The Spirit of July 4th 2026

On this July 4th, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — Americans gather to celebrate the birth of a nation founded on revolutionary ideas. The Center for Human Equality in Oregon, founded by Russell McAlmond, joins that celebration with gratitude and resolve. We honor the document that declared our independence and set forth the self-evident truths that have guided this republic for two and a half centuries.

The Declaration of Independence proclaims that “all men are created equal” and are endowed by their Creator with “certain unalienable Rights,” among them “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights belong to individuals as individuals. They are not gifts from government, nor do they depend on membership in any group. Government exists only to secure these rights, “deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed.”

On this day we reaffirm a simple but profound truth: the government works for the people; the people do not work for the government. Certain ideas imported from Europe stand in direct opposition to these American principles.

Socialism elevates government power and collective control above individual rights, especially the right to own and use private property. It replaces voluntary exchange and personal responsibility with centralized direction of the economy. This approach subordinates the individual to the state and has repeatedly produced economic stagnation, loss of freedom, and expanded bureaucratic control wherever it has been tried.

Capitalism, by contrast, is the only economic system that consistently places individual rights ahead of government power. It protects property rights, rewards innovation and effort, and allows free people to pursue happiness through voluntary cooperation. Capitalism does not promise equal outcomes; it protects equal rights to strive, to own, to trade, and to keep the fruits of one’s labor.

Antisemitism is another European import that clashes with the founding vision. It judges an entire people — Jews and, by extension, the Jewish state of Israel — not by individual character or actions but by group identity. Such collective condemnation contradicts the Declaration’s assertion that all are “created equal.” It replaces the moral equality of individuals with the moral condemnation of groups.

Any ideology that assigns praise, blame, or special treatment according to group membership rather than individual conduct violates the principle of equal rights under law.

Ethical Individualism is the human relational system that truly honors “created equal.” It insists that every person be judged on his or her own merits, character, choices, and conduct — never as a representative of a racial, ethnic, religious, or identity group. This stands in clear contrast to any moral framework, including certain versions of DEI, that ranks or rewards people according to group categories.

Ethical Individualism keeps faith with the Founders’ understanding of equality: equal rights and equal dignity before the law, not engineered group outcomes.It is deeply concerning to see elements within major political movements in the United States embracing or tolerating these un-American concepts — socialism that expands government control over private property and businesses, and antisemitism that substitutes group hatred for individual judgment. Both place collective power or collective grievance ahead of the individual rights the Declaration declares unalienable.

Both represent a regression from the American experiment in ordered liberty.

The Center for Human Equality therefore calls on the Democratic Party in the USA to turn away from socialism and antisemitism. We call for a clear return to the founding values of the United States: individual liberty, unalienable rights, private property, free enterprise, and the moral equality of every person judged as an individual.

We must reject any system that suppresses individual rights or divides citizens into favored and disfavored groups like DEI does. These approaches are incompatible with the spirit of 1776.

On this sacred day we celebrate the freedom our ancestors secured and the principles that have made America a beacon of opportunity. We recommit ourselves to a nation in which government serves the people by protecting their rights, not by directing their lives or redistributing their property.

We stand for Ethical Individualism, for capitalism rooted in liberty, and for the unchanging truth that all are created equal as individuals. May God continue to bless the United States of America. Happy Independence Day!