“Oceans rise, empires fall.”
You may know this refrain from the musical Hamilton. King George sings it as a gleeful warning and taunt to the revolting colonies and later to the new nation. It is a commentary on the cycle of gain and loss that begins when you amass power.
Despite his performance of glee, King George’s words also ring with the humility that all good students of history have; he knows how the story goes.
But the United States has never had an appetite for this kind of humility. Instead, for decades, at least, we have taught every new generation that our nation is an exception to history. The American exceptionalism in our textbooks and classrooms has taught us we are incomparable. We defy history’s patterns. We are God’s chosen.
“Codswallop!” as King George might have said. Nonsense.
“Oceans rise, empires fall.”
Or, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said last week, “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.” This caution was handed down with the dissent in a Supreme Court case that broadened presidential immunity.
The same week we marked 248 years of independence, our highest court opened wide the doors to tyranny.
I wonder how this makes you feel.
I panicked, and then I felt powerless, and then I got angry — and that is where I’ve settled.
In this anger, I repeat as a mantra the first words of the Constitution, “We the people,” and ground my power in the logic of the Declaration: governments are established by the consent of the governed, and we can withhold our consent. It is our right and our duty.
I like this anger. It’s the beginning of resistance. It is my soul’s revolt against tyranny.
This anger arises from a profound remembrance. Real power in a democracy isn’t in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches. It is in the people, and as the protest chant goes, “Ain’t no power like the power of the people cuz the power of the people don’t stop.”
But the remembrance goes even deeper — to a spiritual truth acknowledged in our founding documents: freedom is not granted; it is innate in our human being.
Let us rededicate ourselves to this freedom. Our article on the Freedom Pledge is a good start. But let us make it a regular spiritual practice to resist un-democratic presumptions to power. And let us not practice alone, but practice together as “we, the people."