America’s 250th Birthday
By: Worshipful Alexander Szramoski, Grand Chaplain
Well America here we are; the big two-fifty. It’s hard to believe our nation is a quarter of a millennium old now. Contemporary historians always refer to America as a young nation but I argue that it’s a point of perspective. Of course, you could argue that the founding of America originates in Jamestown in 1607 a full one hundred and sixty-nine years prior to the official founding date. You might even hear a few perspectives that say the idea of America is as old as the Magna Carta for being a document foundational to the idea of limiting government powers.
The argument I prefer is regarding the age of our constitution relative to those of our contemporaries. France, a strong supporter of American independence has since then burned through constitutions. Since their revolution at the end of the 18th century, they have had twelve. The document that impowers their current government was adopted in 1958.
Brazil, South America’s largest nation had its most recent constitution adopted in 1988 and that is their seventh since declaring independence from Portugal.
Spain, an early opponent in American history has had ten constitutions and their last was adopted 1978.
Canada, our northern neighbor adopted their most recent constitution in 1982. Fear not, it is only their second.
All of these nations are as old or older than America but the number of foundational documents they have tested, revised and replaced is staggering to our American perspective. It is haunting for us as it appears to be a sign of instability. How could any government get a constitution wrong? How much did their people change in less than a century or even a few decades at a time to justify these foundational changes?
These questions wrack us as Americans because the idea that our constitution may become so inflexible that it demands replacement is simply unfathomable. We can’t imagine replacing our constitution because it is so flexible, that’s the miracle our Founders wrought out of their ideals like Michealangelo wrought art from marble.
That idea being that the tangible powers of the government are derived from the consent of the people and not inherent to the authorities themselves. That rights are natural privileges which should be protected by the government, not distributed and defined by the government. That you own the things you make, that you are free to live your life as you see fit with respect to your fellow man, that we might speak, think, worship and print freely are things that are inherently given to us by God and not man. For if it was given by man, man shall take it away and by force as the history of all tyrants has shown.
This birthday of our nation is also a time of doubt. Freedom is becoming more like another word in a sea of advertisement, noise and apathy. Freedom used to mean something idyllic, there was also a consensus among Americans about what freedom really means.
For a lot of people, they have an induvial understanding of what freedom means and by all means I understand it. That’s freedom; I can choose what freedom looks like for myself. But in my heart, I feel as though something was lost in translation. One brother says freedom means up, the other says it means down. One says freedom is left, the other says right. One says freedom is green, the other says it is yellow. Yes, we are free to say these things but how strong is our freedom if we cannot find common ground with it.
For our founders there was a simple answer to this; Join or Die. It was not an open threat; it was a guarantee. As the colonies talked more openly of leaving the English Crown, they realized how easily England would be able to pull them apart if they were divided. Only by joining together could they have any chance at resisting them and succeed in their revolution.
But that was 250 years ago. Now the very fabric or our nation feels as if it is being frayed. Freedom is no longer written on the fabric of our county; it is a point of contention. So, did we go wrong and how do we find it again?
I know a lot of like to watch patriotic movies around the Fourth of July; everyone has their favorite. For me, it’s a guilty pleasure and I’m a little embarrassed to say it but one of my favorite patriotic movies is a lesser-known passion project directed by Kevin Conser and you can already tell why it’s a guilty pleasure.
It’s called The Postman. I consider it a patriotic movie purely for one reason: its message of hope. Kevin plays an unnamed traveling bard who is named in the book that the story is inspired by. It is set in a post-apocalyptic American west and north-west, largely in the Cascadian states and Yellowstone mountains.
Kevin’s character is crafty and deceitful. He’s alone, isolated and starving while it’s raining and finds a broken-down postal delivery van that he can shelter in. While he’s there, he crafts the idea that he can don a postal uniform, carry mail into a nearby town of survivors and claim he is a representative of the Restored United States Government. And you know what, it works. It works too well actually.
You see his lie becomes a kind of sell fulfilling prophecy. People want American to come back because the idea of America alone inspires the stability and safety that had become a memory to them. People join him to become postal carriers themselves and the scattered communities he encounters begin to thrive as they start cooperating.
His lie became reality because that’s how powerful the idea of America is. Once it’s gone, it won’t die out. People will immediately ask “What can I do to bring it back?”
We can bring it back, back from the edge. We’ll share one goal from now on. That being that our freedom isn’t a license to live as hedonistically or as wantonly as we want. Freedom comes with a demand for responsibility. Our freedoms exist because we hold them not only as self-evident but also, that they are a product of the community we share as individuals. Freedom means respecting each other’s boundaries while using free speech to resolve disagreements.
Freedom doesn’t look like a license, it’s a handshake.
If you want to see freedom flourish again for another 250 years, heed these words. The first freedom we are bequeathed with by nature is to think for ourselves, no one can take that away. But the greatest freedom is this; freedom from evil. Resist the urge to believe in hedonistic, self-serving freedom which takes instead of gives.
The greatest freedom we have thus sharing it with our fellow man because he shares our Creator.
Truth, Justice and the American Way of Life can mean something only if we first being believing that all men truly are endowed equally by our creator. Like Freemasonry, our founding fathers felt that a belief in God was essential for this reason.
I leave these words to you America. Happy 250. I hope to see you again next year.
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
Isiaha 1:17
