The United States rightly prides itself on having placed freedom at the root of its citizens’ relationship with their government. Not duty, not constraint, not even law. Our freedom drew the limits around our government, and not the other way around.

Among our freedoms, we Americans tend to think of freedom of speech first. After that, we probably list freedom of religion, and lump freedom of the press under free speech. But the fourth of the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” comes in a distant last. It seems irrelevant to the current situation: Do we really need a Constitutional right to allow us to hang out with our friends on a street corner?

Yes we do. Individuals pose little threat to the status quo, even if the individuals are using their right to free speech brilliantly. If the government can break up groups, then it can prevent bottom-up change.

The Internet is a powerful medium for free speech, of course. But it is an even more powerful tool of assembly. The real threat to the status quo will come not through speech but through the thick connections we are forming to one another.

It does not diminish freedom of speech to say that it is not enough by itself. Freedom of assembly — not of chanting mobs, but of those whose ideas and courage emerge in the new public — is all that stands between our republic and the disaster of empire.

Happy Independence Day. [Tags: freedom fourth_of_july politics]

Frank Paynter reflects on drawing the line, and then reconciliation.

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