SELF EVIDENT: The United States of America celebrates its 250^th anniversary today. 

  At the inception of this country, Thomas Jefferson wrote the monumental words: 

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

  America was founded in an age of intellect.

  At 2:19 this morning President Donald Trump posted a meme comparing the Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico to Mad Magazine’s gap-toothed Alfred E. Neuman.  

  This followed Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore in which he posited a non-existent threat that communists are trying to take over the country, that “in recent years, there’s been an undeniable attempt to change this exceptional character, to beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history, and to make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American?”

  In a veiled condemnation of immigration he said, “In America, we speak English because that is the language of our founding. For a thousand years, that has been the language of freedom.” Trump went on to say that, “A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”

    The United States was founded at time when everyone who was not Native American was an immigrant speaking a multitude of languages.

  The President claimed that communism “is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9-11.” He said, “The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”

  What he is really talking about is the opposition, the Democratic Party.

  The Declaration of Independence goes on to list complaints about the rule of King George III.

  He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

  He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

  He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

  He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

  He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

  The Declaration says:

  He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

  He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

  He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

  America has been here before. As we wave flags and set off fireworks it would be good to think about where we came from, where we are going , and who leads us at this time in our history.

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