Food for Thought

When I look at the map showing the more than 1,000 wildfires burning in California right now, it seems the whole state is going up in a firestorm. I have spoken to firemen who have told me that, in fact, given the ultra-dry conditions, the stretched-out fire departments, and meteorological circumstances, a huge catastrophic firestorm is possible in large wooded and suburban city areas. It would be devastating to both humans and wildlife (the Big Sur fires already threaten endangered condors). So why are fireworks sales and traditional Fourth of July fireworks celebrations going ahead here in Santa Clara County and around the state as if none of this is happening?

Is it because the largely meaningless symbolism of “rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air” pyrotechnic display represents the sum total of our common understanding of the Declaration of Independence? I am afraid that may be the case, although the day the Declaration was signed was a quiet one with no explosions or killing. That would come much later and be horrific enough for those who fought those battles. Couldn’t we do without the visuals for one year and take the opportunity to celebrate the courageous act of the Founding Fathers in a much more appropriate way? What would that be?

I would suggest reading the Declaration_of_Independence itself—not a cursory glance or quick scan, but a real, word-for-word, out-loud recitation, whether to yourself or in company. The act to “dissolve the political bands [connecting one people with another]” began with the great inspirational poetry of Jefferson’s words, without which the creation of our unique country may never have happened. If we could all just get those words under our skin and savor their meaning, we could create a truly common understanding of what it means to be American. Then, perhaps, we could appropriate some of our forefathers’ courage and do what’s necessary to rescue our foundering democracy sent awry by those who have usurped the powers granted the people and who have defied, and continue to defy, our nation’s founding principles.

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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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.

There is no pyrotechnic display in the world that can come close to those fireworks.

If our citizens have an unswerving belief in the principles expressed by these words and those of the Constitution that came 12 years later, then we have all the tools we need to do whatever is necessary to “institute new government . . . [as] shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.”