The protest news about the recent Independence Day events at
Monticello, home of the drafter of the U. S. Declaration of Independence,
Thomas Jefferson, annoyed me.
It took a while to figure out all the parts of my
reaction. The key part had to do with the meanings behind the complaints and the inaccuracies therein.
The case involved the recent Fourth of July celebration at the historic site. New Americans
were sworn in as citizens. They had passed the grueling tasks and tests of that
honored award. They would finally belong in safety to a free, democratic country!
Protesters showed up in loud numbers. Their showing up did not annoy me. Their taking advantage of their free speech rights did not annoy me.
What annoyed me was that they did it so rudely and inaccurately.
They not only had the "right" to be rude; they used it in ways to disrupt a solemn occasion that new citizens had waited, longed, and worked for over a long time.
Yes, and they have the right to be wrong, which they were in televised interviews. Protesters expressed
a chief complaint against President Bush: "He does not listen to us! He
never listens to us!" They got it wrong.
Because, how do they know whether the President listens to them? Can they prove that he neither reads their views, nor hears their views, nor watches them express their views by way of various media streams?
The protesters misspoke. They would have done better to have said, "The President does not agree with us!" or "The President will not do what we want him to do!"
A free and democratic society allows each person the right to look foolish and unprepared without any fear of prosecution or persecution, so long as no laws get violated. For that reason, I will cut the protesters a lot of slack, albeit unhappily. I listened to them; I found no credibility in them; and I know they had the freedom to behave as they did, anyway.
All I can say now adds to a living echo that I hope continues to resound over this land for a long, long time: "What a country!"
Keep listening.
P. S. Interestingly, the last
I heard the President's approval rating is 34%, up from 20-something percent. Congress's approval rating
is, according to the same news source, "at single digits for the first time." Which
single digit I still do not know.
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