Reading the Declaration of Independence for the first time, it seemed as though it was a lawyer's summation in front of a jury as to why the Colonies were breaking off all ties with Great Britain.
In many ways the document truly was an itemization of wrongs they endured.
Henceforth, the Declaration provided a template for similar efforts globally because it established ideas and principles behind a just government of the people, for the people and by the people.
I'm not sure if Thomas Jefferson, or the Committee of Five or the Continental Congress, ever considered preparing a 30-second pitch on the necessity of the upcoming rupture.
I'm guessing not.
Even then, I could not help but notice a sentence right in the first paragraph doing a darn good job. The colonies deserved to dissolve the bond that connected them to their common origin, the Declaration stated, "to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them."
Immediately after that the Declaration proclaimed, "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."
Scholars have repeatedly claimed that the future of the United States of America as a political entity has been set on course by the letters and spirits of these two sentences.
American Exceptionalism exists because at the time of the nation's birth we cared to explain to ourselves, and to humanity, why and they devised a "how" to get to a more perfect Union.
That starts with the Union’s desire for a separate and equal status among nations, just as "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" ordained.
If we extend the scope of Founding Fathers' "30-second pitch" to a granular level, very interesting things start to happen. We arrive at America First. I am not just talking about separating from Great Britain, which no doubt is as America First as they come. The Declaration lays the foundation of the America First movement of today.
First, Faith did play a very important role in the Founding.
The Founders were denomination-agnostic even before the First Amendment.
However, they did invoke "Nature's God" to claim their exalted status.
Further, our "unalienable Rights" were endowed by the Creator. Yes, the Founders referenced Faith in these documents, but the Founding Fathers made room for all beliefs.
Second, "Nature's God" entitles us to "separate and equal Station," according to the Declaration. At the level of an individual, this establishes the primacy of the individual over any identity, real or presumed.
Further, it validates a necessary precondition – equality.
Equity without equality is a false prophet and the Founders would have none of it.
America First movement feeds off religious sentiments.
Third, even for us God’s children, Power is derived from the "Laws of Nature."
I doubt that the Founders were prescient about the excesses that pervade the fabric of our society today. That said, they had an antidote in the very first sentence of the document.
"Laws of Nature" gave force to the laws they were scripting and nothing they could do to deny or escape.
America First movement acknowledges nature's facts can never be changed, even when we succumb to self-destructive proclivities to alter them fundamentally.
Fourth, our unalienable rights are endowed by the Creator.
Governments are formed with the explicit purpose of securing these for mere mortals who may lack the force multiplier in and by themselves.
When a government is destructive to these goals, it is imperative of we the People to alter and abolish it.
People make the government, not the other way around; very often government is the problem. America First movement spawned as a peoples’ retort to an ever-encroaching State.
Fifth, a simple enumeration of our rights in the Declaration – "among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" - embodies everything the America First American Experiment builds upon.
America First internalizes them in aversion to censorship, an anti-abortion bent, and a celebration of freedom, a fealty to the Second Amendment, among others.
In summary, the America First movement of today is a second coming of the ideas at the nation's Founding.
Its ideas are rooted in the original strains, as much as it shaped these tenets. Viewed another way, the America First movement of today is at least 250 years two-years old.
That is, it's quite far from being a recent or "young" concept.
Our 250th anniversary will obviously come only once; let us not forget we are celebrating it at a time when the America First movement is having a moment under the sun.
This is far from being mere coincidence. It was foretold and it is quite telling.
When a government is destructive to these goals, it is imperative of We the People to alter and abolish it. People make the government, not the other way around; and very often, to invoke Ronald Reagan, "government is the problem."
The America First movement rightfully spawned as a peoples' retort to an ever-encroaching ominous reach of the state.
Let us not lose the light in a fog of distractions and missed opportunities.
Let us embrace America First because it wholly and beyond verifiably defines who we are and will continue to be.
All opinions are of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent that of any organization he may be part of. The author alone is responsible for any error or omission.
Partha Chakraborty, Ph.D., CFA is an economist, a statistician, and a financial analyst by training. Currently he is an entrepreneur in Water technologies, Blockchain and Wealth Management in US and India. Dr. Chakraborty is based in Southern California. Read more Partha Chakraborty's Insider articles — Click Here Now.
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