The Illusion of American Liberty

As I watch the current skirmish the United States congress has engaged in against liberty and civil rights with the National Defense Authorization Act^[1], the most recent volley in a fear campaign for Orwellian legislation that began the Patriot Act^[2] and continuing with SOPA^[3], I begin to question what I think I know about our nation's illustrious history and our legacy of freedom.

As Americans, we are taught that our nation was founded to obtain freedom from tyranny and instill equity among everyone. We are taught that our founding fathers were moral and ethical pillars of the community; we practically deify the names of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson. Many would lead you to believe that they had divine providence and our nation is the apple of some god's eye.

I'm not naive enough to believe that our founding fathers were living avatars of liberty and altruism, veritable personifications of virtue. They no doubt pulled that criminal act we celebrate as the Boston Tea Party to benefit themselves just as much, if not more than, as a symbolic (or otherwise) gesture to motivate their fellow Americans. They were just a bunch of rich older white men trying to keep their money in their own coffers instead of lining the royal treasury's.

Don't get me wrong, I think the American Revolution was necessary, but I don't delude myself into believing it was an event free from the entanglements of greed and ambition. No, there was most definitely selfishness at play behind the stage of liberty throwing off the yoke of a monarchy.

While Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal^[4], one must realize that bigotry and racism was intrinsic of early America. Anglos routinely displaced and slaughtered the native inhabitants and the flesh markets fed the blossoming agriculture industry with tons of slaves and women most certainly were not considered equals. I don't care if that's how things were, or if it was accepted; it doesn't make it any less wrong. The term men from the Declaration in this case did not mean humanity in the generic pronoun sense of the word, but instead exclusively referred to white males.

A Coincidental Constitution?

Many Americans, and many beyond the borders of the United States, put our Constitution on a pedestal as the prime example of Democracy, or at least of Republicanism^[5] (nothing to do with the political party). I do not particularly disagree with this notion, I do think its the best thing developed and implemented so far. However, I do not think it's perfect (or that it is beyond betrayal by the government).

I do think it is phenomenal that the document was ever penned to begin with, let alone actually being implemented and surviving almost two hundred and twenty-five years^[6]. I think a perfect storm of inspiration, selfishness, pressure, hubris, experience, intelligence, creativity, and coincidence conspired to create a document that was actually ahead of its time.

Read with the perspective of those drafting the Constitution, the Constitution would be quite progressive by historical measures, but would be very exclusive and backwards by modern standards. This is due to the same reasons I stated when thinking about the immortal declaration in the Declaration of Independence. In the historical perspective, these wonderful words mostly applied to landed men, or rich white males in other words. As it wasn't until much later that persons of all types, regardless of race or gender, could vote and therefore shape legislation.

The coincidence is that the founders managed to pen a document, that when read with a progressive perspective, provided rights and liberty to a much wider population than initially intended. Maybe more progressive members of the Constitutional Convention actually slipped this in by design. I bet the debates in the Philadelphia state house were contentious and heated.

Tyranny Comes Full Circle

Now we've come full circle. Corporations and the Anglo men (read: congressmen & lobbyists) that have grown rich off them, have realized that the Constitution is far too progressive and they are now beginning to chip away at the freedoms we've bled so hard to obtain over the last two centuries. We see liberty caustic legislation slip through under the guise of safety and security provided by fear and drafted by the same caste of people that forged the Constitution so long ago.

Due process and privacy is being eroded under our watch and there is very little we can do to stop it. By conventional means. Beware the names that have enough clout and money to find their way onto the ballots. I truly believe that in order to usurp our freedom back from the cancerous greed that has corrupted our government, we will need to think outside the box.

References

[1] The NDAA is a bill outlying the defense budget and is created once a year. See Wikipedia for more info on the bill in general and watch The Young Turks for more about how it strips Americans of due process afforded to us by the Constitution.

[2] The USA Patriot Act, which is probably one of the biggest misnomer's in legislation history. See Wikipedia for more info.

[4] The Stop Online Piracy Act, which as of this writing has yet to be signed into law, but could very well become law in the near future. See Wikipedia for more info, but this author believes beyond protecting the interests of big business instead of consumers, SOPA could be used to silence unruly citizens... infringing on our 1^st Amendment rights.

[4] An immortal declaration by Thomas Jefferson from the second paragraph the Declaration of Independence. It is a direct attach against the divine right of kings, here's the full statement:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

[5] Republicanism is the rule by many people and by law, as opposed to monarchy, or arbitrary rule by one person. By this definition, dictatorial states are not republics while, according to some such as Kant, constitutional monarchies may be. Kant also supports Republicanism over pure democracy on the grounds that the latter is the unrestricted rule of the majority unrestrained by law. See Wikipedia for more info.

[6] The US Constitution was adopted September 17^th, 1787 after the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union failed to work (due to monetary issues among others). See Wikipedia for more info.