First Amendment Day: A Time to Reflect

September 25 is celebrated, at least in some spaces, as First Amendment Day, because the Bill of Rights, of which the First Amendment is the crowning achievement, was approved on September 25, 1789. The First Amendment is seen as a gateway to democracy. I think it is democracy. Without it, nothing else in the Constitution would matter, nothing would hold up.

The document is so sweeping as to take your breath away. It encompasses so many potential actions and previous activities that its scope surpasses astonishment. But it is what we're made of. Without it, there's nothing about America that makes it unique or pleasant to live within.

If you wade into the First Amendment, though, your head begins to spin. The first set of issues must come from the first part of the statement: Freedom of religion. The "establishment clause" is supposed to stand in direct juxtaposition with the "free exercise" clause that immediately follows. That is, government can't establish an "official" religion because I'm supposed to be free to deal with religion as I see fit, including not at all. The phrase is there to keep government out of my mind, within which I am free to think as I please and free to express myself in like manner. No coercion allowed, in other words. 

There is supposed to be a separation of church and state. And in the most practical sense, ask any legislator of either party, whether they're inclined to admit it or not, whether discussion of What Jesus Would Do enters any hearing on any budget. It's all symbolic and meant to be no more than a salve.

Maybe that's what the Supreme Court had in mind when it allowed a high school football coach to lead his team in prayer after a game, in full sight of the crowd and all. But isn't there implied coercion behind joining the team in prayer? Isn't there a chance that, if push comes to shove, a certain player wanting to be on the starting team wouldn't be allowed to because he took a principled stand?

But the Supreme Court is now filled with Catholics. They won't leave that on the shelf. They listen to a source we were supposed to be free from. Supreme Court justices should not be religious. To the contrary, they should be agnostics. These issues should be moot. Laws should not be passed nor activities governed by whether or not they please the almighty as someone understands them.

Onward to freedom of speech and press, closely bound in practice. A current case in front of the Supreme Court asks whether social media sources which have become widely used can ban certain people from belonging to them. 

It's a tricky issue as the current Supreme Court is put together. The majority believes that businesses should be allowed to function in the freest atmosphere possible, ideally without interference. So a private corporation (which has been interpreted to be a 'person' in Citizens United) can allow or disallow membership as it pleases, right? But if that social media becomes so pervasive, like Twitter or Facebook, so that 'everybody' uses it, isn't that unfair and a denial of rights that have fused onto everyone else? If I'm excluded, I'm free to establish my own social medium, right? But the economic burden placed upon me is beyond enormous. It's folly to assume that just anybody can create their own corporation, right? But if that's true, where did the creators of Facebook and Twitter get their impetus? So that doesn't work, at least not logically.

But since ex- has been muscled out of Facebook and Twitter, his sycophants in important positions, such as Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general, come rushing to his defense of being able to spread innuendoes and lies in the most popular and widely-used medium. So is the purpose of such media to spread the truth? Or to spread information and misinformation (i.e. lies) to allow the public to make a decision as to the degree of believability it wishes to accept? Stay tuned. This one will be interesting.

Of things in print, recent bannings have become frenzied and ghastly irrational, as I have documented not long ago. Let me ask this, though: If To Kill a Mockingbird can be banned, wouldn't that also be true of a recent book published by someone named Helgard Muller, referring to ex- as The Son of Man--the Christ (Which is, reportedly, being distributed at ex-'s rallies now)? If that is permissible for open discussion, as incredibly crazy that assumption is, what in To Kill A Mockingbird would be equally as absurd? And what would be in it that would ban its distribution and allow Muller's obvious pack of lies to be distributed?

Free press is free press. Publish and be damned. And I hope Muller is. But to ban it would bring down opprobrium on the censors, make Muller and ex- into victims (again), and draw more attention to it (as I've said here before). Better to allow stupid people to be openly stupid, to reflect the desperate extremism that is beginning to emerge due to a doubling-down on the same fears that got ex- into the ultimately inappropriate position he unfortunately occupied for four long years. The meaning of that enormous mistake is just as eligible for analysis as any other public act or office.

That's allowing the "marketplace of ideas," as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it long ago, to function as it should, as a self-regulating force that allows reason to overcome nonsense. But that assumes that people will step up and make their stands known. That cannot be guaranteed. But the First Amendment protects that, too.

Meeting in assembled places is also covered by the First Amendment. That includes meeting to complain as well as celebrate. Ex- showed us what he thought of assemblies he didn't like when he sent police both on foot and mounted horses to break up a Washington, DC, Black Lives Matter protest just outside the White House upon George Floyd's murder in 2020. But he praised the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 as being "good people." You can't have it both ways, though. You must allow the stupidly unthinking to say what they wish, as long as they don't get in anybody else's reasonable way.

That's the double-edged sword of freedom. That's what we have to live with in order for liberty under law to continue to function. Should ex- get back into power, one of the first things he'll do is to try to stifle those outlets who are unrelentingly critical of him. He will not merely criticize them, either. He will try to take 'official' steps to keep them from bringing him back into public scrutiny, which is what free speech and press are supposed to be for.

That's why he must be stopped, and the rigging of election results so that one side is guaranteed victory must be stopped, too. That will take a huge roar of outcry. Our jobs, our collective and individual jobs, of preserving democracy aren't finished yet. Indeed, they are just beginning. 

That should be the message of First Amendment Day: Preserve it while it can yet be preserved. Once lost, it will be practically impossible to get it back. The shadow of fascism lurks, and the First Amendment is the only thing that can ward it off.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Plague of Banned Books

I got hold of a part of USA Today last weekend, which featured a large and ever-growing number of books that someone or other has decided needs to leave shelves because they threaten--well, you'd have to ask them. Some of these titles astonish me:

The Odyssey

Lord of the Flies

Of Mice and Men

A Light in the Attic

Maus

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Animal Farm

The Catcher in the Rye

The Things They Carried

Beloved

To Kill A Mockingbird 

The Outsiders

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1984

The Hunger Games

The Handmaid's Tale

The Color Purple

A Separate Peace

Born A Crime

The entire Harry Potter series

There were several others, but I gather that you've heard of the above.

Yes. Cancelled. Forbidden. I can't even.

Granted, I haven't read all of these, but I've read enough to understand that banning them, even calling them into question, violates any decent sensibilities and reflects a staggering paranoia that, while it could be called natural because of the current regressive state of things, calls thinking into question.

To these people, thinking must be dangerous--thinking that isn't pre-conditioned, I suppose. Except nobody can do that. Nobody can tell anyone what to think and then guarantee that that thinking will be all the thinking that people do. It's not only arrogant and slavish, it's downright stupid.

Plus what are people going to do--cancel, or force to cancel, cable television? When adaptations to To Kill a Mockingbird or Animal Farm or Of Mice and Men or The Hunger Games or Animal Farm are shown, will they put out notice and warn parents of the awfulness of those films?

Here's the ultimate irony of book banning: 1984. I book about control of thinking banned by people who want to control thinking. A book about the manipulation of language brought by those who supported the man who told them not to believe what their eyes were telling them--and meant it.

Maus? Really? An allegory about the Nazis abusing and killing the Jews? What are the banners doing, joining the Holocaust deniers? Or is it that they just don't like rats? If not, avoid All Quiet on the Western Front, too (which, by the way, has also been banned), because there are plenty of rats and the atrocities they commit (or merely following up on ongoing atrocities, take your pick) in that work.

Is this a drilling down on Black Lives Matter? On critical race theory, which is a concoction of graduate school thinking which, until a radically conservative conjurist introduced, had never been in any mainstream conversation in any school, public or private?

Or is it just that someone thinks that kids can't read about bad things at all? Things like:

• Gayness (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, A Separate Peace)
• Bullying (Blubber)
• Racism (The Hate U Give, Eleanor & Park, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter)
• School shootings (Nineteen Minutes)
• Atheism (The Golden Compass)
• Colonialism (The God of Small Things)

You know, stuff like that. If anything, I now want to read these books and discover what someone had a problem with. The fact that there are many best-sellers among these is, what, evidence of the damage in our culture? With our sinfulness? With our lack-of-straightness?

And do people think the assigning of these books, with their tax dollars (and how much money per person in any jurisdiction covers the cost of a copy or two of any book?), represents a betrayal of their values? That whatever school libraries and teachers assign must align with their thinking, however ill-informed it may be? That because they think a certain way, everybody else's thinking is not only bad, not only wrong, but is to be prevented somehow?

So much of this is about race and gender. People have never stopped being afraid of a lack of whiteness. They have never stopped being put off by gay people acting in loving ways in public. The thoroughly neanderthal candidate for Wisconsin governor has said as much: no public displays of gay affection. Keep that in your closet. (Would he introduce legislation preventing it? If elected, don't put it past him.)

Reducing information feels comforting. But it builds walls. It encourages the same behavior everywhere. And it never, ever works.

Of course, not all school libraries are banning all of the above books. To compile lists in such a big nation as ours leaves one with the impression that all books are under examination and that we are all being whitewashed, excuse the pun. But it is bad enough.

This is what happens when minds are stifled and paralyzed, when negative possibilities overwhelm the positive, always easier to do. When panic meets exaggeration. It is a human element that we do not prefer and that we too often ignore.

What to do? Talk up the problem. It is not true that where it does not now exist, it won't or can't. That will become true especially where Republicans seize power, where it becomes popular to bring out phraseology such as "woke," to confirm that whatever a particular book contains cannot be good for kids.

No. Do not wait. Don't assume rationality surrounds you. There are ways to fight this, and fight this we must.

Talk about it openly, logically, and especially calmly. Ideas, by themselves, are just that--ideas. They can cultivate minds and often do, not poison them. 

And do not accept the cherry-picking that reactionaries insist upon to justify their inclinations to take books off shelves. Use the word context often and with effect. Ask those who would censor, "Have you actually read the whole book? Is it utterly without merit or importance?"

Staying calm and speaking out is not walking away. Staying calm and speaking out is being an advocate for reading, for intellectual curiosity, for thinking, for kids. Kids are wiser than we think. But they also need guidance now, more than we think. The world is a different place, yes, but not one that we can hide them from. We must stay rational and keep the lines of communication not only open, but inviting.

Banning the above mentioned books, though, robs young people of important opportunities to know things about the world that they will need to know once they emerge into it as adults. Fear cannot overtake it. It won't. Reading these books under guiding hands is the answer, not preventing any challenges whatsoever.

They're smarter than us, anyhow. They'll find a way around it this plague, as contagious as the viral one we've endured. Ask yourselves this: Is this more dangerous than having guns?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Give It Up, Chuck, and Save It

I'm not a monarchist. Seems to me Americans gave that up in 1776, and we've been none the worse for wear since (though this country is in bad, bad condition). Plus, I've always wondered what it would be like to be a "subject," which is the word used to designate citizens of monarchies. Subjected to what? (We've been subjected to ex- for four years. That's plenty enough.) But Great Britain and America have been excellent friends for almost the whole time after the War of 1812, so it's worth speculating upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II recently, given that she was so beloved by so many of the British. Her importance to them cannot possibly be equivalent to us, but importance nonetheless deserves to be reflected upon.

I'm not sure how much I care about the British monarchy, either, especially in the wake of having watched the cable series "The Crown." What it's supposed to represent, and what it actually does, cut to the essence of image and its maintenance vs. reality.

One of the best, and most recently shattered, examples of this was the dicey progression of then Prince Charles and his stunning wife, Diana, through a marriage that he didn't want but felt forced to accept by his Mr. Uptight father and then, due to jealousy, pretentiousness and disloyalty for which royals are known, made sure she didn't want it, either. Both acted unethically but within a kind of by-law that dictates that if you do that, you try very hard to make sure nobody in the public knows--except people do.

This time, though, having been one-upped by his recalcitrant wife and thus thoroughly embarrassed because the female took it upon herself to violate the Male Prerogative of having something on the side, Charles forged forward and broke up the hypocritical union. He quickly re-connected, or perhaps publicly connected so as to avoid all doubts, with the one woman he always clearly adored, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Diana? She got around. One of those liaisons led to her very premature death, one that has been lionized and practically drowned in obsession--the 25th anniversary of which has just been observed.

When the basis of one's life and the solidity of one's future has clearly been shattered, when getting up in the morning becomes one's major challenge, one is likely to do some things that amaze and shock some and cause others to wink and grin gently, when feeling better in the short run wins all hands and feeling better in the long run can't be foreseen under any circumstances. When one is faced with survival, the survival mode is anything but normal and regular, conventions be damned. Maybe one gets over it, like Charles. Maybe one doesn't. Diana might have, but we'll never know.

But poor Charles. He's still attached to Diana as the bad guy, even though he tried to address the reality of the matter and set things straight, to do the right and honorable thing, not to maintain what others might call the right and honorable thing, except that the right and honorable thing doesn't always ring true and genuine, especially after having done what nobody thinks is right and honorable. Divorce has pain and inevitable labeling to it, normalized in western culture now to such an extent that it is no longer considered all that unusual--which may be the route that we've taken to decadence, whether we like it or not. We continue to go through the trappings of marriage and all its celebrations, hoping that all who have done so will fulfill its challenging hopes, but quite aware that they often don't.

Diana lives on in immortal legend, though she became just as guilty in proclivity to put her vows in some dusty room and help herself in deserved but very tricky revenge. But because she came off as much less the fuddy-duddy to Charles' traditional snootiness, she is practically worshipped now. Magazine publishers bring her back every so often to raise their coffers. She would have wrinkles by now, but nobody dares create a projection of that.

All this provides ready-made tarnish to the inevitable succession of Prince Charles to being King Charles III upon the passage of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who (according to the TV series) stood to accept at least part of the blame, through inertia, for the aforementioned, doomed union.

Charles is doing his best to fall into the grooves that tradition and practice demand. Yet most people will view him in opaque terms. He is tainted regardless. He will do his best to rise above it, but that's not his call anymore. When one is out in front of the public, the public applies the label. That can be cruel, but it is nonetheless true.

This will hamper Charles like a leg brace, or an operation that didn't go entirely well. It can be viewed as not even his fault anymore, but it always can be referred to. He enters this batter's box with a strike against him.

There's a way he can salvage credibility, though, and restore some of the monarchy's dignity. Time and service will be one, and he will doggedly apply himself to it. But he's getting on, too, and the status of outliving one's enemies can't be guaranteed. The anti-monarchists will have fresh meat to chew, and the forces that dubiously introduced Brexit can be a mighty force if given a new grist for its mill.

So maybe he should do this: After, say, a year or two in which the presence of the British monarchy has been re-established and noted by both pro- and anti-mavens, he might want to abdicate the throne and give it to his first-born son, William, who seems to be perfectly happy with his beautiful wife, Kate, a traditional, unabashed mom, enjoying a relatively happy family life, and appears to be royal in all things he has done and will do with his calm bearing and ease of representation. It might be viewed as the restoration, if you will, of what anyone who likes that particular monarchy would be waiting for upon Charles' ultimate demise, but wouldn't otherwise get it for twenty years or more. William has only turned 40. His reign might be another four decades, maybe more.

Charles could cut a better deal than Prince Edward, the planned successor to the throne that opened up after George V's death in the 1930s. But he ran headlong at his American, divorced lover, determined to marry her, ran away from the throne because he knew what it meant and couldn't fight the feeling. Of course, according to "The Crown," he turned out to be a genuine Nazi sympathizer and overall leech upon many people's doings. I don't think Charles III would do that. 

But he might become something of a royal consort himself, kind of what lawyers of counsel become once their time has passed an nobody knows what else to do with them; they get the last phone call, but they do get one. Edward tried to do that, but upon his own invitation, which proved to be every bit the annoyance that had been predicted. Charles might insist upon consultation, but might also, with that sense of history, avoid meddling.

So Chuck, it's worth thinking about. In yielding the trappings of privilege (or at least the bulk of them), you might in fact be bringing a stamp of legitimacy upon the scars of what you earned in a street fight that has long since passed, but never forgotten. Okay, it happened. But okay, you hung in there and understand that only with a fresh start can your beloved monarchy have, or earn again, the luster you crave for it. You have a son who seems to guarantee the respect and honor that you can never completely regain. Better to step aside and watch it soar again, if it possibly can.

If a monarchy stands for anything, and I'm doubtful about that, it should stand for whatever it can claim to be good and decent. William's succession to a throne abdicated by Charles III might just do that. Worth a try, anyhow.

Sometimes, you have to give something up so you can go on, unburdened. Divorce is like that. Charles knows that, too. It's humbling, but it's also liberating and presents the possibility of a future one can be proud of. He should think about giving up something else that, in so doing, might more closely guarantee him an honored place.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark