We the People: An Article of Faith

We Americans are a religious people. About seventy percent profess a dogmatic faith, primarily Christianity. The rest of us are a hodgepodge—spiritualists, atheists, and more—affectionally or disparagingly, depending on the source, lumped into a group called Nones. For the most part, we maintain a live-and-let-live attitude about another’s belief or non-belief. That wasn’t always the case, but over the years we’ve become better at it. We still have work to do on that, but that’s a discussion for another time.  

Be that as it may, we have a secular religion that ultimately binds us: Americanism. Merriam-Webster defines Americanism in part as “attachment or allegiance to the traditions, interests, or ideals of the U.S.,” but I hold it’s more. It’s a shared faith in the idea of America, which our Founders masterfully enunciated.

Even though Americanism is secular, thus of this world, there’s a parallel structure between it and the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Each has a founder, a creed, and an all-encompassing text. For those dogmatic faiths, it’s the Torah, Koran, or Bible. For Americanism, there are two: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Like how Jews, Moslems, and Christians must follow the prescriptions of their faith’s texts, it’s requisite for Americans of good faith to adhere to the principles delineated in our founding documents.

Not being educated in Judaism or Islam, I can’t speak about them, but I can about Christianity. As I see it, there’s one embracing precept in Christianity that encapsulates and serves as the pillar of the faith: Love. That’s true for Americanism too. It’s Freedom. In America, there’s no obligation to love thy neighbor, but you better respect their rights and liberties.

The American creed is derived from its Gospel and Ten Commandments. Its Gospel contains the line that succinctly summarizes Americanism: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Its Ten Commandments, of course, is the Bill of Rights. In similar fashion how the first Commandment makes it absolutely clear there’s only one God and that it’s forbidden to worship another, the First Amendment declares, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Today though, we’re witnessing apostasy against Americanism’s most sacred tenet with apostates using governmental tools and economic power to silence people. It’s obscene, but what gives one hope is that there seems to be a consensus across the political spectrum among us bickering and often at-loggerheads Americans that such attempts are a bridge too far.

In an incisive Supreme Court opinion written during the first Red Scare, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “They [the Founders] believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty (emphasis mine); and that this should be a fundamental principle of American government.”

An inert people. Hmm… An inert (noble) gas is one that exhibits very high stability and low reaction rates. Apply that concept to a people. Stasis works for dogmatic religions but not a vibrant democracy because a stable democracy ironically requires an alert, interactive, contentious people.

Brandeis also wrote, “repression breeds hate [and] that hate menaces stable government.” Further, “the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies.”

A successful democracy is contingent upon freedom of speech. Accordingly, effective leaders develop alligator hides because the barbs, zings, and arrows can come swiftly and frequently. Thin-skinned leaders who take offense at slights and cannot stand to be called down or satirized are the bane of a democracy.

The Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire succinctly framed the interchange of opposing viewpoints with this classic maxim: “I may disagree with you, but I defend to the death your right to say it.”

The writers of the Constitution, who too were products of the Enlightenment, moved that idea from the philosophical realm into the political. They made freedom of expression an article of faith, a sacred bedrock principle of Americanism.

The Second Amendment requires our militias be well-regulated. In the First Amendment there’s no such restriction for speech.