I have a framed Thomas Nast cartoon somewhere. It's on the 1896 election. I did my master's thesis at MIT on that election. The cartoon depicts one of the political parties, I think labeled "Democracy", skinny dipping in a pond wearing a barrel bathing suit. The rich party, I think Republican, man is standing on the shore taking the bathing man's clothes. "Hey!", the naked man calls, "What will I do without them?" "What have you done with them but cast them off?", the rich man returns. The articles of clothing are labeled as abandoned policies, "tariff" I remember was one of them.
I'm getting there, this is preamble.
You know how the Dec. of Ind. says that the Creator has endowed us with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the p.o.h.?
In the early 19th century there was a strain of American politico-religious philosophy that argued that since God gave us these rights we had an obligation to God to use them. Otherwise, God would be pissed. Wouldn't want to do that. It is my understanding that as a philosophical argument that one did not gain wide acceptance. "But it is there", as Louis CK said about his unaccepted ideas.
Our Constitution puts some clothes (see what I did there?) on the Dec. of Ind. skeleton.
First Amendment Fundamental Freedoms
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...
That's the FIRST amendment to the Constitution. Important things, Firsts.
You lawyer types, don't jump in my shit pls. I know: "Congress"; Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants. We're talking political philosophy here, particularly that early 19th century strain. We are clothed in the freedoms of speech and the press. But when we voluntarily unrobe ourselves of them, don't use them, remain silent, leave them on the shore, and someone takes them from us without our permission, then there is a meaningful sense in which "Use it or lose it!" is true. Analogously: We also have a right to be free from unreasonable governmental searches and seizures of our person and property. That's another Biggie, the Fourth. We don't have a freedom from a G-man searching our trash can. We have discarded whatever is in there, given up our "right" to that property.
So there is a meaningful, practical truth, and consequences, when we voluntarily don't use a right. What Jeff Bezos did was not illegal, of course. He is not compelled to speak. But he does not please God nor the Founding Fathers when he self-censors so powerful an organ as the Washington Post. There are consequences, the least of which is the loss of his customers. The foremost of which is that to which those "Fundamental Freedoms" are the pillars. Democracy Dies in Silence.
