Pleading the Fifth on the Fourth

Each year on the 4th of July, fireworks erupt across the American sky in a bold, burning celebration of freedom.

Independence Day marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a historic proclamation that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yet when as a Black, nomadic Taoist I reflect about what freedom and liberty really mean, I find myself drawn not to the shouts of patriotism but to the silence of the Fifth.

The Fifth Amendment, that is.

The Sacred Power of Silence

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution offers protections that go beyond legal technicality. It is the right to remain silent. The right to not self-incriminate. The right to not be compelled by the government or by social pressure to speak against oneself.

How Taoist is that?

Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching, reminds us that “those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.” Silence, in the Taoist tradition, is not weakness, it is power. It is a sacred refusal to enter the arena of noise, force, and imposed order.

In pleading the Fifth, one aligns with the Taoist principle of wu wei—non-forcing, non-interference, the art of letting things be.

On the Fourth of July, when voices grow loud with celebration, nationalism, and sometimes delusion, the Tao calls us to listen more deeply to what is not said — to the subtle undercurrents beneath the noise.

Freedom from Compulsion

As someone who has traveled through countless towns in America, including ones with a questionable racial history, freedom has never been something I could assume. It’s something I’ve often had to quietly and cautiously navigate over the years.

Pleading the Fifth on the Fourth becomes for me a symbolic act of restraint and self-protection, related to the assertion that freedom includes the right not to perform, not to confess, not to explain oneself to power.

Confucius, often seen as Lao Tzu’s counterpoint, valued speech—but only when it served virtue. In The Analects, he says: “The Master was sparing of speech. He said, ‘The Heaven does not speak and yet the seasons change and the sun and moon move on. What more is there to say?’”

In a country where justice is not equally distributed and where liberty has often been defined by the powerful, the Fifth Amendment becomes a Taoist and Confucian middle path: protection through stillness. Sovereignty through silence.

From Chains to Choice: A Personal Tao

My ancestors were once denied the right to speak freely or to remain silent. Enslaved, surveilled, coerced. My father’s generation—he passed in 1996—fought for rights that were promised on parchment but denied in practice.

I’ve spent a lifetime studying Taoist philosophy and navigating a world that often misunderstands Black and Brown skin stillness as suspicion and privacy as guilt.

So yes, I honor the fireworks, the flag, and the barbecue. But I also honor the Fifth. Because true liberty is not just the ability to shout from the rooftops. It is the ability to choose not to speak at all.

That’s the Taoist paradox: The greatest strength lies in not resisting, but withdrawing. In choosing the path of least resistance, you preserve your energy. In saying nothing, you say everything.

Justice for All? Or the Appearance of It?

What does “justice for all” mean in an age of algorithmic surveillance, mass incarceration, and deepening polarization? In Taoism, justice is not something that can be manufactured through law alone. Rather, it must flow from the natural order, from Te, the inner moral virtue that emerges when one lives in harmony with the Tao.

Laws are necessary, but not sufficient.

Freedom, as I see it now, is not defined by flags or court rulings. It is an internal condition. A kind of inner Tao. It is the feeling I get when I’m walking down a street, not being followed. When I can speak or not speak without fear.

When I can just be.

A New Kind of Patriotism

On this 4th of July, perhaps patriotism doesn’t require grand declarations. Perhaps it asks us to be still, to reflect, and to ask deeper questions.

What if the most revolutionary act you could do is to withhold your words?

What if justice begins not with shouting for your rights, but quietly embodying them?

And what if freedom isn’t something we win but something we return to, like water returning to its source?

This is the Tao I walk. This is the stillness I carry. And this is why, sometimes, I plead the Fifth on the Fourth because silence, too, can be a song of liberation.

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