My Fourth Of July Reflections

For some people the Fourth of July is the most important holiday in America. Sadly, not for all, especially not just now when most of the leadership of the country has made it clear that principles do not matter. What matters is what is expedient or practical, which is something very unstable.

Sadly, there is an element to the Fourth that has always been a liability. It is that principles of politics, economics, ethics or any other practical field have been championed as if they were like principles of geometry, logic or mathematics, namely, timelessly true, certain beyond a shadow of a doubt. Like timeless laws of nature! And no practical principles can be like that since the future can always bring to light facts that could require modifying them. This was something the framers of the American system were well aware of, which is why they included the amendment provision in the constitution. This doesn't mean principles do not exist; only that they are always to be understood within the most up to date context of their subject matter.

Because the basic principles that are to be celebrated on the Fourth of July are derived from human nature, which remains stable over centuries on end, they are good guides to the way a human community should be framed or constituted. Human nature hasn't changed for a very long time and so it can serve as a stable basis for how human communities are to be conceived and governed. Many aspects of human life change but human nature has remained stable, unchanging for centuries and so it can serve as the basis of a legal order, just as the American founders believed, based on their study of some of the great moral and political thinkers in human history.

If, however, the possibility of having to make some changes, amendments, alterations or modifications on those principles is denied, their credibility suffers. No one can reasonably guarantee that those principles will never need some alteration and by promising that they won't, they become vulnerable to valid skeptical doubts. And those who have not liked the principles of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights, all the statists who live in the country, can take advantage of this and even ridicule the idea of our finding such stable basic principles. By making the mistake of claiming that the principles are everlasting they are put into jeopardy at the hands of their detractors and enemies.

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