James Thibault: Honoring America during Independence Month

To The Daily Sun,

“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.” This fragment from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence may be quoted quite often, but that simply speaks to how unique America is as a nation.

In no other founding document in the world does it explicitly say that our rights as citizens are not given to us by our government, but by God himself (and it is kept religiously ambiguous to remain constant with the Founders’ dream of freedom of religion), and merely protected by the government and that they only have power because we give them consent to. This is the freest country in the world not because of the government, but in spite of it. Our founders saw what government control led to — unchecked, tyrannical rule — and they wanted to prevent that from happening again. That is why they put the power in the hands of us, the people. We the people fund the government, we the people elect our representatives in the government, and we the people give consent to be governed by them, and if we have a problem, it is our God-given right to make our voices heard for change in policy.

Another interesting point in this line is that we are guaranteed by our Creator “the Pursuit of Happiness.” When we are born, we have the same equal opportunity as any other American to do anything if we work hard enough; that’s the American Dream. However, it does not guarantee that happiness for us, only the pursuit of it. If you squander that attempt, it is the fault of no one but yourself. That spirit of personal liberty and responsibility is enshrined in the writings of nearly every founder and many Enlightenment thinkers of this era, and it is beautiful to see this spirit of personal independence flourish alongside our country’s independence.

To quote the musical Hamilton, “look around, look around at how lucky you are to be alive right now.” I sincerely ask each and every one of you reading this to look around you at our beautiful country and reflect upon what it means to live here. Yes, we have our flaws, but that does not make the accomplishments of our founders any less great. This month, to celebrate the birth of our nation and the freedoms we enjoy because of it, do something, anything that honors our great country. Be that as simple as saying a prayer for a fallen soldier, visiting a military cemetery to pay respects, reading (or hopefully rereading) and analyzing one or more of our founding documents, or anything else to celebrate freedom, it would be enough. Thank you for reading this, and have a happy Independence Month. God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America!

James Thibault

Tilton