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Fourth of July

I noticed as a child that we spent a lot of time waving flags and having picnics on July 4th each year. There were parades sometimes, television specials, lots of talk about how special we as a nation were. The word "free" was used an awful lot.

I also noticed that particularly at this time of year no one ever wanted to talk about what the word "free" meant. Asking about it made my elders uneasy and prompted rejoinders not to spoil the celebration.

Now I'm one of the elders in my family, and I do spend a good deal of time discussing what the word free means.

There are some basics:  if you are a slave you are not free. Our country started with slavery in place, with slaves counted as 3/5 of a person (in the Constitution before it was amended) for apportionment of Representatives, etc., but not for anything resembling citizenship.  So, the word "free" means something very different to folk descended from slaves and/or still bearing the burden of institutional racism in our culture.

That's before we start enumerating different freedoms. It immediately undercuts any talk of constitutional originalism; originally the constitution was complicit in slavery. Claiming we can find original interpretations except for that little detail is sophistry and its practitioners should be ridiculed as dangerously naive about their role in perpetuating racism.

Freedom of speech:  we constantly struggle with our leaders wanting to pass laws that stop folk from saying things they disagree with. It's bizarre when folk that throw the word "free" around casually in almost the same breath support Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, or laws banning doctors from sharing information about contraception, etc.

Freedom of religion:  so many folk pervert this phrase to mean allowing Christianity to dominate our culture, at least as the dominant way of being religious. This contradicts everything that Adams, Jefferson, Madison, etc. wrote about the freedom they sought from the theocracies of Europe.  The upsurge of violence against synagogues and mosques continues and well-dressed pundits on cable news tell us there is no connection when we all know they are lying.

Freedom of assembly:  police violence against protesters, particularly related to Black Lives Matters, continues unabated.

Freedom of the press:  good journalism is in such a minority that I don't even think that our government needs to do anything; the marketplace, where a Rupert Murdoch can dominate the news media and dictate the reality that viewers will live in, seems much more capable of suppressing this freedom.

I don't think there was ever a Golden Age in my lifetime where things were hunky-dory; I just know that things right now are not good.

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