A More Serious Reflection on the Statute of Liberty

You’ve heard a bit of this poem by Emma Lazarus that is inscribed on the base of the statue:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Her lamp is lifted and lit. Her welcome, not so much as they say.
We no longer welcome the world. We are afraid. Socially, economically, defensively. Probably with cause; but, remember when we took in all comers? They brought with them a burning desire to be what they could be.

I just realized this is a Fourth of July post. To start at the end, here’s something that fictional President Thomas Whitmore said:

“Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”

Perhaps, we should focus on the boldface in the quote. The aliens aren’t coming to get us just yet. But we, with our fears of each other, will be the end of us.

Damn Mexicans, welfare mothers, greedy corporations, crazy Muslims.

From a real live document:

“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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

We were given a good start. A system of government that, to this day, mostly works. Abundant resources. DNA and culture contributed by a myriad of peoples, constantly replenished. We’ve done well, in many ways with what we’ve inherited. More and more though, we are squandering what we have been given.

“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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.”

So, in 2008, on Independence Day, is there cause to follow the counsel of the Declaration?

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

None of our candidates for election this fall, local, state or federal, will save us from ourselves. We are the authors of our fates, we don't have to overthrow the government to follow the counsel of our first national document.

To steal a quote from a wise blogger:

"’We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.’ ~Martin Luther King, Jr.” (From Living Next Door to Alice.)

I know that is all touchy-feely; it’s almost as bad a Rodney King’s “why can’t we all just get along?”

But, MLK and Rodney, had a point. Until we learn the lesson preached in “President Whitmore’s” speech, and written in our own Declaration of Independence, we will not fulfill the promise allowed by what we were given.

So, on this Independence Day, think about what the Declaration means and promises. Rather than fighting with each other, would it be so hard to figure out what we need, and other people need, and work a deal? Maybe easier to say and do here in the good old USA - and we aren’t doing such a good job of it; and, there’s little hope in the near future of this approach working worldwide.

That said, wasn’t the speech in the movie cool and inspiring? And we kicked alien ass!