I Declare

“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 to 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.” They don’t write ‘em like that anymore, which is kind of ironic since the Declaration of Independence is a sort of break up song. Anyway, you can feel the power of these words resonating with logical symmetry and you can envision the quaking of tyrants as they cower before the inexorable tide of freedom called forth by this mystic incantation. I still marvel at the prescience of the Old Dead White Guys and their ability to concisely capture and summarize the most fundamental yearnings of the human race in seven simple words.

But here is where we return to the cold realities of human social intercourse. Seven simple words. But nothing in real life is simple, and words are but the Platonic shadows of the true thought flickering upon the cave walls. It is often suggested that the authors of our nation’s founding documents always said what they meant, and meant what they said, but much is read into these documents that is far from clear by right of syntax and semantics. It was probably not the intent of the Founding Fathers that each citizen should be an expert in the oratory and written missives of each signatory, and it is certainly arguable the extent to which a collective effort can concisely represent the convictions of each of multiple individual participants. I can only conclude that words of the Declaration of Independence are intended to be sufficient unto themselves to convey the sentiments of its authors.

It is interesting, therefore, that the word “God” is used the sum total of once in the Declaration, in reference to “the laws of nature and of nature's God. “Nature’s God” is a somewhat ambiguous term, all the more noteworthy since it could have simply been clarified to “the God of Abraham” or “Our Savoir Jesus Christ”, but it wasn’t. Most 21st Century Americans will likely assume that it is in fact an allusion to God-Almighty, the Scourge of Sodom and spiritual father of Jesus, but there is nothing in the document’s words or context to support that. The reference could very well be to Pan, Circe or Yoda, but Mr. Jefferson didn’t elaborate. The term “divine appears once also, in the context of “Divine Providence” and the term “Creator” also appears one time only, as that power which has endowed Man with his “unalienable” rights. Whether this force of creation is divine or natural is not discussed and whether such “unalienable rights” devolve from the authority of the divine or arise from the natural structure of human society cannot be established from the text.

Most of those men generally recognized as “Founding Fathers” came from fairly mainstream Christian backgrounds in the context of the late 18th Century, although we have little information on things such as regularity of church attendance or the sum of donations to religious organizations. The writings of the individual Founding Fathers provide quite a variety of theological perspectives, but generally reflect a bias against religious bureaucracy and the involvement of the clergy in the political life of the nation, which is completely consistent with the Protestant thinking of the age. What is largely absent from the record is significant evangelism or strident condemnation of Moors, Buddhists or other nonbelievers. On balance, there is little indication that the men who founded America articulated any consensus either before or after that it was their intent to found a “Christian” nation, though they were clearly mostly believers in some degree of “divine” influence in the affairs of men. Neither the Articles of Confederation nor the United States Constitution contain the word “God”, a fairly serious omission for a “Christian” nation. References to “God” are common in 18th and 19th Century America political dialog and speeches, but are usually in a general context like “oh my God, the dog just shit on the carpet”, or “the God-damned dog just shit on the carpet.” Aggressive and persistent religious partisanship as a feature of the political process appears to be a fairly recent development, and is coincidental with the rise of social freedoms and associated public debate of issues like Gay Rights, abortion and pornography, as well as the expansion of the role of the electronic media in the daily life of the average citizen.

Anyway, somewhat completely changing the subject, here I sit in my post Election Day 2010 funk, contemplating the apparent repudiation of Liberalism midst angry cries of creeping socialism and various doomsday prophecies, and I wonder what the signatories to the Declaration of Independence would think about their fickle 21st Century progeny. Ben Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had just taken up arms against the most powerful empire in the world with little more than their convictions to shield them. They commanded no real army, could not be certain of the allegiance of their fellow colonists and could hope for little support from other monarchs who would likely see their insurrection as an invitation to global chaos. They had enumerated a list of grievances against the Crown that went well beyond “I can’t afford a new car this year” and “black people make me nervous” and they went out on quite a political limb to say that the rich and the powerful shouldn’t be able through the instrument of government to suck every possible dime out of the working man to fund their insatiable lust for acquisition and conquest, especially if they had no intention of reinvesting any of the spoils to the collective benefit. These guys weren’t saints, but they were brave and they were among the first to articulate a concept of social and political equity that extended beyond the bounds of class by “natural” right. The fact that they didn’t conceive of equity extending beyond white guys with walking-around cash doesn’t reduce the radicalism of their ideas; their slap in the face to King George was the first trickle in what would become a historical torrent that ultimately allowed women and blacks and gays and dwarves and geeks throughout the world to say “why not me? why not freedom?” The world of 1789 and the world of 2010 are so incomparably different that it is impossible to define what modern political party, if any, has its true analog in the ideals of our Founders, but we do know that they had a commitment to social justice in the context of their time that would have made Abbey Hoffman blush.

So I watched the TV pundits expound grotesquely upon the sometimes absurd and sometimes tragic circus that representative democracy can be and I cheered the many defeats of Tea Party patriots with their constitutionalism and doctrine of original intent and other comfortable fantasies of solid rock beneath the ever evolving truth of human civilization. I despaired as legions of grandmas on Social Security voted against redistribution of wealth and packs of grandpas on Medicare voted against socialized medicine. I sat in amazed silence as people living in cheap houses built largely by illegal laborers voted against humane immigration reform. I seethed as the rich who have taken advantage of every public investment ever made to live a life few can imagine voted to correct the unfairness of their tax burden and I was heartened by the few unexpected victories and the closeness of other losses which implied that not everyone in America had lost their mind. It did occur to me that perhaps, when swiftly tumbling towards the ground from a lofty height, left and right loose most of their significance and that fear and anger offer less resistance than reason, but mostly I just marveled at the Divine Providence that continues to preserve the unalienable right of we the people to govern ourselves in accordance with the faithfulness and abilities of our chosen representatives. Sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.