By Lucas O’Connor
Marking this year’s Independence Day, the Supreme Court served up easy tie-ins for good and for bad. We saw the end of DOMA and of Proposition 8, and weddings began up and down the state of California. We also saw the end of fundamental voter protections in the Voting Rights Act, calling into question the viability of the most fundamental function of our democratic system. And if that weren’t enough, right here in San Diego we saw the culmination of the chalker case, raising all sorts of bizarre questions about the Bill of Rights that might actually be best not considered too carefully. But from the momentous to the trivial, all are steering us towards what it really means to be free and independent.
The ideas of Freedom and Independence often overlap, but aren’t necessarily interchangeable. Freedom is rarely easy, but is generally a simple concept to which we can aspire. Independence takes the opportunities of freedom to a higher standard, demanding a capacity for sustainability, not just separation from an outside authority, and that sort of independence can take a lot of work. [Read more…]