Independence Day 2009 (UPDATED)

(please scroll down for update)

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence represented the absolute opposite of "interest group politics" so slavishly worshipped in political science departments. They pledged their lives, their wealth, their liberty, and their honor -- everything -- on a toss of the dice. Often, even if the revolution won, these men personally lost. The game was not about them, their economic interest, or their political ambition. They won if America became a new order of liberty in the world. Interest politics would have led them all to make peace with the Crown. Moral principles led them to what Churchill would later call "blood, toil, sweat, and tears."

It has yet to have ever been adequately explained to us, what the motivation was for the Founders. We’re just talking taxes here, right?

Have we become so cynical that the prospect of a group of men, a group of leaders came together to risk their livelihoods and even their lives because it was the right thing to do now seems simply implausible? Given the current context, yes, I suppose we have.

No matter. We give thanks that it was indeed this group of men that Providence brought together when it counted most.

Here's a clip from the HBO mini-series "John Adams" and his speech just prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence with a reading of the Declaration, itself.



(UPDATE #1):

Most recently, the U.S. condemned the Honduran military’s arrest of Pres. Manuel Zelaya. The nation’s supreme court had found his efforts to extend his presidential tenure in violation of its constitution, once Zelaya tried to finesse an illegal third term.

In other words, the U.S. pressures other nations as it pleases — though strangely now more to lean on friends than to criticize rivals and enemies.

In contrast, had President Obama voiced early, consistent, and sharp criticism of the Iranian crackdown, the theocracy would have worried that the president’s stature could have galvanized global boycotts and embargos to isolate the theocracy and aid the dissidents. And the reformers in the streets could have become even more confident with a trademark Obama “hope and change” endorsement.

Internal democratic change in Iran is the only peaceful solution to stopping an Iranian bomb, three decades of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, and a Middle East arms race. When thousands risked their lives for a better Iran, a better Middle East, and a better world, we, the land of the free, simply were not with them.

That from VDH

We are STILL trying to get our heads wrapped around the two completely disparate and counter-intuitive responses made by the Administration to the two socio-political situations in Iran and Honduras

Whether or not the election in Iran was rigged was beside the point, as it became more and more apparent as the protests carried on, the struggle had become not on behalf of Mousavi but against the mullah-cracy that dictates that nation.

As for Honduras, and as we wrote about earlier, these coups are never cut and dry, black and white affairs but given the facts on the ground, it appears that the removal of Zelaya was the correct and legal course of action.

So, all things being equal, we would’ve expected at the very least for the President to offer some luke-warm/wait-and-see type response similar to the tenor of that offered on behalf of Iran. Not only did we not get that, we instead immediately sprung into action getting out ahead of the curve (and ahead of Hugo Chavez) to co-sponsor legislation in that rogues’ gallery also known as the Star Wars cantina scene, condemning the Zelaya ouster. What leaders we must look like now to the rest of the world. Meddling in someone else’s democracy to save that democracy.

Two nations struggling to, respectively, attain or maintain a western-style, 21-century democracy and our nation’s leaders cannot get behind either one. Happy Independence Day everyone…

P.S. Threatened with expulsion from the OAS (Organization of American States), Honduras tells the OAS, "F-U, we quit". Good on'em.