My Valentine's Day blog posting was mainly about how we should be celebrating our diversity, not forming up into opposing packs of deadly enemies, trying to kill each other off.
I am speaking, of course, about "politics" in characterizing the current "state of the nation" in this rather extreme fashion. Still, groups like the "Proud Boys" appear willing to utilize "real" political violence in an effort to achieve the political results they prefer.
Allegedly, "Antifa" is a group on the other side of our current political polarity that might also favor the use of violence to achieve political goals. No one doubts that genuine violence can arise in these polarized political times. The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol Building shows how quickly things can get out of hand.
That February 14th "Valentine" to the to the nation that I published was written in opposition to the idea that our politics should be about destroying and defeating those who have different political aims and ambitions from our own. As I noted in that blog post, I didn't even realize that I had scheduled my posting for Valentine's Day until I was done writing it, so I added the Valentine's Day reference to a statement that should be taken to heart on every day of the year.
This blog posting, today, is a "follow up" to my Valentine's Day message, a message that urges us to take "E pluribus unam" seriously, and to realize that the "United States," as a social, economic, and political entity, is founded on that idea, incorporated, for convience, into the graphics of our dollar bill: "Out of Many, One."
We are "in this together."
It never hurts to repeat something that is true, which, of course, I have just done, but today I want to go at least one step beyond that Valentine's Day message, which continues to be quite pertinent.
I majored in history as an undergraduate student, and I really focused on "American" history. My senior honors thesis was titled, "The Future Of Change In America." I think we can best understand ourselves, as a nation, as "Americans," if we review and take to heart the key documents that define us as a nation, beginning, of course, with the Declaration of Independence.
It is the "beginning" of The Declaration that we most remember - and for good reason. It would be hard to come up with a better statement of what our system of "self-government" is all about:
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.
Let me here remind those reading this blog posting of the LAST part of our Declaration - the "ending" to the founding document that has established our nation. This last statement, too, is a statement about the role citizens should play in our syatem of self-government, and I don't think it can really be improved. I think it says it all, and perfectly. Below, emphasis has been added to the concluding words of the Declaration:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
As citizens, we are all called upon to pledge "our lives," and "our fortunes," and our "sacred honor" to ensure, in the words of Lincoln, that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth."
If we take this seriously, this means that in times of trouble (and I am suggesting that includes "now"), we must, as citizens, be willing to reallocate our time, which is what our "lives" consist of, and to work on issues that put self-government in peril, even though that will displace the activities that we might rather pursue.
If we take this pledge seriously, we need to reallocate how we spend our money, too, to put it to work on those issues that put self-government in peril.
Finally, our honor demands we do these things, and that we change our lives, as necessary, to accomplish them.
If we take seriously that there is a real threat to the continued existence of the system of self-government that the Founders "brought forth, upon this continent," to quote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address once again, then this is what is required of us, now.
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