“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Fourth of July is when we celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s words that proclaimed the American state’s independence from England – on July 2 instead of the fourth.
While independence was proclaimed on July 2, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Continental Congress two days later.
About 13 years later, members of the Continental Congress drafted the American Constitution which established the principles that would guide the new nation and shored up in more detail what Jefferson meant by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
While the Constitution failed miserably in providing those rights to all people — women, Blacks, Native Americans — the rights provided to primarily white men then were pretty special.
Those cherished rights include the right to free speech and to an independent press that has the right — even the responsibility — to question and to challenge our elected leaders.
Those free speech components are the backbone of the country, whose independence we have in recent days been celebrating. And as our nation has matured, those rights have been availed to all.
But there is reason to fear that some of our elected leaders, through at least their words even as we celebrate the Fourth of July, are trying to erode those rights. No example shines brighter than the Trump administration’s response to press coverage of recent military action.
Most Americans, presumably, would still agree that it is not anti-American to question our elected leaders about whether their desired goals are accomplished when our immense military strength is deployed. It should not be construed as a slap in the face to our brave men and women in the military to ask such questions of elected leaders, especially when American lives and the economy are on the line.
In most instances, questions are asked to determine if our elected leaders choose to use the military in a proper and productive manner — and not to embarrass or criticize the military.
If they can justify that use of force and if the mission was a success, they should be able to defend it without attacking the questioner.
Nobody claimed attacks against the military when many criticized the chaos and deaths that occurred in 2021 during the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan when President Joe Biden was calling the shots.
On the other hand, when the press questioned whether recent bombings “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities as President Donald Trump claimed, he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said to ask such questions was disrespecting our military.
“There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did and, because of the hatred of this press corps, are undermined because your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn’t successful. It’s irresponsible,” Hegseth said.
Trump said the pilots who flew the bombing missions to Iran “were devastated” by the questions because “they put their lives on the line.”
In another interview, the president said, “And they (the media) may be prosecuted also for having given false reports on the attack in Iran. They were given totally false reports. It was totally obliterated. And our people have to be celebrated, not come home and say, what do you mean we didn’t hit the target?”
The president and his administration even went a step further, threatening prosecution for reporting on an app that allows people to provide information on the movements of ICE as the federal agency conducts immigration enforcement. Even before the media reports that simply reported about the existence of the app, it already was in the public domain and popular.
Perhaps Trump and Hegseth don’t understand — but hopefully members of the military and the rest of us do and did as we watched recent Fourth of July fireworks shows — that to question our leaders or even their military actions is not an effort to disparage or disrespect the military. The basis for this questioning and the right to even lodge the questioning is, in fact, a display of one of the more patriotic actions we can take as Americans.
That is the guiding principle, the North Star, of what the founders had in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution.
And surely the founding fathers would not approve of President Trump’s recent threat “to prosecute” the media for their reporting.
After all, to obtain and maintain the right to question our leaders is one of the reasons we chose to end our relationship with King George III on July 4, 1776, or thereabouts.
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