Sometimes revolution is a good thing
By Staff
Scot Beard
Throughout history the leaders of nations have fought hard to maintain the status quo. The quickest way to sign your death warrant was to challenge the authority of the king or queen.
Many times the leaders of nations would succeed in their efforts to retain power, but occasionally the rebels would triumph and usher in a new era in the history of mankind.
In 1215 English barons forced King John to proclaim certain civil rights to his subjects, whether free or servants. That document, known as the Magna Carta, influenced leaders since and is the basis for constitutional law today.
There are even times in history when kings feel the need to revolt. During the 1530s Henry VIII of England decided his kingdom needed to part ways with the Roman Catholic Church.
While this was done mainly for selfish reasons, it began an era of scientific discovery in England that might not have been possible under papal rule.
The Catholic Church sentenced Galileo Galilei to house arrest in 1634 for his research in astronomy. Thirty years later, an English fellow named Isaac Newton began working on advanced mathematics and physics.
Newton's Laws of Motion are still the cornerstone of astrophysics. Would that have been possible under the persecution of the Catholic Church?
About 100 years after Newton a few farmers and merchants in a tiny English colony on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean began discussing the best way to run a country.
In 1776 the Continental Congress ratifies something called the Declaration of Independence and sent it to King George III to inform him the American colonists were no longer his subjects.
George did not like that very much and continued to rage war on the colonists until 1781. In 1783 he signed the Treaty of Paris in which he recognized the United States of America as an independent nation.
This weekend we will celebrate the treasonous act of 1776. When the signers of the Declaration of Independence put their signatures on that document, they knew they could be put to death for such an act.
They valued people and the people's pursuit of happiness. They realized that the government should exist to help the individual – not that the individual existed to support the government.
That is what we are celebrating this weekend. We are celebrating our personal freedoms.
Go out and have a little revolution of your own, just don't bring the down the system. It has worked well so far.
