Life, Liberty, and Protest

So many thoughts- just trying to find a way to put them all down. I caught myself multiple times today stuck in thoughts about this country, our freedoms, and the power of the ideals declared in 1776.

Countless times we find ourselves talking about the freedoms we have in this country that others don't have. The entire purpose of Thomas Jefferson's famous declaration is that all men and women, anywhere on this planet, past or present or future, have the same rights. The beauty of the United States is that a government (in theory) finally recognized that it was not the ultimate authority. The citizens and their inalienable rights were to be the authority and guide by which the government would operate. 

Supreme among those rights are life and liberty. Men and women, of all races, creeds, and colors, have the unquenchable right to live. Any one person or group or government should never violate that right. Second only to the right to life is the right to live your life in any way that you choose, provided that it does not violate the right to life or liberty of another individual or group of individuals. Your freedoms extend only up to the point where they unnecessarily encroach upon the right to life and liberty of any other person. It is the role of government to protect those two things- life and liberty. When the government fails to do exactly that, the remainder of Jefferson's declaration is triggered. Change the government. Abolish it. Create a new one. All legitimate options when a government fails to protect the ultimate rights of its citizens.

Speaking of the Constitution, it is not perfect. The men who constructed it and the Declaration of Independence were far from perfect. However, those men had the foresight to construct a document that would allow for true change to be affected throughout the culture of the United States. Granted many changes took far longer than they ever should have, but the fact that those changes have occurred under the same jurisdiction written into effect in the 1780s should say a lot about the men who crafted this country into existence. How we have watered down the presidency to the point where our Commander in Chief is more concerned with inflammatory tweets than he is with constitutional authority is indicative of the willful lack of knowledge now pandemic in these United States.

So now about these protests:

To effectively protest, you have to know what you're protesting, and be able to communicate that to others.

The right to say what you want, when you want to say it, is not absolute. There are many instances when you can't just say whatever you want without consequences. (Yelling fire in a theater is the classic example.) Often, people voluntarily give up their right to free speech. Soldiers do so when they volunteer to fight for this country. Most likely, you did so when you signed a contract with your employer. It is fully within the rights of your employer to fire you for something you say- depending on the state you live in, you can usually be fired for no reason at all. If you are penalized by an employer because of something you said, it may be a violation of your inalienable right to liberty, but it is most likely not a violation of your rights that would fall under the power of the Constitution of the United States.

To those protesting and supporting the protests:

I truly doubt the sincerity of the majority of people now "protesting" the national anthem. How many people even know the third stanza? Or have even read it? Also, if the purpose of protest is to affect change, is this accomplishing it? Sure the discussion has been brought to the forefront, but the inability to effectively communicate why people are protesting has hampered those who are genuine in their actions and knowledgeable enough to educate those watching. When the man who started the protests struggled to communicate his intentions, I fear it disabled all those who followed in his footsteps.

To those who believe these protests are un-American:

First of all, this country was literally founded by a group of men who felt they were being treated as second class citizens by a government that they had fought and bled and died for...sound familiar? Protesting is as "American" as guns and eagles and apple pie. I know a lot of men and women who have served in our Armed Forces and I can say this confidently, that player's ability to kneel during the anthem is one of the rights they volunteered to fight for in the first place. 

To President Trump and his ardent supporters:

You're wrong. Blatantly. Patently. Offensively. Attempting to manipulate the actions of individuals and private entities because they stand up to you goes against everything our Country is supposed to stand for. It's akin to President Obama mandating individuals buy insurance and companies pay for something that violates their beliefs. If an employee has the support or acceptance of their employer, it's between those two entities whether or not their employment should continue.

I'll wrap up with one final thought. I keep hearing calls to keep politics out of the NFL. Keep politics out of sports, out of news, out of any venue except for distinct political discussion. I'm tired of hearing it. The right to life and liberty trumps all others. We should be discussing it far more than we do. It should be in our movies and tv shows, in our classrooms, on our playing fields, and in our churches. It should be something we value so much that we are willing to forfeit life and limb to protect it. Our children should hear from our grandparents how we defended it against Nazis. We should study it, read it, hear it, and see it on a daily basis. We should work together to find more ways, new ways, and better ways to preserve it and spread it to others. We live in a time where more information can be spread in 140 characters than men and women of our past could learn in a lifetime. Our failures in preventing the loss of life and liberty for men, women, and children will serve as a condemnation on the generations currently living in this country if we continue to allow bigotry, hatred, and ignorance to fuel our actions.

A house divided against itself will surely fall, but great Americans, men and women, have united in the past to preserve the ideals upon which we were founded. It is time for the men and women who history will recognize as heroes to rise up once again and stoke the fire of liberty in this country.