Shattered Cross

I know a lot of fancy dancers,
People who can glide you on a floor,
They move so smooth but have no answers.
When you ask, "Why'd you come here for?"
"I don't know why."
--Hard Headed Woman, Cat Stevens

Don't bring me your tales of temptation and loss
The rags of your dreams
Your shattered cross
I have heard your confession I know who you blame
If you had it all back you'd just lose it again
--Shattered Cross, Darrel Scott
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A meditation on independence:

The Declaration of Independence is a simple, straightforward document, and illuminating when read not swaddled in the flag.

The words translated into action which created the USA, whose birthday we celebrate this weekend. But looked at another way, our Founding fathers were criminals and traitors as they were rebelling against the legally constituted government of the colonies.

These men whom we revere were guerrillas, insurgents and rebels, quite simply. In addition, the document which they penned was not quite so revolutionary when one takes into consideration that most of the ideas had already been stated in places like the 1689 English Bill of rights (Independence, British-Style). Their innovation was to cobble on Rousseau's concept of natural rights.

Fast-Forward to 2009, and this government has forces deployed to over 80 nations around the world. We now fight and kill guerrillas, insurgents and rebels, calling them an evil. It seems our moral yardstick is not so absolute as it once was, or perhaps it never was.

Our War Department has morphed into a Defense Department, which does not live up to the name. Our far-flung troops are not exactly defending the homeland. Running NATO right up to the Russian borders, fighting in AFPAK and shuttering 130,000 troops in Iraq is not exactly "providing for the common defense."

Yet instead of asking, "Why?" the American people get caught up in the war maker's fancy dancing about their "How". We are offensive, in a defensive sort of way, and even the liberal democratic politicians will not extricate us from these quagmires.

We fight wars to keep the Koreans from invading Korea, and to keep the Vietnamese from fighting the Vietnamese. Ditto Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. has bypassed the Prussian model, as the state exists as an instrument of the defense establishment and related industries. The President is relegated to the position of rubber-stamping Department of Defense policy.

The U.S. was born in violence and illegal revolution, yet we now fight to deny others this same option. Nations have the right to determine their own destiny -- this is the basis of the Declaration of Independence.

Times change, but principles are immutable. We hold these truths to be self-evident.