Fourth of July

Today is the 250'th anniversary of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. I do not know of any other national holiday celebrating the reading of a document prepared by a bunch of lawyers; I believe it is one of the many things that makes the US unique.

What other day could we celebrate?  Washington fought a war of attrition against the British. Celebrating the conclusion of the Battle of Yorktown would perhaps lead to a discussion of how many years of battle led to it. The Treaty of Paris? More conclusive but, you know, French..

In any event all of my life there have been many celebrations on the day but very very little discussion of what we celebrate. Fireworks, parades. Not much about the freedom from the parts of British rule that are explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights. Not that much about liberty most years, although my memory of the bicentennial fifty years ago seems to include a good deal of discussion of it throughout the year.

But, we have Trump as president for the 250th. He recognizes no limits on his power as president, and a splineless Congress and a financially corrupt Supreme Court have encouraged him. He talks casually of wanting to jail people who disagree with him and through the ICE conglomerate of agencies has assembled a large paramilitary that shows contempt for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So it feels like a "hang the flag upside down" kind of day to celebrate.

Sometimes stating the problem makes clear the solution; if Trump uses his power and bully pulpit to condemn freedom for people he doesn't like, perhaps we all should talk it up today. There are so many documents to draw from in doing so but the Bill of Rights is a convenient touchstone.

#1 is the biggy. We have no state religion because the folk who came here fled countries where you worshipped the way your king told you to or you were punished, serverely. We are guaranteed the right to speak and write without government persecution, again because the folk who came here fled countries where you paid lip service to the king or you suffered mightily. We are guaranteed the right to meet with whomever we wish without government persecution, for it is in organizing like-minded folk that we achieve sustained freedom, not by ourselves in our homes.

#2 seems to be the only one that gun advocates support these days, although they never seem to state it completely, telling partial truths to further their aims. Insofar as we need a militia to secure our country we have the right to weapons. It was never clear to me how this one justified unregulated individual gun ownership.

I was an Art Buchwald fan in my youth; a cheerful parodist he once posted a (fictional) conversation with a neighbor who owned a thermonuclear weapon who cited the second amendment as justifying it "for self-defense". We have long had prohibitions against "machine guns" as weapons of mass destruction unsuited for any reasonable self-defense. Certainly tools for killing people should have at least as much regulation as car ownership and use.

#3 seems distant, guaranteeing us that we do not have to house soldiers against our will. It speaks to a time when that was forced.

#4 again speaks to abuse suffered in Europe where searches could be made simply on the whim of the executive, with no reasonable expectation of privacy.  Here the executive must provide some evidence to justify to a judge that a crime is probably being committed. It is at the heart of our "innocent until proven guilty" legal framework, that is only opposed by folk who have not yet been unfairly persecuted.

#5 has a lot in it; the biggest thing is that you can not be forced to confess to a crime. Think about that; if you let that one go, the executive has every incentive to extort and torture folk it does not like to get a confession to some crime and then to punish them. Again, the more you know of the history of the countries our founders fled the more this makes sense.

#6 is about the logistics of a trial and again every rule speaks to an abuse experienced. Speedy trial versus prisoners languishing for years before charges are dropped. Specific charges? How else can you defend yourself? Being able to compel witnesses supporting the charges to make them justify their accounts? Think of all the folk in all the world imprisoned on the basis of secret testimony from anonymous witnesses.

#7 is a bit weak, guaranteeing access to jury trials. Again, it bears remembering when judges were beholden to the king and could not be trusted to act ethically in their verdicts.

#8 is one that I have feared the most about losing public support for. Growing up I was surrounded by adults who felt that some crimes should be punished cruelly, as if the cruelty was the fault of the those convicted and not of those inflicting it. I've always felt this one to be the anti-lynch mob amendment.

#9 is about humility; the people may have more freedoms and rights than we got around to listing here. We're not perfect. Err on the side of liberty.

#10 is also about humility; some issues are better left to the states and we're aware of that.

Imperfect but not bad. Worth keeping in mind today. Avoid fireworks near pets and combat vets.