I don’t think I am alone in marking this July 4th as the death knell of liberty, democracy and all the ideals that Independence Day is supposed to celebrate. There are millions of us who find ourselves stripped of autonomy, liberty, freedom – quite literally feeling tracked and persecuted – and unsafe and insecure. The values of the nation turned upside down. Orwell’s 1984, “The Handmaiden’s Tale” no longer fiction but a lived reality.

People regard July 4th as the birth of the nation, but more accurately it was the conception. There was first an abortion – the Articles of Confederation – before the Constitution, out of which the nation, founded on the Rule of Law and government by the people, was born embodying the DNA of North and South, colonists and slaveholders.

July 4th is typically a time to reflect on how much progress we have made toward the ideals set out so gloriously with the Declaration of Independence, ratified on this day.

But in that respect, July 4th, 2022, is pretty dismal – instead of celebrating progress toward a “more perfect union” we find this country set back decades, centuries.

And the Supreme Court and the white Christo Fascists aren’t done yet, unwinding progress and the clock, conveniently forgetting that this nation was founded in the Enlightenment by the Enlightened Humanists of their time (yes, most were slaveholders and all were white men of property), who knew they were tinkering with a grand experiment, knew they were fallible and hardly omniscient, and also knew they had to make compromises in order to cobble together a union, hoping it would hobble its way toward that “more perfect union.”

There is something terribly wrong about a country that claims to be where “all [so and so’s] are created equal,” that the amount of your freedom, let alone opportunity, depends upon your zip code, wealth, gender, race and birth, and can change with whichever party happens to be in power at that moment. The level of terror and insecurity is a feature, not a bug.

There is a lot of talk about what the Founding Fathers “intended” in 1791 – as if that could be divined or even relevant – but we know from Ben Franklin, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, that they fully well expected and welcomed progress and change.

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times,” Thomas Jefferson wrote.

Jefferson also said, “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion.”

In Florida and Texas and other Red States, they are banning books and speech. Teachers and doctors are being targeted for prosecution (persecution). Just being a woman is criminalized. Women can be tracked and hunted, prosecuted and jailed. Children are not allowed to be exposed to the truth of a cruel history (slavery) or to be empathetic to families of different background and composition, but it’s OK to subjugate them to Christian indoctrination and to make non-Christians feel “otherized,” and “less-than” their Christian peers, coaches and authority figures. A 10-year old isn’t allowed to “say gay” or learn about slavery, but in Wisconsin, she is being forced to bear a child.

Six extremist Christo-Fascist justices on the Supreme Court have basically said that when a Democrat is in the White House or the state house, the government shall be powerless to protect public health, the environment, join in a global endeavor to combat the existential threat of climate change or deadly pandemic, whether a disease or by weapons manufactured for war. But when a Republican is in office, well then torture and unending imprisonment at Guantanamo without charges or trial, a Muslim ban based solely on religion, that’s the prerogative of a Unitary Executive (a concept extolled by Justice Samuel Alito and the Federalist Society).

And now they are poised to say that regardless of how “the people” vote, the gerrymandered Republican state legislatures can choose the victor in an election.

It’s no wonder that a majority, including Democrats, say the USA is on a wrong track, but the pundits mistakenly draw the conclusion that voters are upset with President Joe Biden and the Democrats (frustrated, yes).

Besides the travesty of an out-of-control, anti-democratic Supreme Court majority that seems intent on distorting and overturning the Constitution, you have the rise of domestic terrorism and violence used as a political weapon. The Jan. 6 insurrection used the slogans of 1776 (“Don’t Tread on Me”) to justify their attempt to violently overturn a free and fair election and install a corrupt petty dictator. But the failure to hold the seditionists, conspirators and the Mob Boss himself to account threatens the concept of Rule of Law and Equal Justice (No Man Is Above the Law) that this free, democratic republic depends on.

You have a tyranny of the minority, enabled by the manipulation of the undemocratic Electoral College, the undemocratic Senate and its grossly anti-democratic filibuster, an out-of-control Supreme Court that has anointed itself with monarchic power (five of the justices appointed by presidents who LOST the popular vote), and gerrymandered state legislatures and districts. So, yes, you can forgive people for being skeptical about America’s promise of freedom and liberty this July 4th.

When you have gross inequality that is only growing worse because of unequal representation and blatant discrimination in how laws are applied or ignored, when you cannot trust the Supreme Court or any judges to deliver fair and impartial rulings, when the majority will to feel safe and secure is thwarted and Congress is paralyzed, you can forgive people for not celebrating July 4th.

The essence that the “patriots” love to go back to is “We the People,” but who gets to vote – and have their vote counted – is shrinking. Go back to the Bush v. Gore decision when Justice Antonin Scalia justified this blatantly unconstitutional decision saying the Constitution does not explicitly say “one person, one vote.” Keep that in mind when the court rules on the North Carolina Moore v. Harper redistricting case, and how the court has already violated the Voting Rights Act – even the way Roberts eviscerated it – to allow blatantly unconstitutional gerrymandering to stay in place.

Even the flag has been hijacked, turned into a weapon, a threat, a source of intimidation, a battle standard.

Keep this in mind as you sit back wrapped in self-satisfaction of American Exceptionalism and taking democracy for granted: Excluding the Iroquois Federation, no democracy has lasted more than 250 years, not Greece, not Rome, and this July 4th is the 246th year.