As it turns out, the Declaration of Independence was destined to be a run-on sentence. Late-stage Americans, wanting freedom in absolutely everything, keep adding another clause.
The rule of nature is the first king we rebel against. We seek our own definition: we are not animals but humans. Our freedom to define ourselves as such results from winning a power struggle against the natural world.
Where nature is winning, the possibilities of human life are more tightly constrained. We defer to her demands so long as they result in sufficient food and shelter and the possibility of reproduction. Here, we fight the elements, at best, to a standstill. Survival dictates the terms of our livelihood, and when it doesn't, it tends to mean that we have the natural world in a kind of chokehold—see the national parks tapping out as we are blissfully hiking through.
America—you shaved the mountain of history—you threw out timeworn directions for a shortcut uphill. Accepting the nature of things was never in our nature. We weren't hunters within the wilderness; we were hunters of the wilderness.
And these days, the big game exists mostly within ourselves.