As we celebrate our independence

Today is a good day to sit down, just for a few moments (and given the hour, perhaps tomorrow sometime) to read and recall the founding documents of our nation and the times and persons that brought them forth.

The Declaration of Independence tells a tale of a nation in bondage, restates the fundamental right of all persons "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."

It then offers a checklist of offenses that our founders considered worthy of such a dangerous course of action - a checklist that would qualify as a "good start". We would do well to review that list every year and compare it against our current state of government.

Even today, the document is a fiery declaration of fundamental rights and worthy of review...and my fondest hope is that our nation never again faces such desperate times.

Our Constitutions, that of the United States and of the State of Washington, also are worthy of at least that annual review. Are our leaders playing by the rules? Are the rules still good ones? And if the answer to either is "no", then what is to be done?

Read the Constitutions. Then the Bill of Rights, and then the remaining 17 Amendments passed (and sometimes repealed) over 234 years that have changed the Constitution of the United States (the WA Constitution online is updated annually), and finally the Amendments that remain unratified to see the changes that were proposed yet did not fly... and in the case of the older ones...contained no "expiration date" so could be ratified over 200 years after their original passage through Congress - not unlike the 27th, passed in 1789 and ratified in 2002.

Once a patriotic holiday, today Independence Day has been largely supplanted by "4th of July" celebrations - with frequently meaningless fireworks displays (though I do not begrudge them), little emphasis on history, and rather more on beer and barbecue.

Take a few moments, read, and go forward. Seems unlikely to do any harm, and a fair bet to do some good. Certainly not much effort to honor those who bet their lives on a fragile proto-nation when they signed the Declaration all those years ago.