We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident....

Fourth of July.

Parades.

Fireworks.

Picnics.

Speeches.

3-day weekend.

Ever wonder who picked up the tab for this annual party?

There were 56 of them.

56 men who signed the declaration of independence.

56 heroes.

56 fools.

56 traitors against their lawful King.

56 terrorists, by the latest operant definition.

56 men who pledged to each other in this cause, their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

They were young and they were old. (Ben Franklin, born in 1706, was 70; Edward Rutledge, born in 1749, was only 27).

They included scientists, physicians, ministers, a printer, a musician, a soldier.

24 were lawyers and jurists.

11 were merchants.

9 were farmers and large plantation owners.

They were men of means, wealthy and well-educated. They weren’t rebelling for security. They already had security. They decided to risk everything they had for something else.

Liberty.

They all knew very well that they were breaking the law.

They knew they’d be charged with treason against the Crown.

And they knew the penalty was death.

5 of them were captured and tortured to death.

12 had their homes ransacked and burned.

2 lost their sons in the war that followed, another had 2 sons captured.

9 died from wounds received in battle or from the privations of the war.

They all sacrificed something and some of them sacrificed everything.

Thomas McKean was hounded by the British and forced to move his family constantly. He served in Congress without pay and his family was kept in hiding. He lost all his possessions and was reduced to poverty.

Likewise Carter Braxton, who lost his ships, sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The British jailed his wife and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his dying wife’s bedside. His fields and gristmill were laid to waste and for a year he lived in forests and caves. When he returned home, he found his wife dead, his 13 children vanished, and a few weeks later, he died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., found that the British had occupied Nelson’s own home as their headquarters. Nelson quietly urged General George Washington to open fire anyway, and Nelson’s home was destroyed. He died bankrupt.

No billion-dollar bailouts for these guys.

But just what was so important that these men would make such sacrifices?

What exactly were they rebelling against?

Oppressive taxes, for one thing. They didn’t much care for the King bleeding them dry to pay for his mercenaries and imperialistic foreign wars.

They didn’t like being deprived of a trail by jury, either.

They didn’t like unreasonable searches of their homes, or censoring of the press, or suppression of free speech, or cruel and unusual punishments

Not big fans of torture.

Or “indefinite detention.”

Read the list for yourself.

It’s all right there in the Bill of Rights they wrote up later.

Somebody once said that a fanatic is someone who “redoubles his efforts, having forgotten his aims.”

So when you wave the flag today – or any other day – you might do well to ask whether we’re living up to our history.

Or is that rag all that’s left?

Have we sanctified a symbol while giving up everything it was supposed to stand for?

‘Cause it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Do-wah.

sj