From Bill in Exile:
On this 236th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain I think its important to think about what that document and those words meant when they were written.
How it set the stage for our Founders to write our Constitution and for this country to become the greatest country in the world.
A country that was constantly reinventing itself and the only country among the nations of men that had as its foundation the concept of always striving to become a better place.
And yet somewhere along the way we lost all that.
And we lost it all fairly recently.
We are no longer the greatest nation on Earth. The most powerful, yes—by far. But the greatest? No, not hardly.
We torture people and we order the execution our own citizens at the hands of our government {us} without benefit of trial or even being charged with a crime.
We invade foreign countries based upon lies perpetrated upon us by our elected officials and enabled by a compliant press and we do nothing about it.
We allow our government to spy on American citizens on American soil and we've militarized our law enforcement agencies. Agencies who routinely respond to peaceful and lawful protest with deadly force.
We worship the 1% of the richest among us—malefactors of great wealth who care not one wit for the common man—while at the same time holding those of us in need in deep contempt while stripping them of even the most basic of safety net protections.
We allow our elites in government and finance to commit crimes that drive the world to the brink of economic collapse and then not only do we not punish them with prison, but we reward them with free money so they can do it all again.
This while sending people to prison for the crimes of simply trying to feed their families.
We have become nothing more than a third world country with nuclear weapons and we are completely undeserving of the title "Greatest Nation on Earth."
But because we are who we are, we're more than capable of reclaiming that title and regaining the moral high ground and the approbation of the world that this country once enjoyed.
We simply need to remember who we are and where we came from.
And just fucking do it!
Happy Fourth.