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Editorial: Where we should be going
Op-Ed · July 16, 2015
When Rev. Richard Paulus, dressed as Samuel Adams, stepped up to the podium on July 4 to read the Declaration of Independence, the news of the day was rife with controversy in America and across the globe.
Paulus, now retired from ministry, has spent years performing as this Founding Father, and coupled his skills at the podium with his knowledge of this political philosopher from Massachusetts.
Addressing the full house in the West Branch High School auditorium, he adopted a tone that he had lost all patience with King George and it was time to start a new country free of the king’s abuses of power.
In light of today’s news about the Iran nuclear agreement, the impact of Greece’s economy on the United States, major decisions by the Supreme Court, and layers upon layers of presidential candidates on both sides making outrageous statements to draw attention and votes … we feel quite frustrated and worn out. We’re not to the breaking point as our Founding Fathers were, but there’s something about how Paulus read those words that rings true and fresh:
• “… a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unailenable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
• “ … whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it …”
• “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Among the accusations against King George are refusing the pass laws for large districts of people “unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature,” and “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” Then there is “establishing therein an Arbitrary government” and “excited domestic insurrections amongst us.”
Paulus recently told our editor that several people, many of them older people, approached him afterward and said they had never heard the entire text of the Declaration of Independence. Our editor, surprised by this, feels compelled now to encourage everyone to take just a few minutes to read it for themselves.
There is much in the Declaration that outlines the intent of the Founding Fathers prior to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, including a lot about what a country ought NOT to do. If read together, these two documents would bring a lot of clarity — and should reduce a lot of unnecessary hyperbole — regarding where our country should be, and where it should be going.
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