What Is Independence: A Gaggle of Definitions

4 July 2009: What Is Independence?

--- - - - - -Thomas Jefferson once said he'd rather celebrate - -the Fourth-of July than his own birthday. For me, it's pretty simple-the-Fourth of July weekend is my birthday weekend-George W. Bush-on July 4, 2008 [quote from usapatriotism.com]

--Let fortune do her worst, . . . as long as she -never makes us lose our honesty and our independence, -Alexander Pope-[from Webster's Revised Unabridged (1913) by way of dictionary.net]

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I took five pages of notes on the word and idea of independence, resisting all the definitions of patriotism that appeared tangentially. There were a lot of definitions by contrast: what independence is not. For instance, here is what our president had to say (quoted on huffpost):

----- Loving your country shouldn't just mean watching fireworks-on the 4th of July. Loving your country must mean accepting-your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do,-your life will be richer, our country will be stronger.

I would not call this Obama's finest rhetorical achievement. In fact, it doesn't make much sense, even for children. We all do lots more than watching fireworks once a year. Let's move on.

In another negative context, Joseph Farah at worldnetdaily.com has this to say:

----- Our political and cultural elite don't want to see a nation full of- independent-minded, self-governing citizens who will hold- their leaders accountable to their will and the la ws of the land.-They would prefer sheep. So they have conspired to bring in to -America millions and millions more sheep  illegally. . . ."independence" - that thing for which our founders risked their -lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

----- The sad truth is the American dream of independence has been- betrayed. Americans are worse off today, in terms of individual- freedom, than they were before the War of Independence. In -fact, take a look at the dictionary definition of "colony" and see -if it doesn't apply to us today.

Many definitions of independence involve money-not having to depend on others for one's subsistence. Wiki defines it politically: "the self-government of a nation, country, or state by its residents and population, or some portion thereof, generally exercising sovereignty."

And at answers.com, independence means

the condition of being politically free: autonomy, freedom,-independency, liberty, self-government, sovereignty. See- dependence/independence, free/unfree; the capacity-to manage one's own affairs, make one's own judgments,-and provide for oneself: self-determination, self-reliance,-self-sufficiency.-

Here are a few more:

----- What I perceive the definition of independence [to be] is the absolute -freedom to do what you want, and to not be held back by any -rules or laws of government or man, but by the rules and- laws of nature and your own self concise [I don't know what-he means by "concise" here-probably fault of spellcheck;-I would have had to pay to read more of this awkward yet- sincere essay, author unnamed, at helpme.com.]

The state or quality of being independent; freedom from- dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by,-others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's -own affairs without interference. (brainyquote.com)-

And how is July 4 defined by none less than the venerable Webster's Revised Unabridged, itself nearly one hundred years old?-

a civil holiday for the celebration of the anniversary of the beginnings of national independence; specifically:-July 4 observed as a legal holiday in the United States in -commmemoration of the adoption of the Declaration of-Independence in 1776. [Merriam-Webster On Line, taken from Webster's Unabridged, 1913]

Wiki marks the first declaration of independence as Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath (April 6, 1320) and the most recent as Abhkazia's Act of State Independence, from Georgia, which considers both it and South Ossetia as "occupied territories." Two "recognized" countries in the world currently recognize Abkhazia's sovereignty: Russia and Nicaragua.

Today is the 233^nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I remember our Bicentennial in 1976. This country had just exited Vietnam ("peace with honor") but wasn't through devastating Southeast Asia. Domestically, we were still recovering from Watergate-small potatoes compared with the Bush 43 administration that has so far gotten away with murder, literally and lots of it.

In Boston, where I lived at the time, the "People's Bi-centennial" was celebrated on April 1975, remembering the Boston Tea Party (which actually occurred on December 16, 1773). According to Wiki, in front of a large crowd, "several people threw packages labeled 'Gulf Oil' and 'Exxon' into Boston Harbor in symbolic opposition to corporate power." Descendants of the sexton of Old North Church in 1776 lit the first two lanterns, and President Ford lit a third lantern at the church to signify this country's third century of freedom and commemorate Paul Reverend and William Dawes's ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

According to absoluteastronomy.com, they did not say, "The British are coming!" in that most of the people receiving their words considered themselves to be British, but rather something like "The Regulars are coming out!" Though the content is accurate about the lanterns lit in the steeple of the Old North Church as a brief signal to troops in Charlestown, the words "One if by land, two if by sea" originate from Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride."

On July 4, 1776, President Gerald Ford went to Philadelphia, where both the Declaration and the Constitution were written and the Liberty Bell is kept, to deliver a ringing speech in front of Independence Hall. Here are some excerpts I find most relevant to our troubled times in 2009 and the preceding eight years:

-- - The American settlers had many, many hardships, but - - ---- -they had more- liberty than any other people on Earth.

-That purpose [of the Declaration] is to secure the rights of the- individuals against even government itself. But the Declaration- did not tell us how to accomplish this purpose or what kind- of government to set up.-

[B]ut the struggle for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-is never truly won. Each generation of Americans, indeed -of all humanity, must strive to achieve these aspirations anew.

--We must increase the independence of the individual and the- opportunity of all Americans to attain their full potential. -[all quotes taken from text of speech, fordlibrary.gov]

The late Tony Snow, Bush 43's press secretary and prior to that a Fox News anchor, claimed that Thanksgiving is the real Independence Day. This is what he said on November 22, 2004:

Thanksgiving is America's defining holiday. The - --people who sailed- to our rough and forbidding shores wanted to lay claim not just[to] cliffs of stone and forested wilderness. They pursued an idea:A republic that would secure liberty by venerating virtue -or to put it in less highfalutin terms, a place where people could do what they wanted because they could trust their neighbors.-[from tonysnow.blogspot.com]

Though Snow also pointed out that the first Thanksgiving was proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War in 1863, the holiday would not have existed without the prior brilliance and self-sacrifice of not only the founding fathers but the unnamed people who helped realize their epochal ideals and amazing foresight.

We have strayed a bit from defining independence to expressions like liberty and freedom. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines liberty in terms of freedom: "the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases," and so forth; And in its definition of freedom, M-W specifies independence as a synonym.

There are many overlapping terms that all contribute to our celebration of July 4, which encompasses many realized ideals and others we aspire toward. To quote Joseph Farah again, "The sad truth is the American dream of independence has been betrayed. Americans are worse off today, in terms of individual freedom, than they were before the War of Independence."

-Back then the main fear was attacks by the peoples whose lands we invaded and purchased for trifles. Now much of our enslavement as sheep is imposed by the so-called First Estate. In fact they not only depend on our tax money to maintain their luxurious lifestyles, but on loans from countries with budget surpluses. They lack independence. So who is free in this country? Who is independent? Who enjoys liberty? I will return to another negative to account for what we do have: lots of disadvantaged people, a disgraceful number forced to pay taxes to support the wealthy instead of spending the funds on health insurance. But how many of us are better off here than any other place in the world?

-I don't know for sure, but I do count my blessings every day and haven't been overseas since 2001. On July 4, sitting alone writing, my favorite pastime, accountable to no one except taxes, the grim reaper, family and friends sporadically, and all of the troubles of the world. I feel independent. Democracy is alive if not exactly healed from the last eight years. And the harder we work to maintain it, as hard as did the Colonists in the 1770s and onward, the closer we come to our ideals, the closer to independence even in this globalized environment the world has become.

So until then when we will have even more to celebrate, I wish you a happy Independence Day and the hope that it will remain on the calendar forever, with good reason and not just the euphemism quoted above in the first epigraph.

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