeminence.
Jonah Goldberg rightly indicated that the political figures who signed the
Declaration merely responded to the cultural understanding of Englishmen, who
had understood their rights and authorities from Magna Carta to the English
Bill of Rights of 1689 to the Declaration of 1776.
What differed, though, in the American Revolution from the
previous assertions of natural right against the artificial state? Patrick Henry, who himself had declared “Give
me Liberty, or Give me Death”, articulated a deeper resonating source for the
bold pronouncements of the American colonists:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that
this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on
religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of
other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship
here."
What is the Gospel? Paul the Apostle declared to wise yet
unaware men that “through this man [Jesus], you are justified from all things
that you could not be through the law of Moses” (Acts 13: 38-39)
Powerful! Our rights do not depend on man. They exist
outside of some created context. They are divinely inspired and available to
all, regardless off unjust, unfounded hierarchies.
Because our rights are God-given, not man-granted, we have
power and authority. Yes, we need to reaffirm this. Throughout our current
political discourse, entitled adult children are dictating to their elders that
our rights come from the government. Don’t agree?
Review this terse interview
between ABC’s Chris Cuomo with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Their attacks
are growing varied and dangerous, too, from foppish, unwise professors, to
#BlackLives(Don’t)Matter activists and anti-social in-justice warriors.
We need to revisit and reinvigorate our understanding about
why we celebrate Independence Day in this great country, a Redeclaration of Independence.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker summed up it effectively at CPAC 2013: “True freedom
and prosperity comes not from the fist of the government but from empowering
the people.”
We the people have so much to celebrate today: an open
society where even the most oppressive of Presidents is facing a backlash from
the sovereign states and people; the proliferation of ideas and options, even
in the midst of economic turmoil; the opportunities to relearn and relive our
liberty. So, while you enjoy the fireworks, the barbecue, the fun with friends
and family, recall the deeper meaning, and the surfacing conflicts which face
our cherished independence as American citizens.
