There are 27 grievances addressed to King George III in the Declaration of Independence, signed 250 years ago. Can you name any, some, or none of them?
The point of the question is that today we collectively celebrate the signing of a document that charted a course toward American independence and, eventually, self-government. And yet most of the substance of the claims and complaints in that historic document remains mysterious to the modern beneficiaries of it.
We celebrate Independence Day with barbeques and fireworks, mostly unaware of the fundamental disagreements that caused men to take up arms against tyrannical government. We acknowledge, in the backs of our minds, that there must have been powerful reasons that drove the action. But we rarely dwell on the finer points.
Even when we do inquire — turning to Google or artificial intelligence for details — we often miss the deeper significance. Some of those 18th-century complaints about the British crown have reemerged under the co…
