responsibility – We The Center

Today is the Fourth of July. Today we celebrate that time, back in 1776, when our country was born. Its birth was announced by that most precious of American documents, the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration announced the reason for the creation of this new country. Unique in all the nations of the world, the United States was founded, says the Declaration, on a self-evident principle. That means that the United States was founded, not as a certain land area with a certain kind of people in it. Rather it was founded on a guiding ideal so fundamental, so undeniable, that if you don’t believe in that principle, if you are not guided by that principle, you are not only not an American; you are unfaithful to what it means to be a human being.

Here is that undeniable, absolute principle: all human beings are born equal, and every human being is endowed by her or his Creator with inalienable rights. Inalienable rights are rights that cannot be denied, cannot even be given away. Before anything else, first and foremost, to be, not just an American, but a human being, means to recognize and be responsible for the rights of every other human being. As Patrick Henry said so succinctly, my commitment to that principle is more important than even my own life.

This is the profound, the defining beauty of the United States, the thing we celebrate most today. Before we are anything, before we are a collection of states, before we are a land area bordered by water and other countries, we are a people dedicated to the most fundamental principle, the defining principle of what it is to be a human being. Yes, we have, individually and as a nation, failed that principle. At our very founding, we denied these fundamental rights to whole groups of people, to Africans and others brought here as slaves, to people who lived here long before our ancestors ever came here, even to all women. But we have worked, and we are working, to correct those failures. That first principle is an ideal, our ideal, and to be an American is, before anything else, to work toward that ideal.

So today we celebrate, laugh and play and watch parades and fireworks. Tomorrow, July 5, we go back to the hard work of being an American, that most important work of pursuing that undeniable ideal. We go back to earning a living, of course, but in doing even that we go back to making that ideal come closer to realization. We do whatever we can to bring us close to that ideal. We embrace our fellow humans. We honor every other human. We contemplate and discuss the best means of honoring our fellow humans. We vote for people who are committed to that ideal. If we have the nerve and the strength, we run for office on the simple ground of wanting to make that ideal a reality. We object, in every way we can, to the conduct of our people and our government that violates that ideal.

It is a hard thing indeed to be a real American. It is exactly as hard as it is to be a real human being. So enjoy the Fourth of July. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

“XXX.–In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”

With these words, set into the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the State of Massachusetts in 1780, John Adams captured one of the pillars of the American form of government. In revolting against England, Americans did not merely reject King George III. They rejected the entire system of government by a single person or group. This principle of a government of laws and not men is the natural consequence of the founding American ideal that all human beings are born equal and endowed with inalienable rights. It is a critical point, but one that is easily missed.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…” That statement announces a community based, not on individual license, but on a fundamental responsibility of every human being for every other human being. We are each responsible for honoring the rights of each of our fellow humans, and that responsibility is what gives us our meaning, and it is even the source of our freedom. We are free because all those people for whom I am responsible are responsible for me.

The enemy of America’s founding ideal rests precisely here. When a government makes its decisions, not based on the laws of that government but rather by the orders of a single person or group, the source of the people’s meaning shifts from the ideals embodied in their laws and constitution to the personal needs and desires of the person or group ruling them. “L’etat c’est moi,” said the imperious Louis XIV. I am the state, and your rights, and therefore your meaning, are defined entirely by me. This is the real peril of dictatorship. The individual has no meaning by himself or herself. Even the dictator’s meaning is gone, because it is completely subjective. It might be something one day and something else another. Moral value derived from one individual is the morality of self-interest, and self-interest is no morality at all.

This is the real, fundamental crisis being caused by Trump’s actions and words. He may or may not have overstepped his bounds with the ban on seven Muslim countries. We have a judiciary to determine that in accordance with the laws and constitutional provisions that express our journey to our ideal. It is what he did in response to that judiciary, and what his people have done in response to criticism, that is far, far more dangerous. He denigrates the judiciary, calls a judge bigoted or characterizes the judge as “so-called”. His advisor tells the press to “shut up and listen.” All this and much, much more describes an attack on the fundamental rights of the people and the checks and balances system that guards those rights. Trump doesn’t want to befriend Putin. He wants to be Putin. His goal is dictatorship, and if he succeeds we will not just lose our form of government, we will lose our very meaning.

We are not a perfect nation. Our worth and meaning lie in the fact that, with all our flaws and failures, we strive for a perfect ideal. The actions and words of Trump and his representatives signal an attack on those ideals. We cannot allow that attack to even begin.