Posted by Jay Livingston
Mark Kleiman complains that the old Fourth-of-July custom of reading the Declaration of Independence “seems to have virtually disappeared.”
In a post three years ago, I reported that the custom was still alive and well in liberal Lenox, Mass. (Here’s the photo, the full post is here.)
Patriotism has usually been a value waved about by conservatives, especially when they are in power. But this was 2008, and after seven years of Bush-GOP rule, the liberals were starting to play Capture the Flag, a game they had been mostly sitting out of for decades.
When they are out of power, conservatives put their dissent-equals-disloyalty rhetoric back in the closet. The Declaration is an anti-government document. So I expect that we will see it read at many gatherings of the Tea Partistas. They have been calling Obama a tyrant for a while now, so they will be whistling and stomping their feet at every mention of tyranny and taxation. They’ll especially like the line about the “multitude of new offices.”
I wonder if they will feel uncomfortable (as the Lenox liberals did) at the negative tone in the references to “domestic insurrections” (i.e., slave rebellions) and “merciless savages” (native Americans).
I always read try and read the Declaration on the 4th! (though I didn't this year.)
ReplyDeleteIt is a beautiful document. And I think the awkward parts simply highlight the history and fallibility of our Founding Fathers who, despite all that, did something pretty fucking amazing!
We can't let conservatives usurp the Declaration and the Constitution. They are incredible and incredibly liberal documents.
("Hey, want to join my rebellion again the most powerful empire in the world in the name of some semi-democratic republican ideal about freedom?"
"Uh, no thanks... I'm a New Yorker. Besides, I got a job.")