When we first acquired the parakeet, he seemed a normal sort, yellow, green, rather undemanding, happy with his colorful seeds, up early, down late, fellow of regular habits. As I write, he looks on, all the encouragement needed. Surprises did not seem likely. Little did I know he was the constitutional sort.
Constitutional sort? Yes, in ways unexpected, this lively bird seems to personify the things that I write about, and unless he has been looking over my shoulder, they all come from within, which offers – to close the circle – a topic of interest to write about.
For starters, my children named him Grant – like Carey and the General, take your pick. If Carey, you will understand his humorous personality, if Ulysses you will understand why he drinks so much – water not liquor, but you get the point.
So, Grant’s first constitutional hankering turns out to be for free speech, and not just any free speech. Grant is a feisty fellow, takes to heart his freedom to offend. He decided early that he has a right to speak any time, any place, to anyone, and on any topic.
In practical terms, this means – since his cage is by the window, which looks out on the birdfeeder, he is conversing in full-throated syllables, mostly in Parakeet, with the woodpeckers and chickadees by 0500.
By 0600, he is all about his rights, quick to let me know his food or water are low, treats gone, or the aroma demands my special attention, when I can get to it. He takes his right to “petition… for redress of grievances” seriously, no matter how much I disown being the government.
By the time I have coffee steaming at the other end of the table, he tends to quiet down, becoming a murmuring poet, self-styled musician. He channels his best John Adams, who wrote: “I have to study politics and war so my sons can study mathematics, commerce, and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting, and music.” Perhaps Grant’s grandfather was a warbird, father good with numbers.
All this is fine, and reminds me that if birds like freedom to express themselves, so do the rest of us, and that is part of life, tolerating others when they feel compelled to give us an opinion, and not hesitating to use our branch to hold forth when the spirit moves us – just like those late day loons and gabby jays.
Then Grant will take to asserting other rights. With two dogs in the house, he decided that, after all, they might benefit from his opinions, of which there is never any shortage. Since he was often left with the dogs, they taught him to bark, a language he now relishes using, albeit with a distinct parakeet accent.
All this freedom of speech is something that reminds me again, that chirps matter for birds as words matter for humans; free speech is as much about expression as persuasion, noisemaking as wisdom – and that is exactly how the founding fathers imagined our First Amendment, highly accommodating.
I am reminded that Winston Churchill had a parrot, which is why many of his allusions were to how parrots behave, which they mostly do not, unlike parakeets, which always do not. Wrote Churchill once, thinking either about himself or his favorite American, “when eagles are silent, parrots begin to jabber.”
A more serious inference might be, “when the strong are silent, the weak speak” or if you do not stand up for your rights, borders, law and order, you may lose them all to the parrots – or the dragons.
But the most audacious act of constitutionalism by Grant was something he did last week, literally. When I rounded the corner with coffee, he was already at work, making lots of unnecessary noise, not with his beak but clanking at something. I paid no attention.
Like the sound of anything, you get used to it. Grant has trained me to ignore his persistent invocations, remonstrations, and protesting from his comfortable quarters. That is why I ignored the clanking.
Suddenly, I realized the clanking had familiarity. It was a sound I knew well, the cage door dropping back into place after I had fed, watered, or tended to Grant. Only this time, it was Grant making that noise.
I got up and walked over to his cage. He now paid no attention to me. He was hard at a mission, and as he worked, I watched. He was using his beak very creatively, gradually getting it under the lower bar of his cage door, carefully lifting it up to a point where the door was wide open, then swiftly dropping down, as if to get out, only gravity was against him – he could not flutter down faster than it could drop.
Frankly, I was stunned. Again and again, Grant patiently lifted his cage door, until at one point, he nearly succeeded. That was enough. I went over, spoke in serious tones to him about the limits to these rights.
I reminded him that Churchill’s parrot, Charlie, now 120 – was reasonable, never flew about Chartwell. I tried to talk him down off his branch, said even the founding fathers believed in limited government. He muttered, then went back to protesting, asserting his right to unlimited speech.
Funny, when you think about it, how even a bird wants rights – to speak and fly, which might be why – we know ours are natural. If birds crave rights, how much more should we? I humored myself that, while quick to assert rights, Grant is a just parakeet. Then, as a benevolent government, I gave him a treat.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
