The celebration of Independence Day spills over, for most, to today. Let me start by quoting from the famous letter of John Adams to his wife, Abigail.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. — The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. — Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Reading that letter again brings this thoughts to mind — that celebrating Independence Day is a celebration of us.

At most July 4th celebrations we take occasion to honor our military. That is a good thing, and something we can never do sufficiently. But unlike Memorial Day and Veterans Day, where we honor those who have given their lives and those who served, and continue to serve, so heroically, Independence Day should include the rest of us. We should honor the men and women of our military, but we should also understand that our continuing freedom depends on every citizen and our dedication to keeping the ideals of liberty and freedom alive.

This idea was expressed in an exchange between Benjamin Franklin and a Mrs. Powel, recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry.

Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And that’s the point. We have to keep it. We have to work, and sweat, and never relent in our effort to “keep it.” It does take effort, and without such effort the tendency will be for our republic to fall into disrepair. To visualize this imagine a car that is kept out of the elements, but never started and never maintained. In very little time it would be useless for transportation. The battery would be dead, the oil virtually useless, and the tires dry-rotted and likely flat. Depending on the amount of time the car is ignored, the effort to restore it could be significant.

We are in danger of leaving our Republic out of the elements, but unmaintained. We can not let that happen.

I hope that you and your loved ones had (and continue to have) a great time celebrating the birth of our country. When you return to work remember to work on keeping our republic as well.

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UPDATE AND BUMP: Agora has several new posts related to the Danish cartoons and Islamism. This one points to a story from Germany where the Quran has come under legal indictment for being, “incompatible with the German constitution”.

In another post it is reported that the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard, has added her name to the Manifesto of Freedom.

Finally, something I had intended to reference earlier, Agora points us to an online version of the Manifesto that you can sign.

It’s target audience is the White House and the United Nations. I now ask all those bloggers who reposted this Manifesto to spread the news and sign the manifesto.

While some of the violence may have abated somewhat, the Islamist’s intolerance for tolerance has not.

End Update.

Via Agora

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

Benjamin Franklin’s observation at the signing of our Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” is applicable here. Not that all countries and all peoples will have common plans and aspirations, but that all will have to either take a stand for freedom or become spectators as they are overtaken by Islamism and the other “ism’s” of our time.

Agora also has an extensive list of those posting on this subject.

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