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Today, Let's Read Jefferson's NEXT Paragraph... [1]
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Date: 2025-07-04
Happy Fourth of July! Today we remember the revolutionary truth that inspired our Founding Fathers: that our power to create the future we want is here in our own hands. That power doesn’t come from the White House or a corporate boardroom or the Sky Lounge of a billionaire’s mega-yacht. It’s of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, Thomas Jefferson penned words that still thunder across the centuries:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Almost everyone knows those words. But today is the day to celebrate Jefferson’s next words. He wrote something even more radical, something that speaks directly to this moment in our history:
"That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Read those words, then read them again out loud. Feel their power. Our founders didn't just declare independence from a king—they declared that We, the People, have the right and responsibility to reshape any system that fails to serve our ability to flourish. People forget that the Founding Fathers knew, as they signed the Declaration, that they’d be executed if the revolution failed. They risked everything for this audacious experiment: a nation where we, the people, hold the power to govern.
We all know that experiment is coughing up blood: not from malign foreigners but from our own alienation and despair. Millions of Americans are angry and hopeless enough to elect a malignant sociopath as President just to lash out at the shadowy forces keeping them down (not knowing that Trump is the leader of the shadowy forces). They perceive the government as “destructive to the ends” of living a happy life as a free people. To these people, I say this:
The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence declared that you have the PERFECT RIGHT to institute a NEW government based on the principles most likely to effect your safety and happiness.
Some of these principles can include:
Everyone who wants a job can have one.
Everyone (especially children) who needs a meal can get one.
Every citizen has the right to a great, free education from pre-school through university.
Every citizen has the right to free medical care. This includes preventive care and vaccinations from deadly diseases. This right cannot be voted away to give tax breaks to billionaires.
Every citizen is guaranteed due process of law to prevent unfair seizure and imprisonment on the whim of crooked politicians.
I’ve written a novel about a rust belt town in Pennsylvania that gets fed up with what’s going on and decides to take Jefferson seriously. This town creates a barter-based, volunteer authority (I call it ‘socialism without government’) to do what I’ve just described.
I didn’t make any of this up. It’s based on what happened in Cuba in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, and stopped sending Castro 7 million dollars a day in aid. This is now called “The Special Period.” The people of Cuba, faced with starvation, self-organized, grew their own food, and gave it away in free farmers’ markets. It’s an amazing story of pro-active self-empowerment.
You can find the book here.
The characters in the book write about their experiences in this Substack, with new posts once a week.
Happy Fourth of July! Got freedom if ya want it!
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