I used to think that the Fourth of July fireworks were a bonding experience common among all people. And then, I became aware that there were some people who are extremely uncomfortable hearing and seeing fireworks and will go to extremes to avoid them.
Setting off fireworks in their neighborhood was a serious infringement on their freedom and happiness. So much for the unalienable Rights … of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!
Journalist, Robert Isaccson has written, “That whole concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is how do we both give rights to the individual and respect the type of things that have to be shared in common, and how that together allows each generation the chance to succeed.”
On Independence Day we are challenged, in Isaccson’s words, to “respect individual freedom, but also respect the idea of having common values and common ground and diversity.” That is to “embrace the idea of democratic freedom.”
Consider democratic freedom as the context of our Independence Day celebrations. We are called upon to acknowledge the tension between individual freedom and communal freedom. For example, the polarization over who bears the cost of healthcare, each individual or the community for any who need care. The Declaration of Independence talks about the “evil” of unresolved polarization. “all experience hath shewn, that mankind [sic] are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
On Independence Day it is important to acknowledge the people who suffer under misguided political forms such as a financial system favoring the wealthy; the resistance to universal healthcare; the bias supporting white male superiority; and the lack of hospitality toward the refugee, the asylum seeker, and the immigrant.
Along with the acknowledgment that many quietly suffer under a flawed political and social system, the Fourth of July can be a time to proclaim a healing vision. The Declaration of Independence includes the words, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it (the destructive ends), 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.”
The Fourth of July is a time to take these words seriously and use them to proclaim that it is not necessary to endure suffering the misguided policies of the government. It may be in our purview to abolish such policies and revise them with the advocacy of a new nation in which diversity can be a part of our strength. The concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is to maintain the rights of the individual and yet at the same time respect the common space among human beings.
Independence Day is a day for the pursuit of happiness that gives life and freedom to each and every person. It is a day to celebrate the unique contributions of the diversity of peoples that make up the nation. It is a day to seek out the common values in a democratic society; the values of liberty, economic opportunity, and security. “A day to recognize that each person is ‘created equal,’ that opportunity should be universal, that access to opportunity should be equal, that a free and democratic society is one that treats
each person with equal concern and respect, and that individuals have a right to freedom
of conscience, speech, and association.”
Happy Fourth of July, Independence Day!
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.
