These united States* got their start, officially, on July 2, 1776.
That’s when the Second Continental Congress voted to separate from King George’s government across the water. But it was two days later when that same Congress approved its formal Declaration, and it was the wording of that Declaration that impressed everybody — including folks back in England.
July Fourth, not the Second, became “Independence Day.”
Today, the English are insisting on independence. Last year’s referendum to exit the European Union was a major step in throwing off the abusive relationship from Brussels and the central government there.
The Brits have every right to their “Brexit,” since, as our Congress argued so persuasively, governments “deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed,” which entails that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
Americans have never had more cause for fellow-feeling with the British. Not only are they copying us, we are copying us.
To gain anything like control over what has become a runaway central government in Washington, D.C., Americans in the states will have to continue to (in effect) nullify federal law regarding marijuana and take the lead on criminal justice reforms and improving government ethics and accountability. More work must be done, fighting for free speech and against corruption. And overbearing taxation and regulation and cronyism And insane debt accumulation.
Across the pond, it’s Brexit. Here, it’s just our continuing Revolution.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* For just today I’ll use the odd, old capitalization, just as it was used in the Declaration of July 4, 1776.
