Saturday, July 04, 2026
American Independence Day!
Happy 250th American Independence Day! As is our tradition at Unforeseen Contingencies, here is our annual Fourth of July post.
Two hundred and fifty years ago the greatest political document in human history was adopted. The Declaration proclaimed universal truths of unalienable individual rights -- natural rights, the primacy of rights of the people over powers and claims of governments, and the only legitimate purposes of government. It also expressed practical wisdom, noting that to break existing political bonds reasonably required specific evidences, facts of time and place. It is a brilliant document. Notably, it is not just about America in 1776, it is universal, its contents appropriate for all times and places and people.
"The desire for freedom is so much a part of human nature that politicians and deep thinkers try to call other things 'freedom' in order to sell them. They try to call it 'economic freedom' when the government guarantees you food, shelter, and other basics. Prisons have that kind of 'freedom.' So do Communist countries. People try to escape from both, often at the risk of their lives.
The freedom of America is the freedom to live your own life and take your own chances. The American Revolution was more than a rebellion against England. It was a rebellion against the whole idea that some special anointed could tell everyone else what to do. The Constitution of the United States is pervaded by the conviction that no one is to be trusted with too much power."
~ Thomas Sowell, "The Fourth of July" - 1986
Thomas Sowell once observed that the luckiest thing that ever happened to him is that his forbears were enslaved and sent to America. It was not at all lucky for them, of course (although they thus received the "economic freedom" of guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, and employment so beloved by the left!) But Sowell recognizes that as a free citizen in America, one has the greatest opportunities to thrive ever afforded to mankind.
President Calvin Coolidge noted the universality and permanence of the ideas of the Declaration:
"If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."
~ Calvin Coolidge, July 5, 1926
So much for the claims of progressives and socialists/communists to be on the cutting edge of history, a new stage or era. Individual liberty is the one truly revolutionary principle.
I am always surprised when I hear Americans -- from the left or right or wherever -- say how bad things are in our country. The one thing they seem to agree on is that things are worse than ever, hopeless. Wow! For those of us who are Americans, we live in a country where there is no good reason at all to be poor. We live in times of unprecedented future promise. We are on the verge of becoming a truly interplanetary species, with nearly unlimited potential to flourish for anyone with a modicum of gumption and self-responsibility. Here is an example, something I wrote last month for the SpaceX IPO.
And so, celebrate America's 250th anniversary with all of us at Unforeseen Contingencies. Read the Declaration of Independence. Shoot off some fireworks, celebrate with "Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations" as John Adams put it (although he thought it should have been the 2nd of July, when the Continental Congress "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.")
Adams also said "It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty."
We should all always be grateful for liberty, defend it, and never ever take it for granted.
Photo: Unforeseen Contingencies Chief Blogger Charles N. Steele, at the UC Summer Headquarters and Fortified Compound, sporting his SpaceX hat.
