Consent of the governed~

It's 9:30 p.m. Independence Day, and I sit home in a comfy chair with a glass of Merlot, instead of on a blanket at the field where fireworks will blast off momentarily. Cool rainy weather slid in toward evening replacing the sun, and changing our plans as well.
I'm watching a documentary on the Military channel, something my husband had on. It's about the Revolutionary War.

"I wonder if we would have been Loyalists," I said to my husband.

I can't imagine that I would have been, but this is now. Who knows what I would have thought in 1775?

Maybe I would never have stepped foot in the New World to begin with, choosing to stay home when friends and family sailed for a new life. I might have thought terrible things about the rebels in America, the ungrateful wretches. How could they turn on the country that gave them so much?

"No." Bruce says, certain as always. We would never have been Loyalists.

But he couldn't explain his certainty. "I just don't think we would have been," he says.

Idle speculation, while interesting, will never yield an answer.

Still, in the here and now, I am a loyalist. Loyal to the principles upon which this nation was founded, loyal to ideas and standards that uphold these principles. I'm a watchful loyalist, a careful loyalist, knowing that subtle shifts in thinking, and beliefs, by leaders who have different loyalties can turn the path of this nation far from its original intent.

We can't know what the future holds. We need to stay watchful. We need to speak up-- using the freedom we have to do so-- when our leaders step off the ideal path. We need to make sure our loyalties run deeper by far than to any leader, or any party; that our loyalty is to the greater good, not just of this beautiful country, but to the entire planet and all we share it with.
~~~~~
From The Declaration of Independence


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, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of 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.