This year the United States celebrates 250 years since it declared independence. It has been a difficult anniversary to embrace: the country feels like it's tearing apart, that democracy is waning, that we're falling further and further away from the ideals of its founding.
But I do think the ideals are worth celebrating. Our founding broke all the preconceptions of what made a nation. Forged on paper, wholly new, established on ideals and ruled by the people. The Declaration of Independence asserts that people have natural rights, endowed by their Creator. We have the right life, to liberty, to pursue our happiness. We have the right, even the duty, to overthrow tyrants. We have the right to form our own form of government and challenge and change it as needed.
This new country would have no kings, no nobility, no inherited titles. Lawmakers would be decided by an ever-expanding electorate of the citizens. Their power would come from the consent of the governed. No one person, not even one branch of government would have total control; there would be checks and balances to ensure that justice ruled over might. The purpose of the government would not be one of top-down power but of securing the rights and security of all its people.