Why I’m Celebrating Dependence Day Today

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 / rtrube54 / 7 Comments

a religious man praying solemnly — Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com

I’m not celebrating Independence Day. It’s not for lack of love for the United States. It is because I love this country. My father, who fought in World War II, taught me to love this country. He was proud of his service. But were he alive today, I think he might be asking, “is this what I fought for?” As much as I miss him, I’m glad he is not living through these days.

Two old men, unfit in my judgement to serve, running for the highest office of our land (is this the best we can do?). A high court that lacks an ethical compass and will not act to remedy its flaws. A congress engaged in endless partisan squabbling that rarely comes together to tackle the substantive issues facing our country.

Sadly, these institutions are just a reflection of us. We are a violent country, leading the high income countries of the world in firearm deaths. Students from other countries fear coming here because of gun violence. Increasingly people question the idea of the rule of law. Do we realize that the only alternatives are the rule of power or chaos? We allow our political leaders to persuade us it is right to demean whole groups of people, blaming the problems of the country on “them.”

I could go on and indulge my “cranky old man.” But it’s a holiday.

Not Independence Day for me. The idea of independence has become one of untrammeled personal freedom reflecting neither an appropriate fear of God, concern for the common good, nor care for the good land we’ve been given.

For me, it is Dependence Day. But not on our politicians. Not on our technology. Not on some dream of American greatness. It can be argued that all of these have demonstrably failed us. So why do we keep putting so much trust in them? Isn’t that a definition of insanity?

If you know me, you know that I am a follower of Jesus. Jesus gets my implicit trust and allegiance. It means that in life and death, I depend utterly on Jesus to sustain me and I take my marching orders for life from him. But what troubles me is that much of the Christian “tribe” of which I’m part seems to pay only lip service to this and seems more enamored with politics than Jesus. I agree with this assessment in an NPR interview by Christianity Today editor Russell Moore that we are in trouble:

“Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.“

This is the day I want to renew my dependence on Jesus. Not to make America anything, as much as I long for an awakening to God in our country. I want to renew my dependence on what he taught, even if it seems weak. My father had a watchword that seems important to remember today:

Read and pray;

Trust and obey;

Live God’s way.

My father lived in the faith that come what may, God sustained those who depended on him. I want to join my father in making this day, and every day, Dependence Day.

Books For Independence Day

July 4, 2018July 4, 2018 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Benjamin Franklin from a painting by David Martin (1835)

“A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Benjamin Franklin

Today is Independence Day in the United States, the birthday of our country. What was born on that day was not only a nation but an idea eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence in these opening words:

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 of 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.

In these words are an assertion of the equality and human rights inherent in being a human being created by God. Government does not confer these but rather exist to secure these pre-existing rights, and properly derives its power to govern from these rights-bearers. Finally, there is the opening of an argument for the revolt the Founders led.

Along with a military revolution was an intellectual revolution led by some of the most brilliant political thinkers of the day. Franklin was wise enough to recognize that a thoughtful and well-informed citizenry was crucial in every generation if what was gained and established in our nation’s birth not be lost to anarchy or tyranny.

Might it not be appropriate amid our celebrations to resolve to enhance our understanding of the history, ideas, and challenges that have shaped the American experiment? One could conceive many lists to do this. One work not appearing in the list below that may be essential as any would be The Debates on the Constitution. This is not a single work but a series of letters and articles capturing the arguments about the shape our constitution would take.

Here are ten others, most of which have been reviewed at Bob on Books:

The Glorious Cause, Robert Middlekauf. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Perhaps the definitive account of the Revolutionary War, part of the Oxford History of the United States.
John Adams, David McCullough. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. There are many full-length biographies of the founders. Adams is lesser known than some, but worthy of attention for his intellect, his courage, his efforts on both sides of the Atlantic for American freedom, and the incredible correspondence between him and his equally brilliant Abigail.
The Return of George Washington, Edward J. Larson. New York: Morrow, 2014. This narrative not only offers one more reason why Washington was the indispensable man, but also shows the difficulties of governance under the Articles of Confederation that led to the U.S. Constitution, and recounts the debates that gave us that Constitution. Review
Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates the Defined America, Allen C. Guelzo. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009. These debates in 1858 when these two were running for Senate (Lincoln lost) define the discussion around slavery. Guelzo helps us understand the extraordinary phenomenon of these hours long open air debates, the substance of each debate, and their significance in the lead up to the Civil War.
America’s Original Sin, Jim Wallis. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016. The thesis of this book is: “The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.” The author raises the question of whether we will face that history, understand the deeply engrained character of racism in our society, and begin a walk toward freedom from racism’s burden. Review
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson. New York: Vintage, 2011. The story of the black migration to the north and west following the failure of Reconstruction, and how it changed the lives of families who made that migration and the cities to which they moved. Review
The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For, David McCullough. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. A wonderful collection of addresses by the author, mostly at college commencements, articulating some of the defining and distinctive qualities that define America at its best. Review
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2018. Just recently published, it narrates the battle between the politics of fear and the politics of hope for our national soul. Meacham gives examples of leaders of both parties who led with hope, even when challenged by a politics of fear. Review
The Global Public Square, Os Guiness. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. Guinness argues for the critical importance of the human right of the freedom of conscience that undergirds our freedom of speech. Most societies through most of history have ruled by power and violence. The first amendment protections of our country are exceptional and worth not only protecting but extending to other countries, reflecting the equality of all human beings. Review
Confident Pluralism, John D. Inazu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Recognizing the deep fissures in American society and the necessity of maintaining some kind of civil union in the face of the scary alternatives, this book explores the constitutional commitments and civic practices that make that possible. Review

There are hundreds of others, of course, that might be included. I suggest these because they help us understand ourselves at our best and less than our best. They help us understand the ideals that have shaped us, and the compromises we have made with those ideals. They explore what hope there may be for an America that is plural in character–a people of many nations and beliefs–yet dedicated to the idea of e pluribus unum–out of the many, one.

So, amid the fireworks and picnics and family gatherings, I hope you will find a moment to reflect on the ideas as a nation that make us what we are, and perhaps to grow in your understanding of our rights, leaving no room for the ignorance that is the seedbed of tyranny. Perhaps a book from this list might help!

We, The People…

July 4, 2016July 3, 2016 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Constitution_We_the_People

On this Independence Day weekend, I’ve been thinking about this election season we are in the midst of, and the promises that are all variations on the theme of making America great (again), and all the things one or the other candidate will do for us. Truth is, it seems these are the kinds of things I’ve been hearing candidates say all my adult life. Sometimes, they’ve even managed to keep their promises, whether it is civil rights, reduced taxes, or expanded health care laws. Clearly, candidates for President, and other high office have to paint for us some kind of vision of how they will lead.

What troubles me is how much we seem to lodge our existential hopes in these figures, and come to believe that they hold the key to making our lives better. And in doing this, I think we betray the fundamental idea around which we as a nation were constituted.

Our founding document, the Constitution, begins with the words, “We, the people”. The fundamental idea is that the citizens who make up this nation are the ones in power and that we assign some of that power to elected officials and appointed judges at the national level to, among other things, enforce the laws, provide for interstate commerce and a financial system, and protect the country from external threats–and to enact taxes to pay for it all.

I’m not a Constitutional lawyer and so I do not want to get into a discussion of how this document is to be interpreted and how much or little power the federal government should have. What I want to reflect on is how much power “we, the people” have, and with that the responsibility to be actively engaged in the pursuit of the flourishing of our country–that this is not something to relinquish to our national political leaders. It would seem that the best government creates the conditions that allows all “the people” to flourish in the exercise of their own powers.

We do not need national government to:

Raise our children and prepare them for responsible adulthood. In particular, young men are disproportionately responsible for sexual and criminal violence. Government can arrest and incarcerate them. We can be fathers and mentors.
To care for whatever place we call home, whether we own or rent. Do we simply use up the places where we live, and move on, or do we make them better?
Be watchful of our neighborhoods and public places. We often are so cocooned and plugged-in that we don’t notice what is going on around us. Why do you think so many are asking us to “See something, say something?”
Administer our schools and our cities. We often know more about officials in far-off Washington, DC, than we do of those who educate our children and appoint our safety forces leaders and zone our communities, shaping what kinds of places these will be. As Tip O’Neill was fond of saying, “All politics is local.”
Make choices to reduce our personal dependence on carbon-based fuels, to not consume more than we need, and not to treat our neighborhoods and the rest of the planet as a communal garbage can.
Make us tolerate those who are different from us, or polarize us into interest groups pitted against “them”. Instead of seeing the “other” as problems, threats, or competition, can we not choose to envision an America where the talents, perspectives, and experiences of all of us are needed to make us great?
Provide for our economic success. While government can provide for equal opportunity in education and hiring, and provide stop-gap help when our efforts to succeed fail, generations of hard-working immigrants whose children go on to be doctors, lawyers, business entrepreneurs tell us that there are not shortcuts around hard work over a long time to achieving success.
Give us more than we can pay for, charging it to our children.

One of the transformative principles of economic development, whether in communities or countries is when a group of people move from seeing only problems and depending on others for solutions to identifying their assets and working hard to leverage those as a community.

It seems to me that we cannot be “the land of the free” if we give away our power to our national figures. That seems to be the way of tyranny, whether of the fascist or communist variety. There are peoples around the world who crave what we take for granted. Perhaps the most important question we can ask ourselves this Independence Day is whether we are exercising the power we have as a free people, along with the responsibilities that go with that power? What might each of us do to preserve this rare and wonderful thing of a government that derives its power from “we, the people?”

Independence Day?

July 4, 2014 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the name we give our Fourth of July Holiday. Independence Day. Of course it comes from the Declaration of Independence when we decide we could not longer tolerate being a colony of Great Britain. At that point, we weren’t even sure we wanted to be a nation so much as a collection of states who had united for the purpose of fighting against what we perceived as British tyranny. It took a good deal of further argument, and some economic necessities, for us to decide that the thirteen states would indeed unite to form a nation under a federal constitution. All that is history but it suggests to me how deeply this idea of independence runs in our nation’s sense of identity.

Never mind that independence depended on our seizure of land occupied by the First Nations peoples who were here long before us. Never mind that much of our early economy depended on an unholy acceptance of slavery by both South and North. Never mind that when slavery was threatened and the compromises no longer worked, the fight over the decision of the South to pursue an independent existence and break its union with the North cost the lives of 620,000 men. It seems to me that the “independence” that is etched so deeply in the American character has often taken such an absolute value that we have been willing to kill and commit numerous injustices when they may have been more peaceful and just alternatives. Even in the case of our revolution, the reality is that it was British incompetence and the challenges of communication over distances that contributed our problems as much as any tyranny. It might be argued that we could have achieved nationhood without war (and not had to fight a follow-up war in 1812).

My problem is not with the idea of “independence” in and of itself. It is rather when we make this an absolute value–when we fail to realize the ways we are dependent and interdependent. Independence of thought can be a good thing that leads to creativity, innovation, works of original beauty and insight. Nevertheless, even these things build on knowledge and skill acquired from the generations. And what happens when independence just becomes the stubborn refusal to take counsel and heed the sense of others? What happens when we so harden in our positions that being right matters more than finding some concord?

The truth is, none of us, neither individuals nor nations leads an entirely independent existence. We depend on family, community organizations, the labors of others for so much in our lives. Our very sustenance depends on an environment that is incredibly beautiful, fruitful and yet not invulnerable to our depredations. We likewise as a nation depend on an economic and trade system that is global. The truer reality is that we are “interdependent”, part of a web of relationships where we mutually sustain each other in families, communities, nationally and internationally. The hubris that denies this reality and glorifies our “independence” as an absolute, an ultimate value, seems to lead to rape of the land, plunder of the weak, and a violent way of life. And despite our use of “under God” language in our Pledge of Allegiance and the trust in God we express on our currency, I fear that this statement of dependence is often mere verbiage when the truth is we conceive ourselves answerable to no one.

So while I want to celebrate the birth of a country I truly love as both beautiful and remarkable in many of its achievements and whose Constitution seems to me a near work of genius, I have to admit that I am ever more uncomfortable with our language of “independence”. I think far more compelling is our expressed passion for “liberty and justice for all.” If today can be a day of renewed dedication to this ideal for ALL of our own people as well as the other peoples of the world, then that is truly cause for celebration!