The only good thing about National Treasure

Maybe every 2nd day of every month for the next four years I should attempt to suffer some kind of affront, whether to my ideals, my intelligence, my family (just kidding, family, I won’t try for that)…

I have Nicholas Cage to thank for yesterday’s commemorative insult. Rolling Stone calls National Treasure “rancid cinematic cheese.” If I had a choice between watching this movie every day for the rest of my life or eating only and exclusively rancid cheese, let’s just say I’d eat the cheese.

There was at least one redeeming thing about National Treasure: if one avoided being irritated by Nick’s wistful, soft-focus gaze and breathy, awe-struck voice as he quoted from the Declaration of Independence (okay, one could be temporarily irritated, but one had to move past this), one was effectively reminded of the courageous poetry of the Continental Congress. I’ve been reading about the elections in the Ukraine and wondering why, why, why we are so un-revolutionary in the U.S. (I'm not the only one, of course, to see the Ukraine as a kind of special international affront to the problems in the U.S.; check out the article on the Common Dreams site about Ohio which makes the connection). Says the DofI: “Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” A month goes by and still, primarily, we talk and bristle and express concern, but what if we have to do much more? How do we know when?

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 political bands which have connected them with another, and 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, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.