a declaration for the ages

On other holidays, we honor our country's veterans; on other holidays, we memorialize those who have died in serving; there's also Armed Forces Day, and lesser-celebrated holidays for the various branches of the military and for various recent battles and victories.

Today, though, we honor an un-military group who did an un-military thing: they published a document, ink on paper, claiming some things to be self-evident that weren't self-evident to most of their international audience. They claimed that all are equal, and they have — by dint of their very existence, not by fiat of the state — the right to live, to be free, and to pursue happiness. Perhaps more audaciously, they claimed that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, something they no doubt saw to be true of dictatorships as much as free lands. Every one of those assertions was controversial, and many have a hard time swallowing them even today — sometimes we ourselves have a hard time swallowing them.

But there they are, ink on paper, sent out into the world to change it. It's inarguable that they themselves saw those rights as available in their completeness only to white male landowners, but no matter: those words rang nonetheless. Over the years our republic has chipped away at the barnacled understanding of those words, the rough-hewn stone that covered the true polished shape of liberty, with much pain and with much howling. The pain continues, and the howling too, and there is still rough stone left, but our edifice is far more an edifice of freedom — of those radically-stated rights — than they ever could have imagined.

Take a moment to pray, sing, breathe gratitude for these people and their vision, and vow to continue chipping away, making those words true all over again.