7/04/2026

U.S. Insight w/Spiritual Insight

Today is a momentous day in the history of The United States of America! An undisputedly great nation of power, achievement and influence. We have arrived at the 250th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence.

But sad to say that the country and its current leadership have for the most part abandoned, or at best only pay lip service to, the ideals set forth in our founding document. There is good reason to suppose that the prominent founders, mostly active slaveholders, were expressing freedoms in terms rather more lofty than actual. Not really, or in practice, believing or intending to act in accordance with the fact that “all men are created equal”. But that premise written into the Declaration was seized upon by those not received or treated as equals, slaves and the non-white races, as a promise made and (still) owed to them. Sometimes God causes us to say and write things that are truer than we intended and which we are then called upon to live up to.

Reaching the milestone of 250 years is notable among the history of the European, Levantine and American nations. In the last 3,000 years thirteen successive dominant nations or empires have been documented as doing so, only to succumb to internal decay and collapse at about the 250-year mark. They have all followed a remarkably similar pattern of founding, growth, success, dominance and then decay. Some were conquered or overthrown, some collapsed or were subsumed, and some faded to a lower level of influence and importance while continuing to exist.

I think we are following the pattern as the 14th nation/empire to not flourish beyond 250 years. Those who say we will weather this storm and rebound to our former influence and dominance are guilty of wishful thinking and projection; there is too much of Lincoln’s proverbial “house divided” for that to happen without major change. Perhaps, we can recognize our failings, take the necessary steps to clean our house, rebuke the extremists we have put in power and then refound our nation with a new, better, stronger constitution. The 1789 Constitution was long on principals of freedom, long on “norms” of behavior and structure, but often short on details that would have kept the abuses and circumventions from bringing us to the declining, fragmented situation of July 4,2026. I don’t doubt that the 1789 Constitution was the best compromise possible at the time given the 13 different perspectives and agendas on rights, values and ambitions. But 250 years later we live in a vastly different world with major changes all around us that need to be taken into account and sadly the achievement of having found a way around almost every limitation we don’t want to accept.

The current administration will leave office but may be succeeded by those with similar goals. Even if we elect a less extreme government, the door has now been opened for previously unthinkable actions and abuses. Without a new constitution with much more structural specificity and consequences for abuse, someone, sooner or later, will once again take more power than that to which they are entitled and a new unstoppable decline will ensue. Our choice is to confront our decline soon or to suffer it again, perhaps after a respite.

I doubt that we are ready today, July 4, 2026, but I hope that enough U.S. citizens soon see the need so that we are ready to undertake the rebuilding of community and the refounding of our nation that we need.

Dave L.