It’s Time to Give the Statue of Liberty Back to France

“The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. It has stood in New York Harbor as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, and was designated as a National Monument in 1924. The statue was given to honor the tremendous hope for a nation moving towards a proclamation of freedom for ALL its citizens only two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation was declared by President Abraham Lincoln through an Executive Order.

America was still a deeply divided nation in the aftermath of a seditious attack that declared war at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and South Carolina’s subsequent secession from the Union of States. This was the spark that officially started the Civil War between the North and the South laying the foundation for the birth of the Confederacy. Confederate states included Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Jefferson Davis was elected President and they declared themselves independent from the rule and law of the United States Government. Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia (which separated from Virginia in 1861 as a part of the contentious argument over the “politics” of slavery and never reconciled into a single state after the war), Kentucky, and Missouri were all called Border States, and despite their acceptance of the institution of slavery, along with Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri never joined the Confederacy.

“Border States” were fiercely divided in their loyalties; however, intense military pressure and some “political maneuvering” ultimately kept them from seceding from the Union. No matter that many have redefined the Civil War, as “a war of northern aggression” or a “battle for “States Rights” which one might argue that it was just that. There were states that wanted the right to own enslaved people and to engage in the enterprise of Chattel Slavery, that’s a fact. Nevertheless, what happened this past week in the hallowed hall of this nation’s Supreme Court has shaken the very core of this nation’s belief in “Liberty and Justice for ALL” and even more cogently “EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW” which is chiseled into the stone archway at the entrance to the high court as you ascend the marbled stairs and are overwhelmed by the grandiose columns that mark the place where “equal justice” is supposed to be fairly and judiciously deliberated.

The SCOTUS has had a tarnished reputation as an “A-political” body for some time now, and it has been losing stature and the high esteem with which most Americans have held the Court in years past more expeditiously than ever before in its history.  Politics are most responsible for this erosion but the Justices themselves cannot be held blameless for their loss of esteem and deference in the eyes of many Americans. Although everyone understands that Justices do have their personal opinions, religious beliefs, and political leanings, the personal opinions and beliefs of judges are not supposed to supersede or take precedence over the Law and the Constitution of the United States of America.

What has become crystal clear after the devastatingly problematic decisions and rulings of the current court over the past few days is that this iteration of the SCOTUS has become America’s 3^rd Political Party. We now have 3 active and established major political parties.  I am not ignoring the Green Party or the Libertarian Party but neither of them holds as much sway or power as the Supreme Court Party. None of the members of the SCOTUS have been elected by the people. They have been given  lifetime appointments and have no documented guidelines or agreements whereas “Ethics” are concerned. They are “trusted” to police themselves? Two sitting Justices have been credibly accused of sexual assault, one Justice is seated because his seat was literally stolen through political gerrymandering, at least one of the current Justice’s qualifications to sit on the Court pale compared to her colleagues, and there is a Justice whose spouse actively engaged with attempting to overturn the results of a free and fair election. The Court has deteriorated into a cesspool of backroom politics, deal-making, and obfuscation of the truth. All of which means we do not have a Supreme Court at all because “Equal Justice Under the Law” is impossible for such a court to adjudicate.

We are not the United States of America. The SCOTUS has taken away a Constitutional Civil Right enshrined in LAW for over 50 years and has determined that “precedent in law” is no longer a legitimate consideration. We are a nation divided not unlike in the days just before the Civil War. The Supreme Court Political Party has made women once again 2^nd class citizens without the right to our bodies. We need to give the Statue of Liberty back to France. America doesn’t deserve it!