Welcome to the July 4th holiday weekend. I truly hope you enjoy your time burning gunpowder in spectacular colorful displays (yes, fireworks all contain gunpowder, in case you didn't know), drinking your favorite alcoholic beverages, swimming, boating, relaxing (gee isn't it nice when the 4th is actually on the Monday, truly giving us our God-given right to a three day weekend without actually having to create one artificially?) After all, what fun would there be if the 4th was on a Wednesday? Very inconvenient.
This image of course, is from the 1994 movie of the same name. There, it took a literal invasion of aliens with advanced technology to get humanity to unite, stop fighting with each other, and work together to save our world. Apparently, uniting with each other against the small minority of forces working against the rest of humanity is a lesson most of the human race hasn't learned. If you haven't seen this movie in a while, or ever, I highly recommend you watch it.
Somewhere between the burnt hotdogs on the grill, the tipped over cooler destroying half your beer supply and the inevitable sunburns on just about everyone, I hope you have a few moments to ponder just what it is we are actually celebrating. For those of you who may have forgotten, the country that today we call the United States was actually British. We were called the American colonies of the British Empire, to distinguish us from the African Colonies, the Indian colonies, and so forth. At one point, the British - well, lets be honest and say what it really was: the English - were aggressively competing with all the other European countries to take over by force as much of the world's less technologically advanced cultures and steal their resources. An old phrase said "the sun never sets in the British Empire" because they basically had colonies in every time zone.
As British subjects, those living in the American colonies had the same legal rights and legal protections as those living in England; in theory at any rate. In actual fact, the English royalty began to horribly abuse those rights by overtaxing them, stealing their lands and other possessions, and other atrocities. When they began to object formally they found they had little voice because they had no representation in Parliament (the British equivalent of our modern day Congress, and just as corrupt. Where do you think our Congress learned corruption?) The American colonists had no official Lord representing them at court, bribing the higher ranking officials.
Eventually, as the old saying goes, enough was enough. The last straw was probably the Boston Massacre. This took place March 5, 1770. Two years earlier the English had stationed soldiers in Boston to enforce unpopular new policies and taxes. This may have been the first time our country was faced with a militarized police force. A crowd gathered in protest, the small group of English soldiers panicked and opened fire, killing three immediately and wounding 8. Two of the wounded later died of their wounds. The soldiers were tried, two were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to having their hands branded.
Things continued to get worse. By 1775 open war was ongoing. The Battle of Lexington and Concord took place in April of 1775, though not all the 13 colonies were in agreement that their differences with the English crown could, or should, be resolved by warfare. This resulted in a gathering of representatives from all 13 colonies which came to be called the Continental Congress. Very important reading, all this, and if you don't remember ever studying this in school, please go read some books from the library.
Very long story made very short: the Continental Congress decided, after further negotiations with England failed miserably, that they would issue a formal proclamation that they were separating from England and forming a new, independent country. This proclamation we know today as the Declaration of Independence. It was the official document that formed our country. The wording was approved on July 2nd, 1776, and formally ratified on July 4th, 1776
The English, great empire builders that they were, didn’t just go away quietly. An 8-year long war ensued. If we compare that war to a football game, the American Colonies, who now called themselves The United States of America, were trailing the entire game. The heavy favorites, the English, had entered the game as about 5 touchdown favorites, but never built a lead of more that about 10 points. This allowed the US to inch ever closer, and finally, with about 10 seconds left in the game, they scored a go ahead touchdown with a big victory at the battle of Yorktown in present day Virginia. The English general, Cornwallis, was so embarrassed he refused to show up at the formal surrender ceremony, instead sending an underling. The American commander, one General George Washington, responded in kind and refused to accept the sword from a lesser ranked officer, and sent one of his lower ranked officers instead.
To put this American victory into perspective, this was a lot like the Super Bowl champions losing to a high school team…it just wasn't supposed to have happened. But, it did!
I actually had the opportunity to tour the Yorktown battlefield, now a national monument, when I was a teenager. Kind of a big deal when you grow up on the west coast, to actually get to see these famous national historical sites on the other side of the continent. I also saw Bunker Hill, the sites of the battle of Lexington and Concord, and numerous other revolutionary war sites. If you are ever able, I encourage you to go.
After Yorktown, the English were defeated and we had a country. France was a tremendous ally during all this effort, and quite frankly, we wouldn't have won without their help. They were also the first foreign country to formally recognize the US as an independent nation, a very important diplomatic step without which, our massive victory would have been pretty much meaningless.
I declared myself and my backyard an independent country once, just as a test, but I couldn't get any countries at all to recognize it. It just didn't stick.
The next task our fledgling country undertook was a set of laws and regulations for how we were going to run things. The overarching goal was to create a set of checks and balances so that the government running things here never got out of control, and the people retained all their power and all their rights. This effort resulted in a document called the US Constitution, ratified in June of 1788, and taking effect in April of 1789. Two years later an addition spelling out the most important of the rights of the people was added. This is called The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791.
Other than an interesting history lesson, how does any of all this apply to my work, my attempts to upgrade our health and wellness, our consciousness, and upgrade the future of humanity?
The Bill of Rights guarantees, among other things, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Remember, the underlying assumption in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is that these are all rights that all humans possess. The Constitution and Bill of Rights put limits on the government so that can't interfere with, or take away, those rights. That is the theory, though at least half the laws passed by the federal government are a clear violation of the Constitution, and here in the early 2020s, the citizens are starting to push back.
The Bill of Rights is what allows me to tell you of your other rights. It allows me to tell you that you have alternative methods of healing available to you - that actually can work to get you well. It permits me to tell you when the government health agencies are lying to you - about heart disease, cancer, and a host of other conditions. It allows me to tell you how they are using the media, television, and the internet to steer you in wrong directions.
If you value your inherent rights as a conscious, sentient being, if you value your Freedom, in other words, I strongly urge you to remember all this history. Reread the atrocities committed by the English against the colonists. Compare all that to current state of affairs in our country, and come to the realization that things are much worse now. The American colonists would have long since grabbed their muskets and sabers and started having conversations with the English, who in these days, are the federal government.
Fortunately, we have a legal system available to us so that we shouldn't need to pick up muskets or sabers or AR-15s or F-15s and take on our own government. Everyone assumed the American colonists would lose. The English were the best army in the world, at that time. Of course, we were the best army in the world in Vietnam, and we saw how that turned out.
A while back a friend asked me "how do we get the government to allow us to live according to our rights?" My response was, "we don't!" We can't ask them for our Rights - we already have our rights. We simply need to exert our rights.
In celebration of Independence Day, do something radical. Exert your freedom. Read a banned book. Do something in keeping with common sense, and ignore what is politically correct.
Start with my book "Heal Your Life, Heal the World", which is rapidly becoming the definitive textbook on reclaiming rights to your health and your consciousness.
The next radical step, join my online Community for Health & Wellness, Consciousness and Human Potential, here.
Dr. Cage