7/04/2019

My dear Friend and president, DJT,

            Please join me in wishing these UNITED States of America a very happy birthday. I know you are doing your best to celebrate, but this glitzy military demonstration is just not what this country is all about. I encourage you to read T.H. Breen's opinion piece in yesterday's NYT so you have a better understanding of why George Washington would not approve of today's extravaganza.

            Have you heard of Mercy Otis Warren? I never heard of her before reading Breen's piece today. My ignorance of her shows how limited my US history education was! Turns out that she wrote the first history of the American Revolution and wrote lots of propaganda before and during the war in the form of satire that appeared in the Boston Gazette and Massachusetts Spy. Some think she inspired the Bill of Rights by writing Observations on the New Constitution and on the Federal and State Conventions. She was worried about despotism and warned that tyrants "may silence the complaints, and forbid the most decent remonstrances of an injured and oppressed people" so she wanted the Bill of Rights to include a clause insuring freedom of the press. That was a great idea, don't you think?

            I'm sorry that this census question issue is back on the front page. Please let it go!

            Best,