Independence

July the 4th is a strange holiday. People who aren’t free to be left in peace are celebrating what, exactly? That the state only takes a fourth to a third of every dollar they earn? Well, that’s certainly something to be grateful for, perhaps. But celebrate? Do the convicts in prison celebrate when the warden says they can stay in the yard an extra half-hour before being returned to their cells? If they do, it is a degradation; a form of buck dancing.

The 4th is supposed to be the day Americans celebrate the day the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. More specifically, the day that the American colonists – well, some of them – officially declared that they were henceforth independent of the authority of the state of Great Britain. This is the important part and that is why it is the part that is almost never discussed and when it is discussed, it is discussed only cursorily, without getting into what it means. The reason why is obvious.

It was not merely that a Declaration of Independence from the state of Great Britain was promulgated. That is problematic enough, from the standpoint of modernity. After all, if it was legitimate – something to be celebrated – for the American colonists to say, in effect: We deny that the state of Great Britain legitimately rules us. We withdraw our consent and by doing so, the state no longer has moral authority to exert its authority over us. We are separating ourselves from the state of Great Britain.

These are extremely dangerous words.

At least, they became so after the failed attempt of the Southern states to withdraw their consent and separate from a union they no longer wished to be ruled by. They also declared independence – on April 17, 1861 and this day would have been a day to celebrate had the Southern states successfully asserted their independence, as the thirteen colonies did.

Talk of slavery is a kind of important non sequitur. Of course slavery is a terrible thing. Who would say it is not? But it is beside the point. More finely, it is the point (the non sequitur) that statist want everyone to focus on in making the case that Southern states were in the wrong because there was slavery in the South. Certainly. But it is the principle of consent-withdrawal they do not want discussed, especially among kids. That is crucial. They are taught that Abe Lincoln subdued the Southern states to end slavery. That was incidental. He himself said so, repeatedly. The war was fought to make it clear that the consent of the governed was no longer required, as far as the state was concerned. Abe didn’t quite out it that way, of course. He waxed eloquent about the “union,” as if that made a forced arrangement sacred.

Of course, the state of Great Britain had the same view.

The difference is the American colonies won their independence while the Southern states lost theirs. That is why Americans celebrate on July the 4th while April the 17th is almost entirely forgotten; it is just another day.

And yet, they do not generally celebrate the thing that is the crux of the 4th of July holiday. They they celebrate “freedom” – a fine-sounding vagueness that is never clearly defined. Free? How, exactly? To do what, exactly? To listen to Lee Greenwood? Well, we are free to work, so long as we hand over a fourth to a third of what we earn to the state. If we do not hand it over, there is a good chance our “freedom” will be rescinded. We are certainly not free to be left alone, even to the extent of harmless (to anyone else) moralistic pedantry such as not being free to drive a car without wearing a seatbelt. We have become numb to such effronterous assaults upon freedom. Think about it! A supposedly “free” man must “buckle up” for “safety.”

People celebrate this.

We must carry around state-issued IDs and present them on demand to teenaged checkout clerks acting as the state’s enforcers of minimum age laws (as regards the purchase of beer and wine) and also of for-your-own-good laws that say you can only buy cough syrup after the clerk scans your ID, so the state knows you bought cough syrup. Is that something worth celebrating?

Yes, we are allowed more options than people housed in prisons. It does not mean we live in a “free” country.

This is what they – the state’s operators, the conscious ones, not the lower-tier agents of the state such as schoolteachers – do not want people thinking about, because then they might not celebrate. They might riot. Far better to egg them on to light cones that emit sparks but do not fly (bottle rockets and firecrackers are mostly outlawed now, another example of the “freedom” we no longer have) and drink beer (assuming they have ID) and hear patriotic speeches and songs assuring them of their “freedom,”  admonishing them to be grateful to the state that they have it.

The sad hilarity of this escapes most of them.

The 4th is certainly the day that independence ought to be remembered. Not the independence from the state of Great Britain that was declared on July the 4th, 250 years ago but the idea of independence, from the state. That is the true meaning of the holiday. It is a thing well worth celebrating, if it can ever be achieved. For that to happen, it will be necessary for each of us, as individuals, to declare our independence from the state.

To declare that we do not consent to be ruled over by anyone unless we have explicitly consented – without coercion of any kind – and that our consent is not binding on any other human being. It is a revolution – in the mind. Of our attitude toward anyone who would dare to “govern” us.

That’s a proper declaration of independence and it is the only one that will ever lead to freedom from the state.

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