EXTRA - Some Thoughts on Independence Day 2017

The American colonies did not declare independence from Britain and fight the Revolutionary War with Britain to achieve that independence for the United States of America, only to surrender that independence less than 250 years later and voluntarily submit to being ruled by the globalist bureaucrats at the United Nations.

The citizens of the United States did not work toward and invest in the development of the US economy to hand the fruits of their labors to the UN, to be distributed to the rulers of other nations which have not achieved the same level of development, or which have not even permitted pursuit of such development.

The US capitalist economy was not developed to compensate for the poor economic performance, or outright failure, of socialist and communist economies, or the economies of dictatorial kleptocracies. US capital should not be used to cover up those economic failures, or to support those kleptocracies.

The Framers of the US Constitution did not create the First Amendment protections for freedom of speech to protect only certain, preferred speech or the speech of certain preferred groups. The First Amendment protections for freedom of religion were not created to protect only certain religions, or only the free exercise of religious practices in private settings.

The Framers did not create the First Amendment protections for freedom of the press to protect only certain forms of “press”, or some preferred subset of the “press”, or even a government press. Press freedom was protected to assure that the populace was informed, not narrowly to support some ideology, but broadly to support knowledge and understanding.

Independence Day is a time to celebrate our independence; and, it is a time to contemplate contemporary challenges to that independence and the freedom and liberty which it protects and defends. These contemporary challenges include: the UN pursuit of some form of global governance, intended to circumscribe our freedom and liberty, under the guise of controlling climate; the UN pursuit of wealth and income redistribution, ostensibly in pursuit of climate stabilization and climate justice; the US federal government efforts to reshape social norms, providing preferred status and special rights to subsets of the total US population; the US federal government efforts to inhibit free religious expression, when that religious expression conflicts with reshaped social norms; the US government funding of research, not to advance science, but to influence public perceptions of the state of science; and, the US federal government efforts to inhibit skeptical discussion of the state of the science.

In these efforts, guidance is made to appear to be offered with a velvet glove, when in reality that velvet glove barely disguises the iron fist it covers. The guidance is offered with politically correct words and phrases of dubious meaning, including: social justice; environmental justice; climate justice; and, racial and ethnic justice. The meaning of those terms is intended to evolve, over time, as required to achieve the objectives of those exercising governance.

Independence Day is also a time to realize that these contemporary challenges are not unique, but rather newer forms of historical challenges, presented and viewed in a contemporary context.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”, George Santayana