Four Thoughts for the Fourth

The Fourth of July has been a favorite holiday of mine since growing up in Pittsfield, Mass which is the home of a nationally famous parade, fair, firemens' muster and horse racing.  Taking time to reread the Declaration of Independence is something I do every Fourth.  Having married a Fourth of July birthday girl makes it even more special.  This year I'll add two other thoughts that came to mind as I was in San Bruno yesterday.  First, fireworks are illegal in B'game so please bear that in mind tonight.  I don't love the law, but I abide by it since it's the law.  Second, it is a fundamental principle of our form of government that local rules are just that--local.  So fireworks can be illegal in B'game but legal in San Bruno two towns north and it all works.  It feels like a bit of magic, and perhaps it is, but it's been working for 242 years so it has something going for it.  Happy Fourth of July!

  

Comments

[Joe]

And speaking of the Declaration of Independence in our modern times, this is interesting news piece:

The Liberty County Vindicator, a community newspaper between Houston and Beaumont, had been posting the whole Declaration in small daily chunks for nine days on its Facebook page in the run-up to July 4. But the 10th excerpt was not posted Monday as scheduled, and the paper said it received an automated notice saying the post “goes against our standards on hate speech.”

Part of the standard notice, Vindicator managing editor Casey Stinnett wrote, included a warning that the newspaper could lose its Facebook account, on which it depends for much of its reach, if there were more violations.

The offending passage?

It was part of the document’s “Bill of Particulars” against Britain’s King George III: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Mr. Stinnett dryly replied in an article about the rejection, “Perhaps had Thomas Jefferson written it as ‘Native Americans at a challenging stage of cultural development’ that would have been better. Unfortunately, Jefferson, like most British colonists of his day, did not hold an entirely friendly view of Native Americans.”
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Facebook's automated thought police were corrected presumably by its human thought police.

[Sick of it All]

Here is a thought for the Fourth https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/county-funds-immigrant-aid/article_30b1d17c-93a2-11e8-aff4-03678233c6df.html Three quarters of a million dollars of American taxpayer money.