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Independence Day: A Vision of Liberty and Justice for All [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-04
One of my earliest memories was as a four year-old seeing my mother cry. “Mommy, why are you crying?” I asked. She replied, “Because they have killed the president.” On our small, 13-inch, black and white television she was watching President Kennedy’s funeral procession. As a four-year-old, I did not understand murder, hate, and death. However, I did understand that something happened which deeply disturbed my mom and moved her to tears.
Five years later, the scene would be repeated with the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a nine-year-old, I was a little more aware of the world around me. However, I was confused. One of the consistent elements of my upbringing was my parents taking me regularly to church. There, I heard the regular message that we were to love others as God loved us. I was having a difficult time reconciling Jesus’ teaching about loving others with the killings that were taking place in the world.“Mom, why did they kill Mr. Kennedy and Mr. King?” I asked. She answered me with one word, “Hate.” “what do you mean?“ I asked. “Some people hate them for their ideas of what the nation should be,” she said. This did not make sense to me. Although I had experienced some mean and hateful actions by other children, I did not understand how such hate and anger could lead to killing.
A short time later, my school teacher assigned a research report and presentation on the topic of our choosing. I struggled with what to research. I asked my mom for suggestions. She said, “Why don’t you write about the Ku Klux Klan?” “What’s that?” I asked. She replied, “Look it up in the encyclopedia and read about it. Then, come and talk to me about what you read.“ Mom was a teacher and knew how to engage young minds. I went to the bookcase where our set of World Book Encyclopedias was displayed. I selected the volume for the letter K and turned the pages until I found the discussion about the Ku Klux Klan. I read about their ideas of supremacy and their actions of terror, oppression, persecution, and lynching. I was horrified. My education of American history to that point had not included such horror stories. It was filled with patriotic pleasantries of resisting a tyrannical king, Paul Revere‘s ride, the valiant colonial army under the command of General George Washington, and the courage of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We sang the usual patriotic songs “America, the Beautiful” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. Even the US Civil War was romanticized with limited discussion of the conflict over slavery and no description of the oppression of slavery. I asked my mom,"Why don’t people want the black folks to be free?” “Because some people want the power to control other people,” she replied, “and when they can’t control other people, they start to hate them.”
My mother talked with me about the vision of the founding fathers. She told me that the colonists had been so mistreated and exploited by King George that they determined to have a nation founded on liberty and justice. They intended to have a nation characterized by equal treatment for all people, respect for the dignity of all people, fairness in the ability of all people to choose their own pathway in life, and people having a say about their government which should serve all the people. She continued to tell me that our government and our nation is not perfect because there are some people who seek power and control for themselves. There is a constant struggle for us to pursue the vision of the founding fathers so everyone can experience liberty and justice.
I remember standing in front of my classmates and reading my report about the Ku Klux Klan. When I finished, there was dead silence. I suppose they were in shock just as I was when I first read about the Ku Klux Klan in the encyclopedia. After some awkward silence, my teacher said, “Well, that’s interesting.” Nothing more was said. The absence of discussion by my teacher and my fellow students reinforced the social norm of “we don’t talk about those things“ and we don’t challenge the status quo.Typically, most people in the late 1960s avoided such discussions regarding social norms and politics that contradicted the vision of the founding fathers, leaving the “radicals” to be the moral conscience of the nation. But it is the radicals who are so easily marginalized and dismissed.
Ever since the founding of the nation, Americans have been pursuing “a more perfect union.” In my lifetime I have seen so much progress toward the vision of the founding fathers. We have experienced increasing assurances of civil rights through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, employment, and voter registration, as a monumental step in dismantling the Jim Crow system and advancing civil rights for minorities and women), the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (which established the Office of Economic Opportunity and initiated the "War on Poverty". It created programs like Job Corps and Head Start, focusing on job training, education, and community development to help lift underprivileged Americans out of poverty.) the Voter Rights Act of 1965 (which prohibited discriminatory voting practices), Fair Housing Act of 1968 (which prohibited discrimination in housing based on race, religion, sex, or national origin); increasing equality in employment, compensation,, and housing for women and minorities; women fighting for and receiving the right to choose control of their own bodies; marriage equality for LGBTQ+ people. We have survived corrupt officials and established guard rails to prevent cheating to gain power and control.
But today, I am grieving the imminent death of the founding fathers’ vision for the nation. The character of the nation is transforming into one of exploitation, oppression, disrespect, prejudice, and hate. The Supreme Court has overturned a woman’s right to make choices regarding her own body. The current presidential administration is threatening and coercing law firms and institutions of higher learning to bend to its will and its ideology and thereby threatening free speech, fair and equal treatment, and intellectual inquiry. The current president is using his position to gain personal wealth and power, establishing personal business contracts with foreign nations and selling personally branded merchandise. The federal legislature has approved a budget that will adversely impact the health and quality of life of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our nation in order to increase the wealth and power of rich people and large corporations. The current presidential administration is detaining and disappearing people who are legally authorized to reside in our nation, ignoring due process and equal protection under the law. The president has ended significant global aid programs which will lead to the deaths of thousands of people. The president and his administration have defied court orders and rejected the rule of law in order to achieve their self-interested goals. Instead of progress, we are regressing toward a less perfect union in which liberty and justice exist only for a select few of the privileged. I am witnessing the destruction of the nation I love and defended through military service by powerful people and their lust for more power and control, who my mother warned me about over 60 years ago.
To be sure, today, July 4, 2025, is not a day of celebration for me. I am sad for the present state of my nation. I am saddened that some of my fellow Americans are celebrating the destruction of “liberty and justice for all” because they are the recipients of power and privilege. I am sad that the president and Republican legislators are celebrating the passage of the budget reconciliation bill which represents the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in US history, which will result in the largest cuts to healthcare and social service programs in history, and real result in the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow Americans. The lack of empathy and a failure to practice Jesus’ instruction to love one another is appalling.
And yet, in my grief, I am not downcast. I am defiant. As the colonists who resisted the tyranny of King George, I declare my independence. I declare my independence from a ruthless, self-interested, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, profane, corrupt president. I refuse to allow him to dictate where I can go, what I can do, what I can read, and what I can speak. I declare my independence from an ideology of hate, discrimination, prejudice, bias, and supremacy. I will not allow this administration, legislature, and judiciary to transform the character of my nation into an autocracy. I declare my independence from a regime that seeks to oppress and exploit the most vulnerable residents. I will stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. I declare my independence from prejudice in which people in power seek to impose their will and ideology upon others simply because they have a different perspective or choose a different lifestyle. I will honor my oath of service to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
As a nine year-old, my mother gave me a vision of what the United States could be, what the United States should be. It is a vision of mutual respect, appreciation for diversity, fair treatment, equality before the law, freedom from oppression and discrimination, freedom to choose one’s pathway. It is a vision of equal opportunity for the resources for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is a vision of an ambitious, desirable future in which the nation is characterized by empathy, respect for the dignity of all people, and love for one another in the sense of seeking what is beneficial to others and acting for the common good. It is a vision of a nation of citizens and immigrants ever progressing toward “a more perfect union” in which there is truly “liberty and justice for all.”
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