This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights.
No, not even the brave men who picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and signed the parchment that summer day in Philadelphia lived up perfectly to the creed. But they did something extraordinary, founding a new nation upon a vow to oppose all the evil habits of tyranny.
That is why history still honors them.
We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart.
Don't imagine that only the torturer's hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that -- to us.
Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little.
We can't claim not to have known. The best among us raised the alarm. Heroes in uniform, judges in robes, they opposed the perverse logic of an administration drenched in fear, drunk on power.
But did we heed them? Hardly. Barely . . .
We were so busy. Soccer practice at 6. A credit card balance to fret. The final vote on Idol.
We left it to those in power to keep our precious selves from harm. Whatever it took.
We took the coward's way.
The world sees this, even if we are too dim to grasp it. We've lost respect. We've shamed the memory of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.
And all for a scam. The waterboarding, the snarling dogs, the theft of sleep -- all the diabolical tricks haven't made us safer. They may have averted this plot or that. But they've spawned new enemies by the thousands, made the jihadist rants ring true to so many ears.
So put out no flags.
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