Nobody said it would be easy.
As we mark out nation’s Independence Day, many Americans might not feel like celebrating. Across the nation state legislatures, and most recently the U.S. Supreme Court, have been repealing rights that Americans previously had, or assumed they had — rights that many people had offered their lives to obtain.
We are asked to join together and celebrate our nation’s birthday, even as debate and dissent seem to be more prevalent than agreement on many key issues.
That dissent, however, feeds our democracy. That is why our nation’s founders codified the people’s right to assemble, speak freely and publish their opinions into our governing document, the Constitution.
Certainly, what is called the greatest political experiment in history has featured plenty of disagreement, and even violence.
Following the certification of our Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, American rebels endured a revolutionary war that lasted eight long, bloody years in which the outcome often was in doubt. Later the country would be rent by civil war and periods of violence that included the industrial labor battles, the fight for civil rights in the mid-20th century and the Vietnam protests of the Sixties.
Those who crafted this great nation knew that dissent could — and inevitably would — become violent. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, predicting and even justifying the unrest that lay in our country’s march to the future.
Dissent has been steady and fierce throughout our nation’s history; but in many if not a majority of countries around the world that dissent wouldn’t be tolerated. Americans have openly questioned the fitness for office of recent presidents, while in many countries much weaker criticism has led people to be imprisoned or executed.
Of course, government officials, from the White House to City Hall, have chafed at criticism, but our nation’s founders recognized that such criticism, and the ability to monitor officials’ actions, is necessary to help keep them honest and accountable to the people, whether the officials like it or not.
Our founders valued dissent, believing that the frank and open discussion of differing viewpoints is the best way to ensure that policy makers hear and can consider all options, concerns and possible outcomes, and negotiate the best policies possible.
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” goes the famous quote that has been attributed to several of our founding fathers.
Indeed, even our nation’s birth was mired in arguments over whether we should have a king, just like the British monarchy against which we had revolted, and whether we should have a strong government or leave the ultimate power in the hands of the people.
Even as disagreement clouds this Independence Day for many Americans, let us remember that our moments of disagreement are stones and turns that line our nation’s path to progress. They are inconvenient, but they can, and must, be overcome.
No, freedom isn’t easy, but it is worth the trouble.
