So it's Official-Celebration-of-Giving-the-King-the-Finger Day again.1
It's bad enough that we celebrate a declaration that did not become minimally effective for seven more years, and did not lead to establishment of this nation for nearly seven years after that. We can't/don't even celebrate "independence" on the day that the Continental Congress either agreed to it or finished signing the formal Declaration.2 The key problem, though, is that far, far too few people get past the first couple sentences, let alone all the way to the end of the document:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.3
tl;dr Freiheit ist nicht kostenlos. "Freedom" isn't "free": There's a price for it, and it's continuing. It's not just taxes so we can have civilization and other nice things. It's the penalty imposed for religiously-mandated human sacrifice of even a willing victim. It's Frank Snepp forfeiting all benefits from exercising "freedom of speech" concerning historical events that were classified to avoid embarassment.4
Just as there are consequences to engaging in "freedom of speech" that must be balanced against the stated freedom and disdain for prior restraints, there are similar consequences to engaging in "free exercise of religion." The Court forgot that last week and reified a purported free-exercise-based right of someone to discriminate on the basis of (illusory!) sexual preferences, right before we celebrate the Declaration of Independence. So I'm going to use my freedom of speech to say that the decision in 303 Creative5 was flat wrong… from my perspective speaking up now when They come for a different Other, so that I will have a clear conscience when They come for me6 (and They will). Never again. Which is entirely the point of the Declaration of Independence, especially as apparent in its closing sentence as quoted above.
- Given the American proclivity for misuse of fireworks, and the all-too-common consequences thereof, I strongly suggest politely declining any offer of "free crunchy chicken fingers" for the next few days. The relationship of this to "giving the King the finger" doesn't bear too much consideration, even after a few beers to warm up for the barbecue (and ensure that judgment and coordination are sufficiently impaired for the later, untrained-operator fireworks display).
- This sort of selective rewriting of history, of later-purpose-specific rejection of context, echoes in too much of American politics and law to this date. Cf., e.g.,, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) (particularly in part II.A.2, failing to inquire into either "well-regulated" as a modifier of "militia" — under either contemporary or eighteenth-century grammar and meaning — or whether "well-regulated militia" is in fact a compound noun inherently distinct in meaning from a mere modification of the term "militia," in turn inconsistent with the misuse of "militia restrictions" under the Stuarts relied upon in part II.A.1 but entirely consistent with the Stuart interpretation methodology of Parliamentary language).
- Declaration of Independence (Jul.(?) 1776), reproduced from U.S. Nat'l Archives (all capitalization and punctuation as in source document).
- Snepp v. U.S., 444 U.S. 507 (1980). None of what Snepp stated actually met the criteria for classification; the fundamental standards haven't changed in not quite four score years.
- 303 Creative, LLC v. Elenis, No. [20]21–476 (30 Jun 2023).
- Martin Niemöller, "First They Came" (date and trans. unknown), reproduced at Shenandoah Literary (2017).