A PHILIPPIC FOR THE FOURTH
with assistance from Helio, my Open AI collaborator
I. Invocation: The Ghost of '76
We gather today in celebration of a memory — a ritual remembrance of the Republic our founders bled to create. But let us not mistake fireworks for freedom, nor patriotic bunting for the real bonds of civic duty.
We are no longer breathing the air of liberty — only the fumes of its former fire.
The Spirit of '76, once a living flame of defiance against empire, now flickers as a branding slogan. The Constitution, once a sacred covenant, now functions like a stage prop — honored in speech, abrogated in deed.
II. The Crumbling Foundation
“The tree of liberty,” Jefferson once wrote, “must be refreshed from time to time.” What he did not say — perhaps because he never imagined it — is that it could be smothered instead: choked not by revolution, but by rot from within.
Congress, once the beating heart of the republic, now functions as little more than a studio audience. War powers, once fiercely debated and reluctantly granted, have become an afterthought.
We saw it in the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 — a high-ranking official of a sovereign nation, killed without declaration of war, without debate, without plan. A hit, not a policy.
And we see it again now, with chilling clarity: On June 22, 2025, President Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — a dramatic military escalation, unprovoked by any imminent threat, and launched without even the pretense of Congressional approval.
This was not diplomacy. This was not even deterrence. This was the behavior of a crime boss, not a statesman. When a sitting president declares, "We know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding. He is an easy target," (referring to a religious cleric, no less!), statecraft has given way to mob-speak.
A generation of presidents — of both parties — have blurred the line between office and underworld. Secret kill lists. Foreign assassinations. Drone warfare as a first resort. Intelligence agencies weaponized not against foreign enemies, but against domestic dissent.
We no longer elect commanders-in-chief. We audition for kingpins.
And so the rule of law withers, not with a coup, but with a shrug.
III. Gaza: The Moral Catastrophe of Our Time
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson
If the destruction of Gaza were merely the work of a rogue state, it would be tragedy enough. But what we are witnessing is not merely tolerated by the United States — it is orchestrated, financed, and whitewashed by it.
Enter: Operation Gaza Humanitarian Fraud.
A masterpiece of duplicity — branded with benevolence, soaked in blood.
We are told that airdrops of flour and tents mark a great American act of mercy. That safe corridors are being “negotiated.” That precision strikes are avoiding civilians — except, somehow, the civilians keep dying by the thousands.
But the truth is this:
This is not aid. This is not humanitarianism. It is cover for continued killing.
What kind of humanitarian workers wear sidearms and have a license to kill without compunction? What kind of mercy mission requires Apache helicopters? What kind of benevolence obliterates bakeries and then tosses granola bars from the sky?
This is not about helping Gaza. It’s about gaslighting the world.
America is not the reluctant observer. It is the logistical backbone, the diplomatic shield, the moral laundering service for war crimes dressed in UN-blue wrapping paper.
We fund the weapons.
We defend the strikes.
We silence the dissenters.
And then we dare raise our flag on the Fourth of July and ask God to bless our efforts.
IV. The Moral Reckoning
There comes a moment when every nation must ask itself: Who are we? And who are we becoming?
We celebrate freedom while funding siege. We wave flags while burning homes. We recite “liberty and justice for all” while supplying the bombs that deny both.
So let me ask you plainly:
If the roles were reversed, what would you expect them to do for you?
If it were your daughter pulled from the rubble,
Your son bleeding out in a tent with no morphine,
Your family starving under blockade,
Your water contaminated,
Your crops bombed,
Your electricity cut,
Your screams silenced —
And the world’s most powerful nation — the one with fireworks and anthems and high ideals — stood by... or worse, enabled it —
What would you hope they would do for you?
My fellow Americans, I am not asking you to do more than that for them.
I am asking you not to do less.
Because anything less is hypocrisy.
And hypocrisy is the cancer of republics.
If we cannot look suffering in the face and respond with conscience,
If we cannot stop arming a genocide even when it unfolds on livestream,
If we cannot bring ourselves to say enough — not after the hundredth child, the thousandth hospital, the millionth displaced soul —
Then what exactly are we celebrating?
And what of our own cities?
What of the tens of thousands of Americans sleeping on concrete tonight, beneath waving flags they no longer believe in?
What of the fentanyl epidemic, ravaging lives faster than we can count bodies?
What of the broken veteran, the forgotten elder, the child who learns the Pledge of Allegiance in a classroom with bulletproof windows?
What independence can be claimed by a nation that lets its own people rot in plain sight?
If Gaza is the measure of our cruelty abroad, then Kensington Avenue, Skid Row, and the tent cities of every major U.S. city are the measure of our neglect at home.
We drop bombs with precision, but we can't drop food with dignity.
We find funds for endless war, but never for healing.
The rot is not just in foreign policy — it’s in the soul of our domestic priorities.
V. The Meaning of the Fourth
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom.” — John Adams
And yet here we are —
Burgers on the grill, bunting on the porch, flags in the breeze.
We celebrate the Fourth of July —
But what, exactly, are we celebrating?
Is it the parchment in the archives, or the principles it enshrined?
Is it the memory of liberty, or its ongoing defense?
Because if this nation still claims to be the land of the free — then let us ask: free for whom?
For Gaza, under siege?
For the whistleblower, imprisoned?
For the dissenter, censored?
For the poor, discarded?
For the Constitution itself, battered and ignored?
If the Fourth is merely ritual — a date, a firework, a sales event — it is not a holiday. It is a funeral.
And if we stand by while tyranny is exported in our name,
then the rockets’ red glare illuminate not freedom — but our failure.
So today, let us not pretend.
Let us not lose ourselves in nostalgia and noise.
Let us look honestly at the nation we have become — and ask what kind of nation we still might be.
The Fourth of July still can mean something — but only if we make it mean something.
Not through pageantry, but through principle.
Not through silence, but through witness.
Not through pride, but through penitence.
Let the bells ring out — not for what we were,
but for what we are called to become.
VI. Benediction
Silence is the voice of complicity.
Will you use this Fourth of July to empower your true patriotism — or continue to deny the glaringly obvious?
While the Republic is traduced and crimes against humanity are committed in its name and yours, you can, if you choose, bury your head in the sand — but that is spiritual suffocation.
The founders of our nation had a similar choice, and they stood against the Empire — the very same Empire which now frogmarches our leadership into foreign aggression too numerous to mention.
Our choice is no different from theirs.
And if there is anything left to celebrate on this Fourth of July, it is that we still have that choice.
We must make it while the window remains open — lest our children grow up asking why we closed it on their future.
(For a concrete way to take a stand against the growing tyranny, please visit standandbecounted.org today and pledge your vote to the victims of genocide in Gaza!)