OCCUPY 4th of JULY

Independence Day! A time of celebration for American patriotism. The source of that patriotism is the understanding of freedom, that people should not be subjected to control by illegitimate power. Such power is tyranny. It benefits only those that have the power and forces those deprived of power to bear the costs and burdens necessary to produce such benefits.

The founders of this nation were privileged white men. They rebelled against the established government because they were subjected to control by illegitimate power. That is, their colonial interests were not represented by the government rule they lived under. So, they stood up and did what they could about it.

They wrote up a document that described human rights in both abstract terms and in the broadest language of inclusivity understood for that historical time period. The Declaration of Independence boldly declared that everybody is created with the equality of certain rights. Though the language of the document did not purposefully exclude categories of people, the implementation and practice of the institution it ultimately fostered very much excluded most of the people that were subjected to the new government's rule.

The document declared that governments must derive their just powers from "the consent of the governed". If a form of government becomes destructive of human rights and civic representation, the people should alter or abolish that government because it has become illegitimate... a new tyranny.

The privileged white men had the means and conditions to rebel against their oppressors, who were simply more privileged white men. They engaged in acts of civil disobedience. The Boston Tea Party famously destroyed property in protest of a lack of representation in the government imposing its illegitimate rule over that property. They engaged in armed rebellion.

The oppressed people of this new nation, particularly the ones considered as property themselves, did not have the means and conditions to successfully rebel against their oppressors. Acts of civil disobedience were quelled in the most gruesome and ugly ways. Tyranny seems only a concern of the privileged white men when they are the victims of it, not when they are the perpetrators of it.

Eventually, the abstract terms and philosophy of human rights that originally inspired the privileged white men to change the systemic basis of tyranny, progressed into the wider acceptance of whom the constituency consists of as "the governed".  Conservative resistance erupted into civil war... but ironically this time, the rebels were fighting against freedom. They were fighting what they saw as the tyranny of the federal government in re-defining human slaves as free people instead of their property. They were fighting against progress and for their own power to own other human beings as property.

Today, many people perceive the United States government as the instrument of illegitimate power. In much the same way that the civil war was the product of very polarized perceptions of this problem, so today the "tea party" movement and the "occupy" movement appear at complete odds, though both seem to be making the same claim. The differences between the two boil down to who they feel is being oppressed. A sober analysis of the situation would clarify the reality as much as any unbiased review of the civil war should.

The popular aspects of the "tea party" movement put them in the position of British loyalists as corallary to their role in the American Revolution. They support their own right to free speech and assembly when they have conformed to the government's strictures on it. They chastise the rights of people to peacefully assemble and petition government for redress of grievences when it is done without top-heavy organization and monetary payment to governmental powers for unconstitutional permits.

The popular aspects of the "occupy" movement fit much more comfortably as the position of the American Revolutionaries. Our government has become destructive of the ends of civil representation and human rights. Corporations are now "people" and speech is not "free". We are depriving actual people of their right to representation in rule that directly affects their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We have established speech as a product of monetary investment, not a product of critically scrutinized ideas in equally inclusive forums.

Our national legislative body of elected representatives is overwhelmingly, disproportionately occupied by very wealthy white men in complete incongruity with the identities of the governed population that are subjected to their rule. The laws that come out of that body overwhelmingly benefit wealthy white men at the expense of everyone else that bears the costs and burden of those benefits.

We have a right to alter or to abolish this form of government and to institute a new and better means to effect our safety and happiness. "Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes..." OCCUPY is all about heavy and persistent causes that impel us to the revolution.