The Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence have taken undeserved (and ignorant) abuse and disrespect this year, so I’ll extend the celebration a bit with the recognition of this date in 1776, when the 2,000-pound copper-and-tin “Liberty Bell” rang out from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, so citizens could come and hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, and know that their new nation had been conceived. Four days earlier, the Decalarationhad been adopted by the Continental Congress delegates, but the the public reading had to wait until the Declaration of Independence returned from the printer on July 8.

In April 1775, the bell had been rung to announce the battles of Lexington and Concord. After its most famous ringing on July 8, 1776, the British advanced on Philadelphia in the fall of 1777 caused the bell to be removed from the city and hidden to save it from being melted down by the British. After the British defeat in 1781, the bell was returned to Philadelphia, which served as the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800. It was tolled annually to celebrate George Washington’s birthday on February 22 and the Fourth of July. The name “Liberty Bell” wasn’t used until an 1839 poem about abolishing slavery.

Contrary to public belief, the famous crack in the bell, rendering it useless except as a symbol, did not occur during its most famous swing and ring, but while tolling to mark the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall, in 1835. Sounding a bit off but still used for another decade, the bell was still used until 1846 when the crack got worse while ringing out to mark George’s birthday that year. It was retired after that.

I learned about the crack when the Disneyland TV show’s “Ballad of Davy Crockett” epic reached the episode accompanied by the verse that went,

He went off to Congress an’ served a spell
Fixin’ up the Govern’ments an’ laws as well
Took over Washin’ton so we heered tell
An’ patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell
Davy, Davy Crockett, seein’ his duty clear!

1. I just noticed that Tom Cruise violated the ethics rules in “The Firm.” In the film of John Grisham’s legal thriller, Tom Cruise’s character Mitch McDeere works mightily to avoid disbarment by solving his dilemma (his firm is a Mafia ally) without violating the Rules of Professional Conduct. But Mitch has already engaged in a serious ethics breach by engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. He gives legal advice [Notice of Correction: I erroneously wrote “ethics advice” by mistake when this was posted.] advice to a big client of his firm before he has passed the Tennessee Bar exam and been sworn in. That’s practicing law, and he can’t do that.

Maybe he hadn’t gotten to that part of the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct while he was studying for the exam…

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1. I’d make a whole post out of this, but it would be short. Conservatives are beginning to call for video cameras in classrooms. Tucker Carlson promoted the idea on his show last night. Naturally, teachers are horrified. There is no good reason not to video classrooms, from kindergarten through the 12th grade. Parents can’t take time off from work to monitor classrooms, as would be ideal, so they should have the option of reviewing videos of what transpired. Teachers were in a profession, like police, the clergy and journalists , who were once regarded as inherently trustworthy. That, we now know, was sentimental and lazy fantasy.

Carlson’s justification for the measure was to make sure Critical Race Theory wasn’t being jammed into impressionable young brains, but videos would have made sense before CRT was a twinkle in Cori Bush’s eye. I don’t want teachers pushing their political and social views about anything on kids. If they talk about current events, I want to see that they are competent, informed, and not injecting bias into education. Are they touching children inappropriately? Flirting with students? Treating boys tougher than girls? Being cruel or mean?

“Trust but verify” has few more appropriate applications than in checking the conduct of teachers.

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There are so many important and fascinating things associated with the Fourth of July, and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is one of them. In his autobiography, “Marching Along,” Sousa wrote that he composed the march on Christmas Day, 1896, on board an ocean liner on his way home from a vacation with his wife. He had just learned of the death of David Blakely, the manager of the Sousa Band and was moved to create his most stirring march—which for Sousa is saying a lot— as a personal tribute. He composed the march in his head, not writing any notes down until he arrived in the U.S. The piece was first performed at Willow Grove Park, a Philadelphia suburb on May 14, 1897, and was an instant hit, as you would expect. An Act of Congress in 1987 made it official National March of the United States of America, so I assume that Gwen Berry hates it too, along with the Star Spangled Banner. (Gwen, arrogant and ignorant social justice warrior that she is, was recently exposed as racist and hypocrite with some old tweets that surfaced. Hilariously, she has defended herself by comparing her plight to that of Justice Kavanaugh, as if 1) she had ever defended Kavanaugh when he was being smeared, 2) there was any verifiable evidence against Kavanaugh as opposed to her smoking gun tweets, and 3) there is no distinction between a 35-year old rumor about a distinguished judge’s conduct as a child and published proof of an obnoxious athlete’s character as an adult. But I digress…)

In show biz, and particularly in the theater and the circus, Sousa’s masterpiece is sometimes called “the Disaster March,” because it was once common for theaters and circuses to have their bands or orchestras play it to alert the audience that there was a dangerous emergency, like a fire. (Yes, it is ethical to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever in a crowded theater). The idea was that the number was a code for staff that allowed them to organize the audience’s orderly exit without causing panic. The march was played, for example, during the Hartford circus fire of July 6, 1944.

One of the strangest and oddly fitting coincidences in U.S. history occurred on July 4th, 1826, when two of the primary architects of American independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died within hours of each other.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Since the very first, the holiday has never been celebrated while under such cultural attack. Don’t let the propaganda of America’s haters diminish one of the most glorious and beneficent days in world history.

1. What do we make of this Gallup poll? In a generally confusing set of results, the one stand-out in the recent Gallup poll regarding public’s perceptions of the state of the pandemic was that 57% of Republicans think its over and only 4% of Democrats do. That’s a huge gap, showing an alarming disparity in world view, perception, attitudes and thought process. I tend to view part of the 4% as confirmation bias: conservatives are far more resentful of the State’s incursions on their personal liberties using the virus as a justification (or an excuse) than the totalitarianism-enabling Left. On the other hand, and there are many other hands here, being certain that the pandemic is over is dumb, since if we have learned on thing about the health care “experts,” they have been wrong as often as right. We have also learned that politics has driven the narrative about the virus as much as the facts have. I thought Democrats trusted science, and the GOP doesn’t. That would suggest that the latter would be more wary of the current green lights.

On yet another hand, Republicans tend to be far less risk averse than modern Democrats, adopting the traditional spirit of the nation that Democrats are in the process of rejecting. Gallup does not give the party- affiliation breakdown of the 40% of those polled who say that the nation will never return to normal. I know lots of Democrats who say now that they plan on wearing masks forever, and no Republican. On the OTHER hand, a non-Democrat could easily conclude that we will never return to pre-Wuhan normalcy because power-wielding Democrats will never allow it.

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What would be more accurate term? Well, “asshole” comes to mind.

A Frederick County deputy pulled over a vehicle for a tag violation on June 20 when he noticed another vehicle pull up nearby. The deputy reportedly first feared for his life, and that it could be a cop assassination set-up. But the driver of the second vehicle introduced himself as Democratic county councilman Kai Hagen, and he refused to leave the scene until the detained driver, an African-American, acknowledged that he was “OK.” County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, a Republican, went on WFMD-AM’s “Mid-Maryland Live” last week to condemn the grandstanding Councilman.

“I’m enraged, I’m angry, I was livid when it happened, there’s no excuse for it, it’s unlawful,” Jenkins said. “This is outrageous. Who in the hell does he think he is?” Jenkins added, while noting that Hagen could legitimately have been cited for his actions.

Not could have been, should have. The deputy handled the matter badly, falling for the old “Do you know who I am?” trick. It doesn’t matter who the interloper was. He was interfering with lawful law enforcement.

Hagen then called in to the radio station to explain his conduct, confirming that he had turned his vehicle around and circled back to the scene to ensure that the stopped driver was all right when he noticed his skin color—you know, that he wasn’t being beat up, shot, having drugs planted on him, being made to sing “The Camptown Races” or having his neck knelt on, which we all know is what white cops want to do to blacks.

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I was afraid of this: devoting the warm-up to Gettysburg left me with all of these noisy ethics stories hanging around my office and yelling at me. So here are some ethics stories and issues to unclog the drain…

• The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington, letting stand a 2019 decision by the Washington Supreme Court against florist Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, for refusing to supply flowers for a same sex marriage. Upon reading the decision of the Washington Court, I was struck by the fact that the plaintiffs were not individuals who had made the request deliberately to force a confrontation with a vendor they knew had religious objections to same sex weddings. Robert Ingersoll had been a regular patron of Arlene’s Flowers for years, so it seemed natural for him to use the shop to supply the floral arrangements for his wedding to Curt Freed. Nor did their truncated conversation involve special requests for any particularly expressive arrangements. Florist Barronelle Stutzman just refused to sell any flowers to the couple for their wedding and reception, and that was it. The case was ruled one of discrimination in public accommodations, and the opinion went to great pains to say that no animus against the defendant’s religion was involved.

SCOTUS turns down cases for many reasons, and in contentious social matters, they often will reject a case that has too much gray, triggering the “hard cases make bad law” principle. Cakes, catering, photographs and flowers at weddings fall in various places along the “commodities/art” spectrum, depending on the specific facts of each case. This one is too close.  The florist wasn’t asked to deliver the flowers or to participate in the marriage in any way. There’s got to be  better case on this topic somewhere. The Court was wise to pass.

And the florist was the jerk here. I don’t have much sympathy for her. Selling flowers to a gay couple doesn’t entail an endorsement of gay marriage, kinky sex, or anything else. Continue reading →