Are We Really Independent?

Since surviving the July 4th holiday with lots of friends, relatives and food, I've been pondering just how independent are we as a country? After all, isn't that what July 4th, Independence Day is all about? The Declaration of Independence ramped up the Revolutionary War that had been going on for about a year. We wanted to be free from the all the laws, taxes and religious persecution that were dominant in England at that time and have the independence to run our own country. With that would come the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So the question of "are we really independent" is more about how are we doing in maintaining these rights as well as not letting the rules of England run the show here in the US?

If we look at all of these things on the surface, most of us would say that we're not doing too bad. But if we take a closer, more objective look, we see a whole different picture. Take for example taxes...one of the biggest reasons we declared independence from England. Are we paying taxes to England? Well, not directly. But we are paying taxes that help prop up banks and oil companies that have British connections. But at the same time, most of our taxes go to our own government to pay for all the things that a government does, like military/protection, government workers salaries, social programs, infrastructure upkeep, national parks, etc. But now it appears like a lot of our money is going to corporations who provide services to the government at, in some cases, significantly inflated prices. It doesn't appear that we are getting a lot of "bang for our buck." We have the most expensive and technologically advanced military in the world by far, exceeding the next top 20 countries combined! Yet we seem to have a lot of trouble defeating our enemies these days. Two world wars were fought and ended in less time than we've been in Iraq, at least as far as our involvement in those wars were concerned. Now we have the never ending war on terrorism. Therefore, our involvement in wars has put a seemingly unending burden on US tax payers.

There were no federal taxes early in US history until after the Revolutionary War when George Washington, along with Alexander Hamilton, tried to tax whiskey to help pay off the federal debt of $54 million dollars that had been mostly accumulated by the recent war. That started what has been known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This resistance felt that this young country was doing things that England had done, and felt that they needed to fight against a tax on whiskey/moonshine, which was used as currency during those days. It's not hard to see how local, state and federal taxes have snow-balled out of control in our country today. As of 2009, the above average US citizen pays 57.7% in total taxes!

From the religious perspective, again most would say on the surface we're not doing too bad. Let's take a more objective look again. When the Europeans, mostly British, first came to this country, we started wiping out the American Indians by the millions. They appeared to the newcomers as savages and pagans, which was a perception of extreme difference from themselves. Of course, the American Indians were also an obstacle to acquiring the land that the settlers felt they needed to own for their survival. Some settlers along with the federal government committed genocide over the course of several hundred years to establish themselves in the new world. No religious freedom was tolerated by the settlers then.

Then there's also the Salem Witch Trials, where roughly a couple dozen people were either executed or died in prison for being proclaimed a witch. It's surprising to think that people at that time were leaving a country (England) for religious persecution reasons ended up recreating religious persecution in their new found land!  While we're not hanging people anymore for having different religious beliefs, we are imprisoning people for peacefully demonstrating against illegal wars. Most of these people demonstrating for peace are religious people who do feel that the issue of war is a moral issue. They also come from a variety of different religious backgrounds with a common belief in peace.

Today, the Christian faith has all but taken over our government. People are sworn into office and sworn under oath in our courts of law on the Christian bible. The line of separation between church and state become blurred when we allow only Christian viewpoints to be promoted in the public school systems. For example, a lot of public schools allow kids to wear t-shirts promoting Christianity, but not t-shirts promoting atheism or any other religious belief. If parents wish to educate their kids in a school that promotes Christian ideology, their are private schools that will do that. Public schools are not a place for religious education or promotion.

In summary, I guess for the most part one could say that we are independent from England. The problem is, from all that I've laid out above, we have become England.