¡Si, Se Pudo!

Most people point to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as the moment "America" began, this being an event which mostly occurred on the second of August, 1776, although we reminisce about it on the Fourth of July. (Technically, the Continental Congress approved separation from Mother England two days earlier.)

An egg-head case can be made that we didn't become the United States of America until New Hampshire ratified the Constitution on March 4, 1789...........

Personally, though, I'm fond of conceiving March 4, 1797 as our unofficial "national birthday." On this day George Washington, Humbler of Empires, and surely the closest thing we've had to a God King, peaceably, and of his own volition, handed over the high office of state to a popularly elected bureaucrat. Really, until he did that, any notion of our Nation of Laws, Not of Men, was more or less theoretical.

With that in mind, I decided I'd mark the election of Barack Obama as 44th President of The United States with a series of bumper stickers benefiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, per our revenue sharing program.

The E.F.F. is now engaged in heroic legal action to undo the Bush Administration's assertion of broad authority for warrantless electronic surveillance of million of Americans.

(In the internet age, the hyperlinked text is essentially euphemism for "Bolt-Cutter Lobotomy of Your Fourth Amendment.")

In my view, E.F.F's likelihood of success is greatly dependent on the attitude of our next commander in chief toward Essential Liberty. Sure, plaintiff's pleas are now "Before the Courts," but much depends on how hard the next president instructs his side to argue.

This here column makes a pretty sad commentary on the past eight years:

On the night of the election of a truly historic presidential candidate, with the potential to bridge social- and economic- chasms at home, and to restore our position abroad, I find myself wondering:

Just how theoretical, exactly, is our Constitution, nowadays?

As our soon-to-be 44th President prepares for his term in office, I find myself reflecting on our first president, at the end of his term in office:

Are the two men of comparable mettle?

Obama clearly has the ambition for great things—does he have the strength to return power to the people?

Will we look back on the Obama Presidency as a time when American liberty was born again?

Ultimately, I suspect the answers to these questions aren't all on Barack. Which is why the last bumper sticker in this list is the one I like the best. We voted for "Change We Can Believe In." And well, we believed in the change enough that we got it. We hoped our best hopes for the best—now all we gotta do is live up to 'em.

Kyle Johnson
Bumperactive