Independence Day After...

It’s an interesting chronological juxtaposition to watch events in Cairo unfold on Independence Day. I possess only the roughest details on issues of concern to Egyptians, and therefore cannot speak at all authoritatively on their cause of action. However, it appears to me from this great distance that a people, weary after years of government manipulation and tired refrains of “trust us, this is for your own good”, are rejecting a return to the status quo. This is what a people demanding accountability and improvement looks like. Of course, there are some horrible things going on and it is certain that in some - perhaps wide-ranging - sections of the protest, mob mentality has taken root. Modern revolution isn't pretty

Watching scenes from Tahrir Square in the news, I wonder if something similar lays in the future path of our great nation. Will it take hundreds of thousands, millions, leaving their everyday life to march through our capitals and common spaces for our government (presumably of us) to hear that what now goes on must not continue, that we must with all possible haste put this particular genie back in the bottle? Will it take revolution?

And I wonder if anyone cares. I mean, cares in the sense beyond reading of government oppression and spying in the newspaper (or its digital equivalent), shaking our head solemnly while turning the page to the sports section. Do we truly care more that an NFL player is charged with murder and his discharge from a preferred team might decrease their chances of reaching the playoffs this year? Do we care? Does a direct attack on established principles (such as the Fourth Amendment) move us at all? This is our house; we’re not just playing in it. My faith in people is diminished; is it the same for my government?

I’m having a hard time this year celebrating Independence Day. It feels emptier, less relevant to our current condition. Make no mistake, I still hold in the highest esteem those whose names adorn the founding document of our nation, those whose sacrifices in battle have preserved the freedom it claimed. This year, however, I’m wondering how recognizable this country would be to them. To be sure, without Washington’s instinct and force of will, the whole thing could have easily slipped off the rails set forth by the newly ratified Constitution in 1789. Not everything moves forward in the precise way we intend (see Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914), but would the structure, the fundamentals, appear familiar? I fear they would not be.

Part of the problem, as I perceive it, is that we simply are not the nation that Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Jay and the others authored and put into practice. We haven’t been for some time. Truthfully, my read is that we are in the fourth epoch of the United States of America. The first belongs to the Founders, the second to Lincoln and the the Union, the third following FDR and culminating in the time of LBJ, and the fourth (current) following 9/11. Because of and after each, there has been a fundamental shift in how we conduct the business of American affairs and our relationship with the government. Please note that this is a rough excerpt from my analysis and more learned historians could probably run circles around these themes. Further note that only a half generation removed from 9/11, we have not reached the point where the full effect is apparent to observation.

It wasn't just the attacks on 9/11, but also our reaction to them that defines this as a break in our national ideal. Our elected (and appointed officials) address the fear and threats we perceive from possible future attacks, while indicating that we should move on with life as normal. Thus, in the forefront of our national debate come social issues and national programs that are of arguable benefit on the whole, while the machinery of security has been placed behind a veil, cordoned off from the citizens from whom the government supposedly derives its power, and nurtured into a creature that would require the collaborative efforts of Orwell and Verne to conjure. Is the security state intrinsically menacing? I would argue no at present; it is no more menacing than a gun, fully loaded and laying on a table, awaiting a hand representing justice or a hand representing darkness. In other words, I temper extreme reaction to the news of NSA domestic spying with the belief that, at present, those behind the controls wield it with the intent of preventing harm. However, given other events, the pace of technology, periodic changes in leadership (with our currently odd ideas about who fills such a role well), and the historical tendency toward things going wrong that can go wrong, I suspect that a day is coming when pervasive acquisition of personal data of individual citizens will become an oppressive force.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Why did some at the Constitutional Convention feel the need to include such language (later inserted by the first Congress)? The best answer is that they had some experience with actions this explicit restriction prevents. It is my fervent hope that we will at some point awake, and update laws to explicitly show our digital possessions (something not likely foreseen by Madison) fall under the same protection. To my mind, it is unfortunate that such a step would be necessary, that this wouldn't flow from logical application of precedent. Of course, the Bill of Rights was seen as extraneous at the time...some things don’t change.

At the first celebration of Independence following 9/11 in 2002, David McCullough penned a piece that appeared in the New York Times. In it, he lays out in prose only he can muster what was truly at stake for those “Argonauts” of 1776. We, in 2013, are at such distance from the tyranny of George III and we hear of things often that seem so much more egregious than what occurred in that era, and I wonder if we don’t take it for granted. Our Founders put forth the “noble ideals” that bound us together as a nation, but do not think they cannot be subverted. While they left a precious legacy, we are the stewards of it.

A point that seems to sum up my reservations and lack of enthusiasm this Independence Day are these words from Peggy Noonan from her 6/13/2013 column in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Privacy Isn't All We're Losing”:

I feel that almost everyone who talks about America for a living—politicians and journalists and even historians—is missing a huge and essential story: that too many things are happening that are making a lot of Americans feel a new distance from, a frayed affiliation with, the country they have loved for half a century and more, the country they loved without every having to think about it, so natural was it.

Another way to make the point is a satirical-tour-de-force from earlier this week in The Onion: “Last Time I Checked This Was Still America, But If I’m Being Honest, That Was A While Ago”.

I’m coming to the end of this post more optimistically than when I started, which is surprising to me. I think I feel better just having put in some form (poor though it may be) my awareness. Throughout history, exceptional times have created exceptional people, ready to rise to and resolve the challenges they face. Should such people be needed, I know they will come. All the world groans to be free from the yoke of oppression, and so long as this world belongs to itself, true freedom will prove elusive.

Let us therefore go out this day to commemorate this “Day of Deliverance” and remind ourselves once more why we are bound up, despite our differences, together in this great experiment of self-governance. We owe it to our ourselves, to one another, and to posterity to remember and act in accordance with why we, this nation, exists. We need to make better choices.