The freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, particularly if it’s preceded by thought. Unfortunately, often it’s not, as we’ve seen in the recent town halls around America.
I’ve been watching political town halls late. Yes, I know that it’s geeky and more than a little strange. I would counter that it’s political theatre of the highest order. Wow. The anger, the finger pointing, the squinting of eyes, and yes, screaming and shouting. It makes you think that maybe we got the 1st Amendment wrong.
None of us who are drawing breath and have electricity can have avoided images of citizens remonstrating, protesting, shouting, and arm waving at their political representatives, and the cameras lurking nearby at these so called Town Hall meetings. These gatherings were ostensibly intended to engage in a civil discourse about health care reform, and for our political representatives to show that they’re on the job, but they clearly took on a different, more desperate, angry character. In the various clips of video I saw, the situation tended to be so boisterous that one could not figure out what was being said by whom. Finally one came across the cable channels and then You Tube that gave a more measured glimpse of what evidently is the foundation of the vituperation being shouted out.
“We’re not just angry about health care,” the angry lady reported in a fairly well modulated voice. “We’re angry about the government taking our freedoms away”, she said in a voice raising to the level of a fundamentalist preacher on the verge of saving some souls. “They’ve taken our money and given it to rich bankers,” she accused no one in particular. They won’t let my children learn about god in school” she added piously. “They won’t let our brave soldiers win the wars they’ve been sent to fight”, she opined militarily, “and (dramatic pause here) they are taking away our constitutional rights. We want to go back to the constitution of Jefferson, and we want it now,” she ended emphatically. Much cheering and stomping of feet in the background from her cohorts of less elegance.
Wow! At least this lady knows what she wants. And then I thought, hmmm, Jefferson did the heavy lifting on the Declaration of Independence, but Constitution…I think not. Wasn’t that James Madison and the delegates of the Constitutional Convention? As a matter of fact, I believe TJ wasn’t even around at the time. Well, he was alive, but he was living large in Paris as the US Minister to France, trying to finagle them into secret alliances and to borrow enough money to keep our young democracy afloat. But I got her message. She wanted to go back to the original intent of the Constitution. The way it was first writ. Back to the good old days so to speak.
I’m sure all of you, in-the-know readers, are aware of the details of our journey from Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the ratification of The Constitution of the United States in 1789, so I’ll not bore you with a reprise of events. I will say, however, that our original constitution fell well short of what many then, and most everyone now, would believe to be a final framework for democracy; the fine balance between federal and states rights, and the rights enumerated for our citizens. In fact, TJ was so put out about the failure of the Constitution to enumerate individual rights that he embarked on a letter writing campaign from afar to attempt to improve the fated document. Alas, to no avail.
Indeed, even Madison’s first draft contained language that would have allowed the “National Legislature” to veto any state law they couldn’t stomach…..and there were plenty that were distasteful. Obviously, that one didn’t make the cut, but I don’t think that’s what the angry lady was referring to. Roger Sherman, said to be amongst the cleverest legislative horse traders of his day, maneuvered a compromise (in todays parlance, a bipartisan effort) which had a few shortcomings of its own. To wit: Art. 1, Sec 9 allowed for the continued importation of slaves, and Art IV, Sec 2 made it illegal for even those in free states to give succor to runaway slaves, while Art. V guaranteed that there could be no amendment prohibiting slave importation until at least 1808. Clever horse traders these Yankees. Do you think it could be this then that the angry lady was wanting back? Could she have been lobbying to reconstitute the slave trade permitted by “Jefferson’s Constitution”. I don’t like to think so.
Or perhaps our angry lady was pinning for the good old days manifested by our constitution which precluded all but white males over the age of twenty-one from voting. One would think that she wouldn’t want to give up her vote, but you never know about angry white ladies. Maybe she forgot that our constitution was not amended to allow for women’s suffrage until 1920. Heck, that’s not so bad. We didn’t give native americans living on reservations the right to vote until 1947. And although the Constitution was amended in 1870 to say that our citizens could not be excluded from voting on the basis of race, we all know that all southern and many other states did exactly that until the Constitution was amended again in 1964 to ban the poll tax and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1968.
Ah, you say. The angry lady in question was surely referring to the Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments). This is the Constitution of Jefferson to which she wants us to return. Once again, I must say fie on this construction as well. There is no question that the aforementioned James Madison was the author of this excellent set of ten addenda to our Constitution in 1791. I’m sure, however, that some of the rights enumerated in the first ten are important to our angry lady. I’m absolutely positive that she cherishes the 1st amendment which vouchsafes her right to say pretty much anything that is planted in her otherwise empty head without fear of government sanction. Likewise she seems to be the type that might well want to own and carry weapons of some destruction without bothering to join the militia. I suspect that no one has asked her to quarter troops lately, so she’s probably not focused on that particular right espoused by Jefferson and others. I’m now plenty confused. I can’t figure out which form of the Constitution that she wants to return to.
I don’t know if the 8th amendment was intended for the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment to cover banishment for speaking before thinking, but I would hope not. For people like our angry lady (and her colleagues of the opposite gender) strike an evil blow to the ideal of civil discourse, and should be punished accordingly.
I’m thinking the best and most apt punishment would be to ignore them completely. And right after I use her to make my point, I’m gonna do just that.
PS. Did you know that the Bill of Rights originally contained twelve articles, but two didn’t make the cut? Only the most anal of you could possibly hope to know this bit of trivia.
