South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

I was reflecting today on the Fourth of July. Independence day - our celebration of winning our independence as a nation from England, an oppressive, imperialist nation which exerted its influence across the globe by attempting to conquer and control as many foreign lands as possible and then exploit them for as long as possible.

Really, the colonists who rose up against England were not the locals who had been conquered and exploited. They were the other Europeans who had come to make their fortune, or to escape religious persecution in the Old World, or for whatever reasons they came. But that's another story. So, we rose up against England, many people died, and we formed a new nation based on freedom, and enshrined those freedoms in documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Today, most of our citizens have no idea what those documents say or mean, nor do they care. Freedom sounds good - but it should not get in the way of law and order, establishing and maintaining Christianity as the dominant religion of our country, or suppressing undesirable viewpoints. We quickly became an oppressive, imperialist nation which exerts its influence across the globe by attempting to conquer and control as many foreign lands as possible and then exploit them for as long as possible. We have become much better at this than England ever was.

In a few minutes, I'm going to watch a fireworks display with my three year old son, and we'll have a good time. He'll enjoy the pretty lights and the loud noises. I'll stand in awe as I think of how we are celebrating the birth of a nation, and I'll imagine I am seeing the red glare of rockets and hearing the bombs as they burst in the air above us. I love this country, and what it is supposed to stand for. But I wonder if or when we, the human race, will evolve from our violent nature - will we ever stop trying to control one another, killing one another, exploiting one another.

I'm not trying to detract from the celebration of our country's revolution - it is a glorious thing and I am proud of the freedoms that I and others fight to preserve for us every day (and I am talking about attorneys in the courtrooms and in the dry halls of the legislatures). But, I wish that there were a better legacy for my son as he grows and learns what it is all about, that we could see that point in history where the ugliness stopped, where tolerance, intelligence, and compassion seemed to take hold around the world. Happy Fourth of July.

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