Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson
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"Error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."
- from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4 1801
What did Jefferson mean by this?
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The American Revolution wasn't resolved by reasoning with the British monarchy. Reason only works with reasonable people.
Historical quotes are interesting but they carry only so much weight. Also, it's always a good idea to check their authenticity. According to the Jefferson Library at Monticello, a lot of quotes have been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, and many of them are scurrilous, including this example:
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Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see. |
Thomas Jefferson's quotes don't protect civil liberties in America. Laws do. By 1801, Congress had already passed, and President Adams signed, The Sedition Act.
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from interfering with a citizen's freedom to believe whatever he or she wants and to express themselves in speech, print, and by assembling with other citizens in public:
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. |
The language in the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights didn't guarantee absolute freedom as imagined by many Americans, today. The Bill of Rights didn't apply, at all, to slaves. The Constitution specified that they weren't to be counted as citizens. That problem wasn't resolved by reasoning, either, even though some tried.
After the Civil War, the US was still a long way from freedom and justice for all. Equality was still a dream, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868:
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Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. |
Later, the extent of freedom was defined by a series of Supreme Court decisions:
- Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Korematsu v. United States (1944)
- Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
There was also landmark legislation:
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965
This piecemeal approach brought gradual progress toward the dream of equality which was still hindered by unreasonable people. And unreasonable people are still with us today. Liberals and progressive are fooling themselves when they say that the unreasonable represent a demographic that is dying off and they laugh at a televangelist who says that gay people will eventually die off.
As it dawns on Americans that gay people are natural and normal within humanity, not problematic to society, at all, and therefore undeserving of exclusion, hatred, and abuse, perhaps it will also dawn on Americans that unreasonable people are always present within humanity, and that, under certain conditions, they can become very problematic.
The logic here doesn't lead to excluding, hating, or abusing unreasonable people. Just be prepared for what they do when they gain the upper hand and occupy positions of power. This is human nature that should be understood.
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Civil Rights Violations Under Color of Law
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A police officer casually pepper-sprays peaceful, seated protesters, at UC Davis, November 18, 2011.
Photo by Louise Macabitas.
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License |
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Police confront protesters on day six of demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri. August 2014. Photo by Loavesofbread.
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license |
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SWAT team in camouflage on Ferguson, Missouri street. Photo by Jamelle Bouie.
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license |
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Police Lieutenant points rifle at civillians in Ferguson, Missouri. Photo by Darmokand.
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. |
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Arpaio shows the futility of reasoning with the unreasonable who play by their own rules. |
It's not for anyone but Americans to recognize their own problems and solve them, if they think they have any. America isn't alone in the world. It has the world's largest economy. Its military capability is unmatched. Everything that happens in the US is visible to people abroad who watch because they remember what it's like when the unreasonable becomes the norm.
This isn't overwrought or dramatic. It's realism. What Americans do is their own business and who cares if they become a danger to themselves? People from abroad observe because they know they are affected. And that's their business.
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