This Independence Day: Free the Territories

It’s not often that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and I land on the same side of an issue. When it happens, the subject in question must occupy that obscure tangent where progressive ideology and libertarian thinking meet. Points of agreement always worth exploring.

Back in 2018 I wrote a series of essays under the banner ‘A Soft Landing’ which posited ways in which we might remedy the challenges facing our nation short of violent revolution. In the four years since, none of my suggestions have taken hold, yet we have witnessed an insurrection and appear closer to active revolution than any moment in my lifetime. A Soft Landing outlined, first and foremost, the need for a new Constitution. One sticking point that refurbished document should address is clarification about how federal, state, and local governmental entities overlap. A second should spell out not only how states can join our Union, but also how they can secede.

For some three million Americans, my discussion of these topics fell completely short: citizens who reside in the territories.

In a recent Supreme Court decision, United States vs. Jose Luis Vaello Madero, the Court upheld…