Don't take independence lightly

There are a lot of different ways one can regard Independence Day, or very importantly, the word “independence” from an American perspective.

The Founding Fathers risked life and property in signing the Declaration of Independence to throw off the yoke of tyranny colonists had incurred under the governance of a distant king.

Independence eventually came to mean freedom and self-governance.

Alexis de Toqueville, the famed French philosopher who traveled and wrote about the United States, observed that Americans were remarkable in their self-reliance and ability to organize locally to address most pressing matters.

Unfortunately, that type of independence has eroded, mostly over the last century. Americans have drifted increasingly into what some refer to as the “soft tyranny” of their own government.

Dependence, rather than independence, has taken root in so many forms — a situation foreseen by de Toqueville 173 years ago.

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate,” de Toqueville predicted.

“It does not tyrannize but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

As we celebrate Independence Day today, Americans should marvel at and celebrate the foundations of a hard-earned freedom that still exists and do all that can be done to avoid becoming a flock of timid animals dependent on government.