Volume 9, Issue 23
It is critical for inclusion into the woven fabric of American society that every individual’s thread of the composite national garment can trace independence to a declared day of liberation.
By the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, all rights of an individual are inalienable as ordained by God. No one person’s rights originate, mature, or are seeded through someone else’s authority: not a king, not a government, not an institution.
Individual rights originate with the Creator at birth and maturate through direct spiritual relationship with the Lord. Any intervention of personal freedom imposed on another individual or class of people, for power or economic gain, is a sin against the natural order of God Almighty. America is the only country in the history of the world established on the premise that God is sovereign over man and man is sovereign over government.
Each citizen deserves their own Independence Day by the recognition of a beginning date certain. This empirical manifestation represents, for a person or people, the cloak of freedom bestowed, establishing an independence from government oppression in the relationship of the rights of individual liberty.
To be unified in the Great American Experiment of independence, each citizen must be incorporated into that independence personally.
Juneteenth provides the African American community the deserved respect of independence woven into the brotherhood of American freedom.
It is now incumbent upon all Americans to joyously celebrate with Black Americans the recognition of freedom and independence not summarily granted in 1776.
Now to finish the American story to bring full recognition and inclusion of disenfranchised races, the Native Americans deserve the same respect for the struggles they’ve endured for independence. First Americans did not receive full citizenship until 1924 by the Indian Citizenship Act. Tribal citizens then experienced some of the same Jim Crow legislation that African Americans faced until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Native Americans can argue that they were independent in this country until European settlers colonized and claimed the land for themselves. Alexander Hamilton argued for universal citizenship for African American slaves and Native American tribal members at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. His proposition was voted down by southern delegates. This original sin at the founding of the Constitution is our country’s moral stain today. Independence, and therefore individual rights, were denigrated in reference to current Native Americans’ and African Americans’ ancestors, one by dispossession, the other by slavery and forced immigration. All other peoples came to America by choice. Their day of independence is set in stone by their choice to immigrate.
Juneteenth does not solve the greater problems caused by past oppression. But it is a start for America to embrace and heal through the common threads of society that seek equal opportunity and prosperity for all. It is essential that citizens of the United States establish and pursue a common moral purpose. Every act of government, every curriculum of education, and every discussion of the family should center on a future vision of inclusion where all are changed by the opportunity in the brotherhood of freedom. If we continue to pursue equality simply through shared power of identity politics, we will never assimilate into a common moral purpose by national identity. Even the controversial debate concerning “critical race theory” should be discussed pursuant to the objective of changing hearts into this moral assimilation.
An analogy of the above applied is the comparison of a mixture versus a solution. A mixture is the combination of components that maintain their individual characteristics and identity. Sand, rocks and marbles, when placed in a jar as a substance of unity, are, in fact, elements held together by an outside force, not a common bond. In this case, the jar. A solution takes on a new substance reflective of the parts, yet where the parts become inseparable. Coffee, cream and sugar added to hot water merge into a new liquid. The coffee cup does not hold the parts together. They’ve assimilated into a common bond that represents something entirely different than each component part.
In the analogy of the mixture and solution, the jar represents laws, and the coffee cup represents borders of choice.
When the mixture is poured out onto a table, it can still be observed as its individual elements. A solution when poured out onto a table is seen as a completely different substance combined by its common bonds.
The added value of the solution is that the component elements can still be tasted in fragrance and texture. And so it is with the diversity of culture in an assimilated society.
In World War I and World War II, all members of American society served heroically defending the values of the United States of America. Our allies were impressed by the diversity of Americans fighting for a common moral purpose. It is questionable today whether we would unify as a society, even against the common threat of evil.
Great leaders in the history of America have never preached identity politics. George Washington, even as a slave owner, believed in freedom for all and a calling greater than himself. (He bequeathed the freedom of his slaves in his will.) Martin Luther King, Jr preached the biblical values of loving one another. He sought recognition of individuals based on their character, not the color of their skin. Both Washington and King believed that America was exceptional in its constitutional structure. They called the country to reach its destiny of inclusion ordained by God.
Each citizen of the United States faces the personal question of not just how to deliver equality, but the even more important question of total acceptance of every person’s right to the benefits of a common moral purpose. The mission now is the common pursuit of opportunity in each person’s personal view that unites us in what we seek for each other in prosperity, independence, and freedom.
We must want for each other what we want for ourselves.
A common moral purpose can be achieved through diverse moral creeds. A creed may be different religions or no religion at all. Yet, by our individual creeds, we must determine what future we seek wherein all citizens have equal opportunity to the pursuit of happiness and prosperity of fulfillment.
When Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he was speaking to all Americans and including them in his dream. He believed the foundations of America were good. He prophesied that America’s structure did not need to be torn down but rather recommitted to in inclusive destiny for all Americans. King looked to God for his rights, asking that those in power in government not intercede in God’s authority and relationship with mankind.
Only by a change in our hearts on how we see each other will we achieve a common destiny of a common moral purpose.
What is necessary now, more than ever before, is that each of us search and change our own hearts to believe that we are all equal in the eyes of God and are of one blood for the promise of His Kingdom. Only through national unity in the absence of personal identity, desiring unalienable rights for all brothers and sisters of humanity, will we ever realize a national common moral purpose.
Only by looking past ourselves to a greater calling will we truly understand the liberty that unalienable rights create.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?