Independence Day makes Progressives squirm. They despise the principles of the American Revolution. If they could, their scotus judges would gut the Declaration as thoroughly as they have the Constitution. To them, our Noble Declaration, this expression of God-given reason subverts social justice; they are right.
Since the Declaration is indeed hostile to their moral relativism, the Left has long attempted to minimize our founding to a fuzzy faith in the people. The “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and “all men are created equal,” translates in their Marxist minds as widespread democracy accompanied with equal stuff to all. It is in the democratic atmosphere alone in which their demagogues can incite the people into various factions constantly at each other’s throats.
Despite their efforts they can’t twist the Declaration into a statement of majoritarianism. A few minutes in actual reading and contemplation puts their slogans to rest. In the Preamble the Founders dissolved political bands, the statutory power of Great Britain. However, left untouched were the moral bands which connect all men, which are derived from the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Consent of the governed is not a rule for democracy. Consent is the means to an end, the security of our unalienable rights. Majoritarian consent alone is insufficient to make political power just, for we are all subject to the Law of Reason, the Natural Law. If numbers alone made right, the American Revolution would be deprived of its moral justification. The moral order comes first. Only after they had set forth that order did the Founders turn to government. And there too they were clear: government is instituted to secure our rights—that is its purpose. And it gets its just powers from the consent of the governed.
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