TEMPLE: Savoring a commitment to liberty

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 5, 2008 at 12:15 a.m.

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Photo by Darin McGregor / The Rocky

People gather just west of Coors Field to watch fireworks on Thursday.

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Dawn on Independence Day is quiet.

The sky is blue. The shadows crisp.

One thing I love about July 4 is that the day offers both the starburst fireworks in the darkness and the time to reflect in the light.

Sitting in the Coors Field stands Thursday night waiting for the sizzling explosions of color, the crowd seemed to perfectly embody the idea of "the pursuit of happiness," especially after a thrilling ballgame had put everybody - OK, maybe not Marlins fans - in a good mood.

And when the booms began, the colors made the world seem to glow with promise, as our editorial cartoonist Ed Stein put it so eloquently when he launched his new series in Friday's Rocky, "Long time passing."

The colors, to put it simply, seem to make everyone feel happy.

I am an American by choice. Independence Day never fails to remind me why.

It is because of these words: "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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

These words don't only color how I may live as a man. They also set the stage for how I may do my work as a journalist.

When we have a question about the rights of Americans when it comes to speech, we generally turn to the First Amendment. That's clearly understandable. It is unequivocal: "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."

But it describes the limits on Congress.

What inspires me as an American and as a journalist about the words of the Declaration of Independence is that they establish liberty as an "unalienable" right. Those words form the foundation of a free press and, in my view, should guide us as we grapple with speech issues.

We live in a revolutionary time of our own. Our revolution is a digital one. It's a revolution that is making information available in a way that would have been unimaginable at the time of the American Revolution.

It's putting the power to reach large audiences in the hands of individuals. And, yes, it's raising all kinds of difficult questions for us as a society.

We can learn from other nations as we watch how they grapple with these issues. When we do, we should weigh their actions against the words that form the foundation of our society, the words of the Declaration.

How societies deal with speech that may hurt, speech that may be offensive, speech that may be unsettling, defines them.

A story from Canada, my former homeland, should be cautionary.

When a news magazine there published an essay titled "The Future Belongs to Islam" by a thought-provoking journalist last year, the country's largest nonprofit Islamic organization filed human rights complaints. The group argued that the article subjected Canadian Muslims "to hatred and contempt."

As you probably expect, I'm appalled by the idea of a journalist being hauled up before a government bureaucracy over his writing about a matter of clear public interest. Even the possibility of that is bound to have a chilling effect.

We do not want to make it easier to attack free speech, even as we recognize that the Internet has created new dimensions to legal issues involving the press.

The good news from Canada is that two human rights commissions rejected the complaint against Mark Steyn. A third, however, did not and is weighing the matter.

A writer with The Vancouver Sun, Ian Mulgrew, makes the point in a column this week that "no human rights tribunal or commission should be policing editorial decisions of the nation's media."

The plain language of our Declaration of Independence makes a trip down the Canadian path unlikely. But in a global world, we must be careful not to be swayed by the influence of other nations.

The star that must continue to guide us is our commitment to liberty. That is why I savor this day. Why I am thankful for the sacrifice of those who've made our freedom possible. And why I am proud to be an American.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

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