| Thursday,
July 4, 2002
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united
States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former
Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is
a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most
wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly
neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the
accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public
Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly,
for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the
people.
He has refused for a long time, after such
dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative
powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large
for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all
the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of
these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of
Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither,
and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by
refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for
the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their
substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing
Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent
of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a
jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering
large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock
Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the
Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the
world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of
Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for
pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a
neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and
enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most
valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases
whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us
out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of
foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the
Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive
on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the
executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us,
and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the
merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have
Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions
have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is
thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our
Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by
their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.
We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these
usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and
correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which
denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united
States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the
Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly
publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to
be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that
as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts
and Things which Independent States may of right do. 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.
A Letter from Robert Rocansky
"Sometimes I claim that being an American is a
state of mind and has nothing to do with where one comes from or how one
speaks. As social evolution progresses, I believe that humanity as a whole
will acquire and mix with its other attributes the confidence in itself
and its abilities that I think of as characteristically as American."
-James P. Hogan http://www.jamesphogan.com
"Getting Here from There" MINDS, MACHINES, AND EVOLUTION.
(Bantam Books, 1988).
*****
Eugene Volokh [ http://www.volokh.com
], a professor of law at UCLA, has a moving essay about his parents'
decision to emigrate from the Soviet Union, and the courage required to do
so, at
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-volokh070302.asp
*****
Robert Heinlein ties together the
navy, baboons, dinosaurs, and the space program in his classic speach
about the true meaning of patriotism. Hint: Patriotism is not about flying
a flag on your car antenna when it becomes fashionable to do so.
This is a bit long, but well worth reading.
"The Pragmatics of Patriotism" Robert A.
Heinlein EXPANDED UNIVERSE (Ace Science Fiction Books, 1980)
On 5 April 1973 I delivered the James Forrestal
Memorial Lecture to the Brigade of Midshipmen at my alma mater the United
States Naval Academy. As the first half of the lecture, at the request of
the midshipmen, I discussed freelance writing. This is the second half:
In this complex world, science, the scientific
method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to
everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we
blow ourselves up we will do it by the misapplication of science; if we
manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent
application of science. Science fiction is the only form of fiction which
takes into account this central force in our lives and futures. Other
sorts of fiction, if they notice science at all, simply deplore it -- an
attitude very chichi in the anti-intellectual atmosphere today. But we
will never get out of the mess we are in by wringing our hands.
Let me make one flat-footed prediction of the
science-fiction type. Like all scenarios this one has assumptions --
variables treated as constants. The primary assumption is that World War
Three will hold off long enough -- ten, twenty, thirty years -- for this
prediction to work out. . .plus a secondary assumption that the human race
will not find some other way to blunder into ultimate disaster.
Prediction: In the immediate future -- by that I
mean in the course of the naval careers of the class of '73 -- there will
be nuclear-powered, constant-boost spaceships -- ships capable of going to
Mars and back in a couple of weeks -- and these ships will be armed with
Buck-Rogerish death rays. Despite all treaties now existing or still to be
signed concerning the peaceful use of space, these spaceships will be used
in warfare. Space navies will change beyond recognition our present
methods of warfare and will control the political shape of the world for
the foreseeable future. Furthermore -- and still more important -- these
new spaceships will open the Solar System to colonization and will
eventually open up the rest of the Galaxy.
I did NOT say that the United States will have these
ships. The present sorry state of our country does not permit me to make
such a prediction. In the words of one of our most distinguished graduates
in his THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY: "Popular governments
are not generally favorable to military expenditures, however
necessary--"
Every military officer has had his nose rubbed in
wry truth of Admiral Mahan's observation. I first found myself dismayed by
it some forty years ago when I learned that I was expected to maintain the
ship's battery of USS ROPER in a state of combat readiness on an allowance
of less than a dollar a day -- with World War Two staring down our
throats.
The United States is capable of developing such
spaceships. But the mood today does not favor it. So I am unable to
predict that WE will be the nation to spend the necessary R&D money to
build such ships.
(Addressed to a plebe midshipman:)
Mister, how long is it to graduation?
Sixty-two days? Let's make it closer than that. I
have. . .7.59, just short of eight bells. Assuming graduation for ten in
the morning that gives. . .5,320,860 seconds to graduation. . .and I have
less than 960 seconds in which to say what I want to say.
(To the Brigade at large:)
Why are you here?
(To a second plebe:)
Mister, why are YOU here?
Never mind, son; that's a rhetorical question. You
are here to become a naval officer. That's why this Academy was founded.
That is why all of you are here: to become naval officers. If that is NOT
why YOU are here, you've made a bad mistake. But I speak to the
overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took on becoming
midshipmen and look forward to the day when they will renew that oath as
commissioned officers.
But why would anyone want to become a naval officer?
In the present dismal state of our culture there is
little prestige attached to serving your country; recent public opinion
polls place military service far down the list.
It can't be the pay. No one gets rich on the pay.
Even a 4-star admiral is paid much less than top executives in other
lines. As for lower ranks the typical naval officer finds himself
throughout his career just catching up from the unexpected expenses
connected with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes
a new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over
and retires. . .but he can't really retire because he has two kids in
college and one still to go. So he has to find a job. . .and discovers
that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don't pay well.
Working conditions? You'll spend half your life away
from your family. Your working hours? "Six days shalt thou work and
do all thou art able; the seventh day the same, and pound the cable."
A forty-hour week is standard for civilians -- but not for naval officers.
You'll work that forty-hour week but that's just a starter. You'll stand a
night watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade
your hours get longer -- until at last you get a ship of your own and no
longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a day. .
.and you'll sign your night order book with: "In case of doubt, do
not hesitate to call me."
I don't know the average week's work for a naval
officer but it's closer to sixty than to forty. I'm speaking of peacetime,
of course. Under war conditions it is whatever hours are necessary -- and
sleep you grab when you can.
Why would anyone elect a career which is
unappreciated, overworked, and underpaid? It can't be just to wear a
pretty uniform. There has to be a better reason.
As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa
it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by
looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, and adult
male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him
-- which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard
in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon. .
.but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a
leopard.
The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty
and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male
to relieve him.
Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.
Today, in the United States, it is popular among
self-styled "intellectuals" to sneer at patriotism. They seem to
think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they
treat the military profession with contempt. "Warmongers" --
"Imperialists" -- "Hired killers in uniform" -- you
have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their
favorite quotations is: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel."
What they never mention is that the man who made
that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his
life by a pathological fear of death.
I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is
morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.
Patriotism is the most practical of all human
characteristics.
But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are
often too shy to talk about it -- as if it were something shameful or an
irrational weakness.
But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor
something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of
man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as
eyes are to the individual.
A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead
end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.
To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go
back to fundamentals. Take any breed of animal -- for example,
tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is
that tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.
Which brings us to the second fundamental question:
Will homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?
We can answer part of that at once: Individually h.
sapiens will NOT survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be
alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we
will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here
would be 118 years old by then -- if still alive.
Some men do live that long but the percentage is so
microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that
human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and
a half -- but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man
reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to
die and get out of the way of younger people.
Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us
to the second half of the question: Does homo sapiens AS A BREED have to
die? The answer is: No, it is NOT unavoidable.
We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind
surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second
situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or
otherwise.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define
"moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward
survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose
to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not
think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction"
as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral"
all out of shape.
We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral
behavior from its lowest level to its highest.
The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a
man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such
behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . .but
selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can
be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An
animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is
already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to
crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and
sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which
six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police
dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep
his kids in college -- and the level at which a mother or father dives
into a flood to save a drowning child. . .and it is still moral behavior
even when it fails.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and
sometimes die for a group larger that the unit family -- an extended
family, a herd, a tribe -- and take another look at that baboon on watch;
he's at that moral level. I don't think baboon language is complex enough
to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as "morality" or
"duty" or "loyalty" -- but it is evident that baboons
DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see
them in action. Call it "instinct" if you like -- but remember
that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.
But that baboon behavior can be explained in
evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who
fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for
leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral
behavior; those who bilge it don't have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of
the tribe gives lessons. . .but the leopard decides who graduates -- and
there is no appeal from his decision. We don't have to understand the
details to observe the outcome; Baboons behave morally -- for baboons.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that
exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward
a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We
have a name for that. It is called "patriotism."
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the
astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the
survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope
that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this
solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they
did, it is now possible that the human race will NEVER die.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the
Moon was just a stunt. But that astronauts knew the meaning of what they
were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down
onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for
mankind."
Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut
Corps are graduates of this our school.
And let me add that James Forrestal was the FIRST
high-ranking Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I
mentioned earlier. . .for they contend that THEIR actions are on this
highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their
purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that
too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel --
and they'll tell you that to your face.
I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my
criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on
tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its
affairs sensibly, we could do without war.
Yes -- and if pigs had wings, they could fly.
I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are
talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who
has seen the Far East -- or Africa -- or the Middle East -- knows are
certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the
foreseeable future. In the past few years I have ben around the world
three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of
the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South
America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The
seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep,
and will not be abolished by pious platitudes.
The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of
power among the nations capable of waging total war -- while endless
lesser wars break out here and there.
I won't belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with
custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not on place
where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States
still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes --
else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism -- Moral behavior at the national level.
Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale's last words: "I regret that I have
but one life to give for my country." Torpedo Squadron Eight making
its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises
around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, "The Tree of Liberty must be
refreshed form time to time with the blood of patriots--" A submarine
skipper giving the order "Take her DOWN!" while he himself is
still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and
shouting, "The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs
tough sons of bitches who can go out there an WIN!"
Patriotism -- An abstract word used to describe a
type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It
means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if
it costs you your life.
Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had
another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract
expression "patriotism." Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words
"Patriotism" reads "Women and children first!"
And that is the moral result of realizing a
self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are
not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still
pick up the pieces and go on. . .as long as the women and children are
saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it,
you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed
that bilged its final test.
I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and
often have. I have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have
on my side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain
military service. My wife put in three years and a butt active duty in
World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud -- very proud! -- of
her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in uniform; they
are a shining example to us men.
Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the
facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the
ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on
"Women and children first" -- and any attempt to do it any other
way leads quickly to extinction.
Possibly exctinction is the way we are headed. Great
nations have died in the past; it can happen to us.
Nor am I certain how good our chances our. To me it
seems self-evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on
the skids. Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a
matter of time. I don't know how deeply the rot has penetrated -- but it
seems to me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty
years. Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but
unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost its
grip on a large percentage of our people.
I hope I am wrong. . .because if my fears are well
grounded, I would not bet two cents on this nation's chance of lasting
even to the end of this century.
But there is now way to force patriotism on anyone.
Passing a law will not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so
many billions of dollars.
You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You
are going to a school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by
precept and example. It is not enough to know what Charlie NOble does for
a living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice
the main brace and why -- nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation and
ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These things are
merely the working tools of your profession and could be learned
elsewhere; they do not require "four years together by the Bay where
the Severn joins the tide."
What you do have here is a tradition of service.
Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson
is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that
shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: "Don't Give Up the
Ship."
If you feel nothing, you don't belong here. But if
it give you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are
going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the
years. . .until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the
list of your own honored dead -- classmates, shipmates, friends -- read
them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
The time has come for me to stop. I said that
"Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children
first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he
must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no
uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is
what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child,
my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to
Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with
picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight
through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were
crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she
managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could
not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot
loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties.
He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No
luck --
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled.
Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not.
In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free. . .and the
train hit them.
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally
injured and did later, the tramp was killed -- and testimony showed that
neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband's behavior was heroic. . .but what we
expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege,
to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very
last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to
save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very
instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
THIS is how a man dies.
This is how a MAN. . .lives!
"They shall not grow old as we that are left
grow old age shall not wither them nor the years condemn; As the going
down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them..."
-Tomb of the Scottish Unknown Soldier, Edinburgh
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