People following NPR’s Twitter feed were shocked by their 4th of July tweets. It seemed many Trump supporters believed it was NPR inciting some insurrection.
No, it was the Declaration of Independence in 140 characters snippets. There is a critical take to this that many may not have considered.
This NPR mix up should open the door to look at all the different forms of insurrections around the world and, at home in a different context. The Declaration of Independence is not a peace treaty. It is a document of war. The following snippets are probative.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. …
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. …
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.
The Declaration of Indepence represents the writing of a group of men who decided to break off from another country. It is tantamount to Texas declaring independence from the United States.
The founding fathers had a list of grievances with their government, and for all practical purposes, they not only overthrew it in their locale, but they also took the governed land. They believed that they were so aggrieved that it was a God-given requirement to break away at all cost, with war if necessary.
Ironically, there are many sub-groups in the United States both past and present that could present a case of being more aggrieved by their government than the wealthy colonists who signed the Declaration of Indepence, native Americans, blacks, Latinos, the white permanent underclass in Appalachia, But they didn’t. In a long-suffering manner, they avoided war and massive bloodshed as they continue to keep the pressure on the ever existing plutocracy for generations.
There are dozens of aggrieved people and uprisings occurring on virtually every continent in the world. Some have chosen the path of our founding fathers, and some have chosen the same path of some of the still aggrieved Americans. Some have come to the conclusion that the aggrieved acquiescing to slow peaceful change is not optimal and to some very futile. America is lucky so far that the growing number of the aggrieved segments of its society still holds hope. That hope is running thin and it is in the interest of those in power to note that while we don’t know where the tipping point is, it is there.