{I've been feeling this push all day to write something about the day itself, its anniversary weight, the meaning and loss, and I've been resisting it as long as this because I have these blocks, locked-up emotions, fear-based hesitancies, all that kind of stuff, but I read Barlow's rap and a couple great poems and then this:
"Liberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens."
that's the remarkable Tom Ridge there. I want to compare him to Cardinal Richelieu for some reason, except I don't know much about Richelieu.
Ok. the fun part is it's such a simple statement. 4 noun/pronouns 3 adjectives/adverbial adjectives 2 verbs 1 article. the big hit is from the split, the distinction. a Martian with a tourist-level grasp of English could see it, he says "we" offer "our citizens" a "precious gift".
there is a profound distinction in that statement, between the giver of the gift of liberty and its receiver. a gift like that is like permission, "you can be free for the rest of the afternoon, but if you don't behave...." the power in the statement rests entirely with the speaker, and his cohort, not with the people.
it's truly most naked an expression of the arrogance and delusional fantasies these "men" carry.
my limited reading of American history leads me to conclude liberty was not given to the Founding Fathers, they took it. they took it by a refusal to obey unjust laws, and when pushed, they took their freedom with guns, and they did it in the name of American citizens to come, as American citizens to be themselves. it was most decidedly not a gift from anyone, unless you count the sacrifices of life and limb made on New England soil 226 years ago. and that is not the kind of giving Mr. Ridge and his cohort have in mind when they attempt the rhetoric of liberty, and describe it as a gift. I think I'm using too many words to say this.
Ridge is saying he, and whoever else is included in his "we", owns liberty, possesses it, and "gives" it to others, the citizens of America. and he "offers" it. that's not what I would call an "inalienable right". that's a lot more like a privilege. it's like that yuppie car-insurance argument, "driving is a privilege, not a right". we'll just ignore the fact that the automobile and its paths so dominate the landscape that it's become impossible to move from point to point with any kind of autonomy except in the heart of urban centers or at the risky, poisonous side of the highway. the idea is it's something you're required to qualify for, and you can be disqualified from, you can have that "privilege" revoked. in what passes for Mr. Ridge's heart and mind that is precisely what liberty is, a privilege administered by the state, the state in turn being the public face of that "we" he so confidently speaks for, and in turn, behind that public face is the real enemy of freedom. the presumption of authority which depends for its legitimacy and respect solely on threat and fear, the artificial creation of fear, and the subsequent defense of the frightened, juvenile tricks and cowardly manipulation in the service of greed, an ancient gambit whose achievements have never been anything more than the shackling of the human spirit.}
