Declaration of
Interdependence
On
this very special holiday, when our country pauses to celebrate the beginning
of our Independence as a nation, I want to share some thoughts about taking time
to celebrate the value of national unity our Founding Fathers passed on to us,
and to encourage all Americans to recommit ourselves to the continuation of
those values in the coming months and years.
The
strength of our country as a Democracy does not rest solely on our freedom, as
a country and as a people; it also rests on the unity of a diverse people
coming together, as in the Pledge of Allegiance, to be “one nation …
indivisible.” I don’t think many would
feel that we are living that pledge today in our politics … and I wonder if we
are really committed today, as a country, to do what it takes to achieve this
state.
There
are other Democracies in the world where people enjoy freedom. Freedom is not what makes America great. But
no other Democracy has the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of America,
nor has any other Democracy unified these diverse groups in their
histories. It is the unity of a diverse
country that makes and has made America great.
But today, we find the strength of our diversity is being undermined
from within by our own divisiveness.
Diversity is our historic strength but divisiveness is our current
weakness. The difference is in our
choices as a free people.
In
order to revive our strength and minimize our weakness, we need to stop the
competition over winning and losing between the parties, where some 40% of
Americans lose no matter which party wins. Leaders are elected by a majority
but are expected to act as the leader of all Americans, including those who
didn't vote for them and who often have a different set of needs.
Elections
have consequences, but does it make sense that in a diverse country, that
51%-60% of the people “win” and that 40%-49% of the country “lose” every 2
years? Doesn’t it make more sense, and
help bring the country together as “one nation … indivisible”, if the majority
party always seeks to accommodate the needs and concerns of the other party,
representing perhaps 40%-49% of the country they are governing, along with the
needs and concerns of the party that elected them?
Years
ago, in the best-selling program “The 7 Basic Habits of Highly Effective
People”, Dr. Steven Covey identified the behaviors that lead to achieving a
“win-win” in human relationships between parties with different needs and
concerns, versus a “win-lose” outcome.
In his teaching, Covey points out the basic truth that in human relationships
that are truly “interdependent”, “win-win” solutions are the ONLY solutions
that work, that endure. So the question
is, is America as a country, as a society, an interdependent reality or an
independent reality? Does our strength
as a country depend on the welfare of each other, or can we be a strong country
when the needs and concerns of a large minority of Americans are ignored by the
majority?
The
source of our Independence may actually lie in the belief in our
Interdependence on each other and the concern for each other’s welfare. These concepts
are at the core of our Founding Documents.
Here are two quotes to consider:
1. The last sentence of the Declaration of
Independence
Most
Americans can recite the key opening words of this landmark document. But I
would draw attention today to the last sentence, which states: “And for the support of this
Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” To me, this is a very strong statement in the
belief that America would only survive, that we could put the principles and
values of the Declaration into practice, that we would in fact only survive as
a country, if we would pledge to support each other, with “our lives, fortunes
and sacred honor”. Note they didn’t
pledge their lives and fortunes to the country, but to each other. How far have we varied from that commitment
in our politics today?
2. The Preamble of the Constitution
The Preamble is a key part of what
the Founders drafted to guide the operation of our government. This was not the first document written to
establish a government after the Revolutionary War. The first attempt to establish a government
was called the Articles of Confederation, which did not establish a strong
united country, but a loose affiliation of independent states. It took about 6 years for the Founders to
realize that the self interests of the individual states were unravelling the
Union. So a convention was called to
develop a new constitution and a new government … a “more perfect union” than
existed under the Articles of Confederation. After 4 months, the delegates
passed our Constitution with the following statement of purpose:
“We the
People of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity ...”.
One
final thought: Do you know what word is
not found in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? The word “party”. In fact, I believe that our major political
parties today are not working as part of the solution to our divisiveness
problem; they are in fact a major part of the problem. Our first Presidents each foresaw the risk of
partisanship to the success of the country, over 200 years ago:
John
Adams wrote in 1789, in his first year as Vice-President:
“There is nothing which I dread
so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged
under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in
my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil
under our Constitution.”
7
years later, in his farewell address upon leaving the Presidency, George
Washington stated:
“However [political
parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of
time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to
usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very
engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
I am not suggesting that any one party is any better or worse than the
other in this regard. I believe that one of the leading causes of the
divisiveness in our country and government today is the prioritization of our
leaders in both parties on self-interest, partisan interests and special donor interests. These interests seem to prevent the parties
from working together to develop policies that address our key problems and advance
the national interests of all parts of the country, and for all citizens, of
both parties.
In closing, on this July 4, 2017, the 230th
anniversary of the year the Constitution was ratified, I’d like to suggest that
our leaders and each citizen, recommit ourselves to following the lessons that
our Founders learned the hard way between 1777 and 1787, and that are reflected
in the Founding Documents of our country. I suggest now is the time to reject
the divisiveness of partisanship and to truly embrace a focus on the unity of
country … to recommit to the value of making our country that “more perfect
union”. Let ours be the generation that renews a pledge to each other’s welfare
… to seek policies that address the needs and concerns of those Americans who
look, believe, and live differently than ourselves, as we look to address our
own needs and concerns. And to support
those leaders who share that commitment.
This
aspect of interdependence, of pledging to care for the “lives and fortunes” of
each other, is to me the real legacy of our Founding Fathers and our Founding Documents
… a legacy we can choose to either embrace and prosper from our unity, or to
discard and struggle further in our divisiveness. As was written over 200 years ago, “every
country gets the government they deserve”.
Let us commit to deserve by our actions and not just our heritage, the
government “of, by and for the people” that was bequeathed to us and to our
care.
