The reason for the holiday

There were a lot of things to celebrate this Independence Day.

The parade was full of smiling faces. Families gathered for cookouts. Veterans were honored. Children laughed, and the community came together to enjoy the blessings of being American under our big, beautiful Wyoming sky.

The members of our local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts deserve sincere thanks for organizing a wonderful community celebration because events like these don’t happen by accident. They require volunteers, planning, sacrifice and a genuine love for community and country, and Newcastle is fortunate to have people willing to invest that kind of effort in honoring our nation’s 250th birthday.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, our community decided that political candidates and campaign activity should be discouraged from participating in the celebration. The decision was undoubtedly made with good intentions. Modern politics have become exhausting. Campaigns often bring division instead of unity. Most of us grow weary of the constant advertisements, accusations and social media arguments that accompany election season.

But on this particular weekend, we believe we lost sight of the reason for the holiday, and that left me feeling unsettled. 

Not angry. 

Not offended. 

Just disappointed.

The Fourth of July is not primarily a celebration of fireworks. It is not about parades, and it is not about hamburgers, hot dogs or patriotic music. Those traditions make the holiday enjoyable, but they are not what make it important.

The reason we celebrate Independence Day is because a group of ordinary people decided they should have the right to govern themselves.

The American Revolution was not fought simply because taxes were too high. It was fought because those taxes were imposed without representation. The colonists believed they possessed a God-given right to choose the people who governed them, and they were willing to risk everything to defend that principle.

Free elections are not an inconvenience attached to the American experiment.

They are the American experiment.

Political speech is not an unfortunate byproduct of liberty.

It is liberty.

Two hundred fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, it seems strange that we would celebrate the birth of representative government while asking representative government to remain quietly off to the side.

No one is suggesting candidates should dominate a community celebration, and nobody is arguing that every parade should become a political rally. But there is a meaningful difference between refusing to let politics overwhelm a celebration and discouraging the peaceful political expression that gave birth to the celebration in the first place.

This was not the fault of one committee because it was a community-wide lapse. People participated in the planning process without raising the question. Candidates accepted the decision without explaining why political expression belongs at a celebration of American independence. The rest of us mostly nodded along because avoiding uncomfortable conversations has become easier than having them.

That is understandable, but it is alsounfortunate.

And Newcastle is not alone.

Across the country, communities made similar decisions this year because many Americans have become so uncomfortable with politics that they would rather pretend elections don’t exist than acknowledge the freedoms that make those elections possible.

That instinct should concern us because the First Amendment was never intended to protect only speech everyone enjoys hearing. If that had been the standard, there never would have been an American Revolution.

“Give me liberty, or give me death!” was not designed to avoid controversy. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was not written to keep everyone comfortable. The Declaration of Independence itself is one of the most challenging and controversial political documents ever produced.

The founders did not separate patriotism from political expression. They united them, and America’s birthday should be the one day each year when communities enthusiastically celebrate representative government instead of quietly setting it aside.

Modern political speech can certainly be ugly. Some of it is offensive. Some of it is reckless. Some of it deserves criticism, but that is nothing new. History repeatedly reminds us that allowing people to speak freely — even when we dislike what they have to say — is usually safer than allowing someone else to decide which opinions deserve to be heard.

More recently, Americans watched social media companies, government officials and major news organizations decide certain viewpoints during the COVID-19 pandemic should be limited or suppressed because they were considered dangerous or controversial. In time, many of those dismissed viewpoints proved worthy of serious discussion, and some proved remarkably accurate.

The freedoms secured 250 years ago survive only if each generation is willing to exercise them confidently and defend them consistently. That principle is worth remembering every Fourth of July because if we become reluctant to practice free political speech because it feels awkward or uncomfortable, we slowly forget why it mattered enough for others to fight and die for it.

The best way to honor the patriots of 1776 is not simply to watch fireworks after dark or gather for a cookout or parade. It is to practice the freedoms they declared were worth risking everything to preserve.

This year, Newcastle celebrated America’s birthday well, but next time, perhaps we can celebrate America’s purpose just as enthusiastically. Because if we are not tough enough to hear peaceful political speech on the 250th anniversary of declaring our right to speak freely, then we have forgotten something essential about the people who founded this nation.

Fortunately, we don’t believe we have forgotten. I think we simply need an occasional reminder, and that is one of the reasons newspapers still exist.

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