Independence Day

Independence does not promise wealth. It does not promise ease or happiness. And yet the American ethos cries out this principal: Independence is sublime, transcendent, superior to any shoddy slavishness no matter how much material wealth is promised.

Is this how we see Independence today? I think it is not. Not fully. For even as we say "Government, keep out of our business. Government, do not make us dependent," we cry out to the corporate hegemony to make us more and more dependent on them for all our needs. We have put aside our aspirations of self governance. In fact, a dominant sect of modern conservatism would have us believe that the only role of government is to stave off self rule in favor of rule by money. Is it that we believe in social Darwinism, that the strong make themselves known through their control of money, and therefore are those fit to lead? Is it because we so hate arbitrary rule, that we hide behind the feigned impartiality of the market place (except in matters of sexuality) to decide for us what is right and what is wrong? We have tossed aside our political freedom, our right of self rule, in favor of a economic and liberal freedoms, to lighten the law upon ourselves, to allow a few individuals with money to make our decisions for us.

This is the way I would suggest we look at Independence. Independence is that part of us which with pride and courage says "I don't need you; I can do this on my own." An independent person cares not what others think and chooses to depend on them for as little as possible. The less he needs them, the less he is dependent. But an independent polity says the same thing; it says to its bigger brethren--the state, the nation, the world--"I do not need you; I can make it on my own," which of course means the citizens of that polity say, "We do not need external rule, but we do need each other." This is not to say that independence is necessarily haughty, or anti-social, or isolationist; it is merely not dependent on others (external others, for whatever group or body you wish to call independent) for what it needs. And it chooses independence over promises of wealth and security and externally imposed justice, for it could not call itself Independent otherwise.