DAD, WHAT's UNABHANGIKEITSTAG?

Annual Vanity ^ | July 4, 2005 | Nathan Bedford

[nathanbedford]

DAD, WHAT's UNABHANGIKEITSTAG?

"Is that when the thirteen colonies broke away from England?" My ten year inquired out of nowhere at 6 AM German time this morning. "Yeah, why do you want to know, eat your breakfast," I mumbled, too sleepy to be very curious. "Because I am afraid my teacher will ask me, since I am wearing this T-shirt and I'm the only American in the class." With an effort, I adjusted my gaze upward to his white T-shirt. It was brand new. Prominent on his breast was an image of the flag and below that:

OLD NAVY

FREEDOM 2005 TRADITION

Waking up now, I reflected that if the Old Navy company could so shamelessly trade on the image of the flag, it ought in decency at least amend the line below to:

FREEDOM 2005 COMMERCE

But then I thought, what could be more traditional in America than commercializing the flag?

"Waddayamean, you're the only American in class, what's that got to do with the Fourth of July?" My paternal antannae were also coming to life. I remembered that the kids had sometimes returned from Gymnasium, German high school, and recited seemingly off-hand remarks from professors disparaging America and especially George Bush. Some of the hearsay reports had been pretty rough, describing America as killing Iraqis or causing global warming and the like.

"I think he will call on me to explain the Declaration of Indepencence to the whole class," masking his apprehension. "So, what will you tell them?"

"That is how we got free of England," he replied, in German. "That's right, as far as it goes. Never mind breakfast, lets get to the computer, it time to search FreeRepublic." A few minutes later we had a copy of the declaration printed out, with the font changed to italics for psuedo verisimiltude to the venerable document.

"There is actually a couple of ideas in here that are more important than announcing our break with England," I said, highlighting with a yellow marker this passage:

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

And this passage too:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

"This means that who you are, what rights you have, come directly from God and not from the government. In fact, the government is there to serve you, as a child of God, not the other way around, and when the government takes away your rights, the government is not legitimate, and you can change it."

"What's legitimate?" Ah, " berechtigt," I answered. I must have gotten it right for he seemed satisfied with the translation and his Deutsch is better than mine. Handing him the printout, I said, "take this with you, read it on the bus, and when you get to class you tell them these ideas are America's gift to the world. A lot of people in Europe think your rights come from the government, not the other way around. No one had ever done this 'for real' before. Look what it says here just before where they signed it, it means they knew they were risking their lives:"

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor

"OK, dad, see ya."

An hour later, his mother asked me, "Did you give him a printout of the Declaration of Independence?" "Yup," I proudly responded.

She laughed, "He said, 'Dad really expects me to read this on the schoolbus'"

[nathanbedford]

Every year my wife asks, "are you going to post your vanity about the Declaration of Independence again this year?" Her question is really rhetorical, she knows I intend to post it because it has become a tradition in the family much like whether your family opens your Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. A family tradition for us as familiar as Thanksgiving turkey. Do you display the flag on Memorial Day?

For us, living as we do here in Germany, it is our way of holding fast to our America. Every year we keep the tradition and then await the reactions of FReepers which have been consistently gratifying and even heartwarming.

So the tradition goes on into its seventh year even as the imperative to return to and cling to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution becomes more urgent as our country founders in the midst of a terrible "fundamental transformation" imposed upon us, partly by stealth, by a marxist President who despises the nation created by the very Declaration of Independence we revere today.

"Transformed" by domestic forces within, we are buffeted by a multigenerational jihad against the principles which founded America. Our representative democracy is made more vulnerable, as any government of the people would be, by a financial crisis itself made worse, perhaps deliberately, by our own leaders bent on transforming America away from the only values which can save her. Even our judiciary rather than acting as the Protector of the Constitution seems to have turned its face from us.

The 10 year old boy in the story of seven years ago exchanged his Tee shirt for a tie and a real suit four days ago and we all went proudly off to his high school graduation, his Abschluss from Gymnasium. Our parental expectations had been, to paraphrase John Kennedy, to send him into the world and onto college equipped with the best of both worlds, a German education and an American birthright, bequeathed to him by the founders in the Declaration of Independence.

He has a piece of paper, written out in German, certifying his accomplishment of the course of study laid out in an elite German high school. There is a piece of parchment reposing in the Library of Congress drafted by Thomas Jefferson but written in blood at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosen Reservoir, Tet, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan.

Both belong to him.... If he can keep them.

Happy Independence Day to all from all of us in Germany!

[Actually_in_Tokyo]

Very nice. Thank you.

[ClearCase_guy]

"Because I am afraid my teacher will ask me, since I am wearing this T-shirt and I'm the only American in the class."

I can't say that my kids actually had the same experience, but it could have turned out that way for them -- you see: we live in a blue state.

[sauropod]

Vielen Dank fur mit schreiben! Mein Deutch nicht gut!

Here is what I wrote my kids on their facebook page:

“BTW, remember this day, A lot of people suffered all kinds of privations, separations from their families for long periods of time, and died so you could have this country and your freedom. Both in 1776 and in 1863.”

‘Pod

[sauropod]

According to the Dynamo from Dundalk (Big Government Babs Mikulski) we live in a “cobalt blue” state. /retch

[Fiji Hill]

In 1968, I spent a couple months in Germany and on July 4 was staying with a local family in the village of Kindenheim, in Rheinpfalz. I told my hosts, "heute ist Unabhängigkeitstag" (today is Independence Day) and explained what it commemorated.

Later on, I visited Prague, Czechoslovakia, and left three weeks before Soviet tanks rolled in.

[rlmorel]

NathanBedford, I haven't read your annual vanity before...I love it. There are days I think it is gone, it is all going to "go away", and it brings me pretty low.

And then I read a piece like this from another American, and recognize anew that just because this country elected someone like Obama as President, that doesn't mean all Americans see our government and its principles the way Obama voters do.

My wife and I visited Washington DC last month, and went on a tour of the Library of Congress. We were with a group of about 10-15 people, and we came to the beautiful main reading room where the guide explained how the statues on top of the large columns were meant to symbolize what characteristic features of civilized life and thought had been imparted to mankind, such as Religion, Commerce, History, Art, Philosophy, Poetry, Law and Science.

The guide (who was a tad prissy, and an obvious liberal) said that the Greeks contributed Philosophy and so on as she named various civilizations. She said "What 'gift' did the United States impart to the world?" I immediately said: "Our form of government".

She dismissed that notion both audibly (in the tone of her voice) and visibly (as if the thought of that being true was equivalent to having a cat turd held under her nose). "Er, no. Many countries have 'government'. The United States was thought to have contributed 'science'..."

I really wanted to argue it with her, but...that wasn't the time or place. Your piece, when you tell your son: "...and when you get to class you tell them these ideas are America's gift to the world. A lot of people in Europe think your rights come from the government, not the other way around. No one had ever done this 'for real' before..." said exactly what I felt.

Science? Bah. A LOT of countries had, and still have 'science', but there was no country that delivered a radical set of governing principles like the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.

[RobbyS]

Sad to say that Germans have so little sense of true republicanism, which is more than the lack of a king. It is the lack of government with the power of a king. The Weimar Republic, unfortunately, saw fit to vest in the President “emergency powers,” under(What was it, Article XVII?) Which meant when parliamentary government broke down after 1930, Germany was ruled by decree. When Hitler came to power, he simply built his illegitimate power on what had been legitimate. But even the Basic Law of the old West Germany, operated pretty much like a monarchy without a crowned head. It was a republicanism of the head,not the heart. Ordered liberty with more emphasis on order than liberty. Now even that liberty is threatened by the transfer of power to Brussels.

[Gritty]

Very nice!

Have a Happy Independence Day!

Reading and understanding the Declaration of Independence and how we got there is foundational to understanding America and is something which should be required of all American students. Unfortunately, most are being "educated" in fiefdoms run by teachers unions and Liberals so instead they get taught crap and are abysmally educated.

Frankly, if we are going to fix what is wrong with this country, this is one of the first places we need to start.

[IronJack]

Vaguely similar story ...

I was in Europe as a young man, bumming my way around. On Independence Day, I was in Calais, France, sitting at the quay awaiting a ferry to Dover. It occurred to me that nothing would be open when I got there, this being the Fourth of July and all. Then I realized sheepishly that in Europe, the Fourth of July is the day after the Third. It was meaningless to the crowd of people milling around me. And a feeling of homesickness and alienation swept over me that made me want to hop the first plane home.

But just as I was almost in tears, I looked down the dock and saw three huge Massey-Ferguson combines sitting there, obviously just unloaded from a container ship moored in the harbor. Those symbols of American commerce, American ingenuity, and American agriculture -- sitting shiny and proud on a dock halfway around the world, made me realize that this country is more than a military and cultural power. It is truly the conscience of the world, the bar-setter for anyone who would rise above squalor and privation. It sells its wares and its ideas in every corner of the planet, and where it does, lives are made better.

[Verginius Rufus]

I was once in Vienna on the Fourth of July. As I was walking down one of the major streets downtown, a young man was passing out pieces of paper so I took one. It turned out to be a screed from the local Communist Party denouncing the United States.

Actually sounded pretty much like the stuff you hear all the time from the mainstream media in this country.

[philman_36]

Well I'm going to rain on your parade...

"Did you give him a printout of the Declaration of Independence?"
Snip...the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution becomes more urgent...
Snip...Our representative democracy...
You should have given him a copy of the Constitution as well as the DoI so that he comes to understand that we have a Constitutional Republic instead of a representative democracy.

Article IV, Section. 4 The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...

An Important Distinction: Democracy versus Republic

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a Democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

This is true whether it be a Direct Democracy, or a Representative Democracy.

Snip...

In both the Direct type and the Representative type of Democracy, The Majority’s power is absolute and unlimited; its decisions are unappealable under the legal system established to give effect to this form of government. This opens the door to unlimited Tyranny-by-Majority. This was what The Framers of the United States Constitution meant in 1787, in debates in the Federal (framing) Convention, when they condemned the "excesses of democracy" and abuses under any Democracy of the unalienable rights of The Individual by The Majority.

Democracy in any form is mob rule.

[philman_36]

You would have been better served to tell him that we have a Constitutional Republic with democratic elements.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for the subtle distinctions which I will keep in the forefront of my consciousness the next time I am discussing the fine points of representative democracy as distinguished from a constitutional republic with a 10-year-old at 6 AM.

May I quote freely from your texts?

[DeaconBenjamin]

The movie Amadeus was filmed in Czechoslovakia in 1984. The director's cut DVD tells the following story.

On July 4, they were filming in the Prague opera house. All of a sudden, a huge American flag drops down over the stage, and the Czech extras start singing the Star Spangled Banner. The Americans all panic, thinking they will be arrested. Then they notice that there are about a dozen Czechs not singing, but looking around frightened, and realize those are the secret police, and that the Americans probably have nothing to fear. It is a great story, and I wish I could do it more justice.

[Kit cat]

I have not seen this post previously, THANK-YOU so much. Keep the
tradition going as young NEW FREEPERS will have the chance to
enjoy your post every year!!!

[Roadgeek]

So eine nette Geschichte aber auch :-)

What a lovely story, Mr. NB :-)

Happy Birthday, dear America, Happy Birthday to you!

And not to forget: all the best for your son, Sir!

[Mycroft Holmes]

Chow for paragraph eater.

Very nice essay captures the essence of what used to be America. Unfortunately, we here back in the states, have dumped all of the juicy meaning and kept just the pretty words to trot out on national holidays. With the current (and past) administrations, the words mean what they want them to mean, no more, no less.

One often sees the easy comparison between the current state of affairs and Orwell's 1984, but I think that mistaken. I think we have been through 40 years of Huxley's Brave New World and are now through the looking glass into Carrol's Alice in Wonderland.

Color me well and truly tired of running the Red Queen's Race.

I, for one, would welcome the return of constitutional government. /.

[21twelve]

I read the Declaration of Independence to all my kids last fall as one of them was studying U.S. history and part of it was “why did we break off from England”. Hard to read though as my eyes would water periodically.

[HiTech RedNeck]

To be an arm of England would only be a little worse than what we got now.