Out Among HumansThe ‘No Kings’ movement lead to the Declaration on Independence. It was ratified on the 4th of July.The abuses King George III inflicted on his subjects drove the colonies to break away from the British Empire.

They would fight a war, at great risk and great cost, to be free of a king.

Jefferson, Franklin and Adams wrote that defiant declaratiohn to indict George III with a list of long-standing grievances.

The KING did incite domestic insurrections.

HE obstructed justice; and intimidated judges.

HE deprived people of a trial by jury, and sent persons overseas to be tried for pretended offenses.

HE created special offices to harass political opponents.

HE cut off the colonies’ trade with the rest of the world.

HE obstructed the citizenship of foreigners.

This year, millions of American patriots in cities and towns across the nation have joined the ‘No Kings’ movement. They protest executive abuses they and the Courts see as dangerously similar to those of George III.

The British king is said to have called George Washington “the greatest man in the world” when Washington refused repeated efforts to make him king.

The father of our country understood that nothing is more dangerous than a politician who fancies himself a king, a czar, an emperor or a fuhrer.

Out Among HumansIt was as much a sacrament as a picnic for the Afghans once again facing exile.

Eid al-Adha falls on tenth day of Dhul Hijjah. It’s a day of religious observance but also a day long anticipated for feasting and celebration.

Skies and temperatures cooperated as the clans converged on a southern shoreline of the Great Lakes. The finery worn by the Afghan women and girls was in stark contrast to passersby.

As the men set up tables for the feast, the women visited on traditional carpets laid out on the grass. Teenage girls in flowing robes did cartwheels and compared soccer moves.

There was none of the amplified music routinely brought to the shore.

Refugees are keenly aware that some people resent their presence, and despite having legal status they fear being caught up in immigration sweeps. Engaging them in conversation can make them wary.

“Would it be okay to ask a question?” Yes. One of the Afghan men answered, it would be okay.

“Would it be okay to take a photo?” Yes, but only of the men, he added. (His companion offered that the women could be photographed from a distance.)

Their lives have been whipsawed by our invasion and occupation. Afghans who had collaborated with the U.S. military against the Taliban are still vulnerable to retribution since the Taliban regained power.

Afghan refugees, close to a million of them, to whom was granted temporary protection in the U.S. after the fall of Kabul are now facing deportation back to the still-present dangers they had fled.

As they gathered once again to observe Eid al-Adha, they must have been wondering where they would celebrate it next year.

The men of their generation grew up bracing for a fight.

They would learn soon enough about the possibility of being drafted into the military.

Their grandfathers were sent off to fight in the First World War. Their fathers mobilized in huge numbers for World War II. Soon after this photo was taken recruits were thrown into the ‘police action’ in Korea.

Wars and the Great Depression had hardened our country. Families endured their losses with all patriotism they could muster. The ‘strong silent type’ became the masculine ideal, out of necessity.

Registering with the Selective Service was a universal obligation for men at eighteen years of age. A guy could forget about landing a job or attending college without a ‘draft card.’

The working-class boys in this photo weren’t destined for college, and so they weren’t exempt from the draft as college kids were. They came of age just as our war in Southeast Asia began to heat up. (Three of them enlisted without being drafted. The after-effects of Scarlet Fever made the fourth ineligible to serve.)

With no victory in sight and with growing questions about our purpose there, the U.S. abandoned Vietnam; and at the same time it abandoned a policy of military conscription.

It’s doubtful that we would have started yet another disastrous war a generation later, this time in Iraq, if we’d still had a draft that sent our sons to fight overseas.

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