Every few years some citizens discover that whatever administration is then in power is shredding the U.S. Constitution and endangering freedom.
It happens when the Republicans are in charge; it happens when the Democrats are in charge.
What is troubling about the current constitutional angst is the glib ease with which so many on the right – including elected officials – brand those with whom they disagree as anti-American or worse. People who were elected under the laws and constitution are termed tyrants, and the language of violence permeates and airwaves and the Internet. The rhetoric echoes that heard in the period prior to secession.
May I suggest that the greater danger to the constitution comes not from a piece of legislation but from one group of Americans deciding that the only “true Americans” are those who share their views.
If we cannot accept that people can love this country as much as we do and still have different ideas about the best course for the nation, then freedom for all of us is in grave danger.
As Judge Learned Hand put it in a 1944 speech at “I am an American Day” ceremonies in New York:
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Friday, March 26, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Ugly signs of spring
The signs of spring are everywhere. Daffodils are blooming on our half-hill, and the maple tree out front is threatening to leaf out any day now. The pot of chives that I though was dead is putting out new green, as is the pot of mums that has been cruelly neglected time after time. Hope does spring eternal. On the way to town on Saturday, I saw a tulip tree in full bloom.
We had a foretaste of spring a few weeks ago when the sun broke out and the thermometer rose enough to lure enough people out to mark the first day of chiropractor season. That’s when people put their winter-weakened muscles to the test, trying to do in a single day all of the outdoor chores that it has been too wet and cold to do all winter.
Winter came back, though, to give them a respite.
In the past couple of days, though, confirmation has come that spring is marching inexorably our way.
That confirmation came when on two consecutive days, I could walk in the great outdoors instead of trying to block out the television noise while getting nowhere on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym.
It wasn’t the johnny jump-ups along the shoulder that provided the final evidence. It was the litter.
Our short street leads to a longer road that dead ends in the lake, so we don’t have any through traffic. During the winter, it’s mostly locals on the road. But there is a boat landing at near the end of the road. In winter, only the most dedicated fishermen launch their boats there, but as the temperature and water rise, use of the ramp increases.
And so does the litter.
I’m satisfied there is at least some connection. (There has been some construction in the area, and I’ve followed enough tradesmen’s trucks to know how many of them get rid of their trash. The toss their lunch bags and drink cups in the truck bed, and when they reach a certain speed, it blows out. And admittedly there are some slobs who live or visit in the neighborhood.)
But tradesmen don’t scatter the number of beer cans that I see along our road side.
I can picture someone having some beer left after they get the boat back on the trailer. They chug it down as they head up the road and toss the evidence out of the window before they’re spotted with an open container. That accounts for cans that lie in ones and twos on the roadsides.
Or they don’t want to take their empties home, so they give them a toss. And there they lie until some dedicated citizen or a prisoner working off time picks them up. If they lie long enough, the country mowers will come along and reduce them to shiny chips.
I don’t know whether a deposit on aluminum cans and plastic bottles would cause a change in behavior, but it’s pretty clear that appeals to civic pride aren’t effective.
We Alabamians bridle when the outside world regards us as backward, but we sometimes earn that reputation.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
We had a foretaste of spring a few weeks ago when the sun broke out and the thermometer rose enough to lure enough people out to mark the first day of chiropractor season. That’s when people put their winter-weakened muscles to the test, trying to do in a single day all of the outdoor chores that it has been too wet and cold to do all winter.
Winter came back, though, to give them a respite.
In the past couple of days, though, confirmation has come that spring is marching inexorably our way.
That confirmation came when on two consecutive days, I could walk in the great outdoors instead of trying to block out the television noise while getting nowhere on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym.
It wasn’t the johnny jump-ups along the shoulder that provided the final evidence. It was the litter.
Our short street leads to a longer road that dead ends in the lake, so we don’t have any through traffic. During the winter, it’s mostly locals on the road. But there is a boat landing at near the end of the road. In winter, only the most dedicated fishermen launch their boats there, but as the temperature and water rise, use of the ramp increases.
And so does the litter.
I’m satisfied there is at least some connection. (There has been some construction in the area, and I’ve followed enough tradesmen’s trucks to know how many of them get rid of their trash. The toss their lunch bags and drink cups in the truck bed, and when they reach a certain speed, it blows out. And admittedly there are some slobs who live or visit in the neighborhood.)
But tradesmen don’t scatter the number of beer cans that I see along our road side.
I can picture someone having some beer left after they get the boat back on the trailer. They chug it down as they head up the road and toss the evidence out of the window before they’re spotted with an open container. That accounts for cans that lie in ones and twos on the roadsides.
Or they don’t want to take their empties home, so they give them a toss. And there they lie until some dedicated citizen or a prisoner working off time picks them up. If they lie long enough, the country mowers will come along and reduce them to shiny chips.
I don’t know whether a deposit on aluminum cans and plastic bottles would cause a change in behavior, but it’s pretty clear that appeals to civic pride aren’t effective.
We Alabamians bridle when the outside world regards us as backward, but we sometimes earn that reputation.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
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