These are the times that try our souls.

 “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

These are the first lines in The American Crisis, a pamphlet released on December 19, 1776.   A time when the American rebellion was uncertain.  Five months earlier the Second Continental Congress had adopted the Declaration of Independence.  A profound document that Abraham Lincoln later called our “Apple of Gold”.   A precious apple that he believed was framed with our constitution of ‘Silver’.    It’s unfortunate that patriots today, worship and swear an oath to protect the silver frame instead of the "Apple of Gold”.  

The Declaration wasn’t perfect.  It certainly didn’t result in forming a more perfect union.  The Constitution that frames the Declaration has yet to achieve any of the six intentions clearly stated in the Constitution’s Preamble.  

There are two editing changes that Thomas Jefferson could have used that may have resulted in far better outcomes today.   The first would have been replacing the word ‘Independence’ with the word ‘separation’ in its title.  ‘Separation’ is a word that is congruent with the most profound words in this document’s first paragraph “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  Independence is an illusion.  It is a flawed mental construct that exists nowhere in the known universe.  The word “separation” was infinitely more accurate.  But the “Declaration of Political Separation” would have been too wordy - if entirely accurate.   

Note the implications today with independent state regulations regarding public health, economic, transportation, trade, environment, communications, and other elements essential to securing our nation’s vital infrastructures.   As the current director of the newest US Federal agency (CISA -Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency) recently quoted “Everything is connected.  Everything is interdependent.  Everything is vulnerable”.    She could have added,   “and Everything Changes - except the 'Laws of Nature and Nature’s God'". 

Covid19 variants are teaching us one of these fundamental law sets.  Yet we refuse to change our frame of to better reflect our Apple of Gold.  And now, with our nation so extremely polarized that many believe we are on the verge of another civil war - and most people believing the polarization is only going to get worse without some heavenly intervention or evidence of a planet-killing asteroid, we are not going to change that flawed frame.

The second edit that may have improved our current national and global situation was suggested by Dr. Benjamin Rush, a friend of Thomas Jefferson and a signer of the Declaration.  Rush suggested he change the word “Happiness” to “Health”.   Happiness is about feeling good.  Health is about prevention so you can really feel good sustainably.    

The increasing threats to our lives, our nation, and our world today (from the pandemic to climate change, to inflation, to fears of war) are linked to the supremacy of state sovereignty (independence) over our God-given inalienable human rights.  Rights listed in a Universal Declaration.  Another document celebrated each year on Dec. 10^th  when it was unanimously globally approved.

Our nation’s founders explained why it was necessary “​​to dissolve the political bands” which had connected them to Great Britain. Then they proposed a government to be organized according to the principles of natural law.  A “self-evident” concept “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”.   And as Thomas Paine wrote earlier in his pamphlet “Common Sense” the only legitimate role of government is to protect people's “freedom and security”.  The British monarchy wasn’t based on either.   

Unfortunately, the British troops moved on General George Washington and his troops in New York City.  By November the Redcoats had pushed the colonials into New Jersey. Then chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. 

By mid-December Washington’s 5000 man army was demoralized but still able to fight.  That had something to do with Washington insisting that all of his soldiers were inoculated against smallpox.  Exhausted, dirty, and without resources, much of what also sustained them was Paine’s words “Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

In mid-December General William Howe, the British commander, sent most of his soldiers back to New York to spend the winter.  He left some garrisons across the river in New Jersey to guard against any Washington advance. 

On Christmas night, with intel that the NJ Trenton garrison was manned only by exhausted and unprepared Hessian auxiliaries, Washington crossed the icy Delaware River in a winter storm with about 2400 men. They marched nine miles underdressed, cold, and in freezing rain to surprise the outnumbered Hessians, who fought briefly before surrendering. 

Now with confidence in their cause, soldiers reenlisted.  In early January, they surprised the British at Princeton, New Jersey. The British abandoned their posts in central New Jersey, and by March, the Continental Congress moved back to Philadelphia. Historians believe the battles of Trenton and Princeton saved the Revolution.

There’s no proof that any of Washington's troops had read The American Crisis before they marched on Trenton.  But there is little doubt they heard it one way or another, as well as many wavering loyalists.  Paine had written “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” “yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

I don’t believe Americans today are up for overcoming the losses of things we hold dear.  We value wealth over health.  Selfishness over oneness.  Individualism over union.  And political parties over fundamental principles.

Our digitized national archives of over 120,000 personal communications between our founding fathers back then mentioned the word “virtue” 6000 times.  More times than the word “freedom”.   No one can sincerely argue that we are a nation of virtue.  We persistently abuse our freedoms.  And we've never altered our Constitution sufficiently to reflect the principles in our Apple of Gold.

The only truths that we can hold to be self-evident today?  We deserve the consequences that we are now experiencing.  From Covid19 to climate change.  From a flailing democracy to a debt and inflation burdened economy.  From our crumbling infrastructure to an all-time low in our trust in science, our institutions, our leaders, and the media.

In 1965 Paul Harvey aired “Freedom to Chains” regarding the failure of governments.  He said “One of the cruelest paradoxes of history is this: because each was a good government it bore bountiful fruit. When it bore bountiful fruit, the people got fat.  And when they got fat they got lazy.  And when they got lazy, they started to absolve themselves of personal responsibility and to turn over to government to do for them, things which traditional they had been doing for themselves. At first, there appears to be nothing wrong in asking government to perform some extra service for you, but if you ask government for extra service, government in order to perform its increasing function it has to get bigger.  And if government gets bigger, in order to support its increasing size, it has to what?  Tax the individual more. So the individual gets less.  And to get more taxes the government increases the number of tax collectors.....until the government is all-powerful.”

What Paul Harvey didn’t say was how the construct of national sovereignty back then drove every government to increase its power to protect its own national interests.  Interests that were almost always selfish and harmful to others.  Other people, other nations, and everyone’s environment.    And this suffering, injustices, and threats of war drove unsustainable spending and grievances.   Because no nation, no government, and no culture had a majority that practiced or insisted on virtuous universal behaviors.  

There is not enough money in the world or any government in the world that can protect its citizen's freedoms and security in this lawless, unjust, selfish, ignorant, and short-sighted world. And that is why the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God will continue to deliver us our well-deserved consequences.  It’s unfortunate that our children will end up paying the ultimate price for this unsustainable form of global development.

There is one alternative.  Achieving the UNs 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the context of planetary health.  But planetary health for all will only be possible in a world where human behavior is based on the reality of interdependence. 

May you have a healthy Omicron Holiday Season.

Cpw

 

FYI:  This rant was inspired by Heather Cox Richardson’s Dec 19^th “Letters from an American” blog.  Simply because it required me to pay for a subscription before I could comment on it.  My comment would have been much shorter.  Plagiarizing some and editing much of what she wrote and then inserting my comments is the long rant you just read.   If you took the time, Thank you!