Today is July 4, American Independence Day, commemorating the Declaration of Independence adopted 250 years ago by the delegates to the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia.
The Declaration of Independence asserted the then-revolutionary principle that all individuals are born with unalienable rights, including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and that governments derive their legitimacy only from the “consent of the governed.” The Declaration inspired oppressed people all over the world, e.g., in France, where, during the French Revolution, its ideas were incorporated into the Declaration of the Rights of Man, passed by the French National Assembly in August 1789.
Similarly, on September 2, 1945, the great Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh opened the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence by directly quoting the American Declaration of Independence, explicitly citing the famous lines:
“All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It is true that America subsequently violated the principles in its Declaration of Independence by committing aggression against several countries and suppressing and trampling on their freedom, e.g., in Latin America, the Middle East, etc., where it imposed puppet governments, and by trying to subjugate Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc., killing millions of people.
But we must carefully distinguish between the U.S. government and the American people.
It is the former that committed these diabolical acts, not the latter. No doubt the American people, being misled by false propaganda, often initially supported their government, e.g., during the Vietnam War, but later, when they realized that their government was doing something wrong, they strongly protested by launching massive demonstrations against it (as they are doing presently against the unprovoked, unwarranted, and unjust war against Iran).
This shows that while the American government is often bad, the American people are good.
I have visited America often and found every American I met to be a fine, decent person.
I have written many articles, praising the American people.
Long live the great American people!
