Stuff about freedom, hope, and independence that you should be reading instead of setting off those illegal fireworks. #

• If you’ve never read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, what better day could there be than July 4th? The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has a really nice web page from which you can access scads of information about America’s founding documents. You can see images of the originals, download text transcriptions, and read essays on the impact of the charters. These inspirational documents are essential to understanding what it means to be American.
• Via Atrios – Read this now: Give us back our damn flag. Liberals and progressives of the past have been responsible for much of the patriotic rhetoric we cling to in the present, including the Pledge of Allegiance and the poem on the Statue of Liberty. This article argues that it’s time for today’s liberals and progressives to reclaim their love of flag and country.
• In a similar vein, The Nation’s David Nichols, invoking Tom Paine, calls true patriots to arms, as does Former Republican Pete McCloskey (Sid’s Fishbowl)
• Brad DeLong also reminds us of the revolutionary writings of Thomas Paine and offers a few suggestions for the F9/11 Director’s Cut.
• F9/11’s director Michael Moore has a sensible view on file sharing. (Slashdot) Seems to me that most artists do and most executives don’t, defining “sensible view” here as one that upholds standards of fair use.
• Also via Slashdot and also on the topic of file sharing, that most excellent of bands They Might Be Giants has announced a new TMBG music store. At 99 cents per song and $9.99 per album, the store’s prices are comparable with Apple’s iTunes Music Store, yet the mp3 quality is higher, there are no DRM restrictions, and the money goes directly to the artists. I bought the two available albums to support the band and the concept. I’m still parsing the Terms of Use page, but this looks like exactly what I’ve been waiting for – a way to pay my money directly to the artists while receiving music in a format that trusts me to be responsible with it. The way CDs, tapes and vinyl used to be. The site also has a flash app available for download that will stream TMBG songs to your computer. Wicked cool.
• BBC News reports on the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Freedom Tower, the new building which will take the place of the World Trade Center.
• The Poor Man keeps exposing the lies.
• Orcinus is selling Bush/Cheney t-shirts. Love it. (via Sid’s Fishbowl.)

• Finally, in God Sheds His Grace, Adam Felber gapes in awe at how the Founding Fathers ever got a Declaration through the vetting process: “Ponytailed dreamers might feel that certain truths are “self-evident,” and the rabble might find such pithy phrasing inspirational, but nowadays we know better. The truth that hot coffee might burn you isn’t self evident, fergodsakes, so how can any reasonable person expect the so-called inalienable rights of man to slide by with a simple “because we say so?” The fact that the Declaration of Independence was issued with no caveats, waivers, or warning labels strikes the modern reader as not only silly but very, very irresponsible.”

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Sunday, July 4th, 2004 @ 12:54 pm Nothings
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