{"id":6421,"date":"2025-07-04T14:30:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=6421"},"modified":"2025-07-04T14:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:30:34","slug":"rip-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/07\/04\/rip-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RIP, United States of America: In Congress, July 4, 1776 – July 4, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever this country is now, it is not the country it was before. It may use the same name, but it is not the same. No longer a democratic republic, but a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. No longer one nation, indivisible; rather 50-ish quasi-nation-states, divided amongst and against one another. No longer liberty and justice for all, but only for some, at the whims of the powerful few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This July 4th is not a celebration of the birth of a nation, but a funeral for the death of a dream that was America – a dream that was real (if imperfect) for a while, but is now very much dead. Only its mangled corpse, draped in a flag, still remains, held up to continue the illusion that all is well and nothing is wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This should not have happened, but it is doing more harm than good to pretend that it hasn’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn’t to say we have to accept the way things are – far from it; rather we must see this for the fight that it is: not just to flip some seats or overturn some laws, but to fundamentally undo what has been done, to re-declare our independence – except this time from an internal tyrant rather than a foreign one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, today is perhaps a good day for everyone to re-read the full text of the Declaration of Independence<\/a> (especially the list of grievances), and reflect on how those things that compelled the founding fathers to draft it in the first place sound all too familiar today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIP, United States of America: In Congress, July 4, 1776 – July 4, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[199,2,17],"tags":[412,604,603,605,597,606],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-opinion","category-politics","category-society","tag-america","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-independence-day","tag-july-4th","tag-us-politics","tag-usa","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1Fz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":754,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/07\/04\/happy-independence-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":0},"title":"Happy Independence Day!","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's the 4th of July again. Time to celebrate the ratification of the Declaration of Independence. Which, by the way, I highly recommend reading the whole thing (including the Constitution itself).","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1192,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/04\/happy-independence-day-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":1},"title":"Happy Independence Day!","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Independence Day! If you're not in the US, well, happy 4th of July... for whatever reason you like! In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Life"","block_context":{"text":"My Life","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":564,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/07\/06\/my-4th-of-july-weekend\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":2},"title":"My 4th Of July Weekend","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days, but I've been quite busy. But I did get out this weekend to do some fun outdoorsy-type activities. In fact, I went canoing!","rel":"","context":"In "My Life"","block_context":{"text":"My Life","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":496,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/11\/real-id-passes-us-senate-100-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":3},"title":"Real ID Passes U.S. Senate 100-0","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Some juicy quotes from Slashdot members: \"The US was founded on state rights, hence \"The United States of America\". If you don't like a state's rules, move to another state. The federal government is heading toward \"monoculturing\" the US. Pretty soon we'll be 'Former United States of America.'\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4952,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2017\/01\/31\/the-march-to-tyranny\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":4},"title":"The March to Tyranny","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 31, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"How quickly a country can fall...","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":498,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/10\/freedom-is-slavery\/","url_meta":{"origin":6421,"position":5},"title":"Freedom is Slavery","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"No longer solely concerned with driver safety, state DMVs would also be required to adopt stringent verification procedures (authenticating birth certificates and other documents) to make sure that license holders are not in the country illegally.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6422,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions\/6422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}