July 4th 2006: The state of US democracy 230 years after the American Revolution

The document signed in 1776 had a profoundly liberating character, proclaiming the right of the people—not only in America, but everywhere—to employ revolutionary means to dislodge governments that trampled on their “unalienable rights.”

Those who led the insurrection against the British monarch were quite conscious of the international implications of their actions and the world historic significance of the Declaration. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams—both, in a poignant and fitting historical coincidence, were to die on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—“The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.”

The Declaration of Independence was imbued with the ideals of the Enlightenment and its abhorrence of ignorance, exploitation and inequality. Marxists, of course, are well aware of the inherent limitations in realizing these democratic ideals, given the socio-economic framework within which they developed, characterized in 18th century America by capitalist property relations and chattel slavery. Yet the democratic content and universal significance of the opening passages of the Declaration are undeniable:

“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.”

Can anyone claim with a straight face that a document containing similar language would win the approval of either house of today’s US Congress or escape a veto by the current occupant of the White House? The entire content of the policies and actions—both foreign and domestic—of those who now run the American government amounts to a wholesale repudiation of the ideals and principles of 1776.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/july-j04.shtml