The 4th of July

During the next month, I will be blogging mostly about the 4th of July, "Independence Day." I recently purchased a domain to house some things I wrote before 9-11, which I hope to update:

http://July4th1776.org

I'd like to start with a quote from Edmund Burke, the British statesman who was sympathetic to the colonists' demands, and urged Britain to give more serious attention to them:

It is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts out of the ordinary course that they can alone be re-established."
(Letter to William Elliot, 1795, quoted by Leonard Read, Elements of Libertarian Leadership, 1962)

I'm convinced that if America's Founding Fathers could be transported through time into our day, they would very quickly conclude that "things are gone out of their ordinary course."

I'm convinced they would invoke their right, stated in the Declaration of Independence as a "duty," to "abolish" the government they themselves created. Christopher S. Bentley draws the parallels here, and I add a few here.

This is not a time when we should be calling for "a ten-percent reduction over the next 5 years."

Nor is this a time, I fear, when Libertarians can work to appear to be "mainstream," and conduct campaigns designed to make them look respectable like all the other candidates.

This is a time for "acts out of the ordinary course."

I'm thinking -- wrestling -- with ideas to make my campaign a series of such acts.

During my stint in the Catholic Worker movement, I had the privilege of meeting Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit who burned draft card files at Catonsville, MD in 1969, and was for a time on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Berrigan and "the Catonsville Nine" recognized that "things are gone out of their ordinary course." (Interview with Berrigan on Democracy Now! begins 35 minutes into the program. I love the archival video footage of the Catonsville Nine wearing suits and ties as they set fire to the Selective Service files in the parking lot with homemade napalm. Those were the days when everyone dressed up to fly on airplanes or go to sit-down restaurants.)

I have to admit that destruction of government property is outside my character, though I'm sympathetic with the prophetic call to "beat swords into plowshares." I like those who suggest washing the American flag rather than burning it as a political protest.

America's Founding Fathers risked "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" in their defense of liberty. I'm not ready to risk my life, nor am I called to do so at this point, but I'm willing to risk my "sacred Honor," or reputation. If, as a result of my campaign, two people call me a fool and one person renounces his faith in the Messianic State, I will have made progress. If all three continue to "respect" me, but none changes his allegiance, what have I accomplished?