Sunday, June 5, 2016

Liberty Day

So the government has 10 official holidays: new year's day, Martin Luther King Jr birthday, Washington birthday, memorial day, independence day, labor day, Columbus day, Veterans day, Thanksgiving day, and Christmas day.

The three days named after people commemorate the discovery of North America by Columbus, the leadership of Washington in securing independence from the English, and leadership of the civil rights movement by Martin Luther King Jr.

Labor day celebrates all workers. Veterans day celebrates all military veterans. Memorial day isn't a celebration but is a day to remember soldiers who died in the civil war, in the first world war, and all later conflicts.

Independence day celebrates independence from the English but ignores American Indians, who in that period were losing their lands to the colonists. More on this below.

Thanksgiving day celebrates a number of different things, depending on who you ask, but is both generic -- because cultures around the world have a celebration after the harvest -- and sad because like independence day, this specific celebration originated in a time when the American Indians were starting to lose their lands to the colonists. Also, even though the American Indians also had their own celebrations, thanksgiving day is distinctly colonial.

Christmas day is a religious holiday only for Christians, even though it's not purely Christian in nature. No official federal holidays for other religions.

New year's day is the most secular "holiday".

The government should officially drop Christmas as a federal holiday because it's religious in nature, even if that religious nature isn't entirely Christian. I'm not saying that people should stop celebrating Christmas, just that the government shouldn't give it any more weight than holidays of other religions. The fact is that a vast majority of Americans do claim to be Christian so if they all celebrate Christmas at the same time, businesses and offices will continue to be closed, but let that be a decision by each organization and not a federal standard.

Let us have four standard vacation weeks during the year: the week surrounding January first, the week surrounding April first, the week surrounding July first, and the week surrounding October first. If anyone wants to rearrange their vacations they should negotiate with their manager, but the standard should be four weeks in a year, equally spaced around the calendar, to ensure people have the time to spend with their families without being penalized for it. So winter vacation would be December 28 thru January 4th, and if someone wants to take extra days earlier to celebrate Christmas or just "round off" to an entire week, they should negotiate that with their manager.

Let's drop all official holidays based on individuals and get back to the meaning of things.

Instead of Washington's birthday, the federal government should officially change its name to President's day (which many people already call it) and move it to April 30th to celebrate when Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States. Even though the inauguration day has since moved to January, as a commemorative holiday the first inauguration is better, and won't be confused with Washington or Lincoln's birthdays.

Instead of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, the federal government should officially change its name to Civil Rights Day, maybe move it to December 1st to commemorate Rosa Parks' brave civil disobedience, or maybe move it to May 17th to commemorate the decision of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation is inherently unequal. It's hard to pick a single point in time, because a long stream of events led to the improvement of civil rights. I just think it shouldn't be any one person's birthday. December 1st is probably a good choice because it's associated as the starting point of the modern civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Instead of Columbus day... actually, we can just drop it we don't need to replace it with anything (but I propose we should - read on). Columbus was a Spanish imperialist, his birthday just seems very irrelevant today. Some people celebrate a Native American day or some other substitution on the same day to make a statement, and that's not necessary either if we just drop this holiday.

Let's create a new federal celebration for liberty, and let's use it every year to remind ourselves what this country is about, because sometimes people forget that liberty is an important goal of our constitution. Past generations forgot about liberty when they continued to hold slaves after the declaration of independence, when they continued to fight American Indians after the signing of the declaration of independence, when they forced Japanese Americans into internment camps, when they authorized secret government programs to develop the most massive covert collection (spying) program on this plane on our own citizens, and many other incidents.  It's that declaration - remember  "all men are created equal ... with certain unalienable rights ... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"???  That was on July 4th and we are celebrating independence from the English but we've forgotten so many times the reasons we needed independence. If we celebrate a Liberty Day, and make it a tradition to talk about the meaning of liberty and the limits on pursuit of happiness (the boundaries being harm to other people individually or collectively, whether direct or indirect), and recounting past mistakes and making a commitment to do our best not to let that happen in the future, then maybe we'll have a chance at keeping our liberty a little longer.

I propose to celebrate Liberty Day on October 1st of each year.