Ah, Philadelphia. The city that gave the world the Liberty Bell—a giant piece of metal with a crack in it. It is the perfect symbol for the place, really. Something broken that people stand in line to look at for hours. Now, the city leaders are doing what they do best: they are suing someone. This time, it isn’t about taxes, trash pickup, or the never-ending parking tickets. No, they are suing because someone moved an exhibit about slavery. This is the peak of modern politics. We cannot fix the present, so we hire expensive lawyers to argue about how we display the past.

Let’s think about this for a second. We have a city with plenty of real-world problems. They have streets that look like the surface of the moon and schools that could use a bit more help. But the big emergency—the thing that requires a team of lawyers and a judge—is where some historical posters are sitting. It is a masterclass in missing the point. It is like watching a house burn down while the owners stand on the lawn and argue about the color of the curtains. It is sophisticated nonsense, and frankly, I find it hilarious.

The exhibit in question was meant to show the dark side of history. That is fine. History is dark. It is mostly just a long list of people being mean to each other for no good reason. But instead of letting the history speak for itself, the city wants to control the furniture. They want to make sure the reminders are exactly where they want them. If you move the reminder, do you forget the history? Apparently, the city government thinks so. They seem to think our brains are like goldfish—if we do not see a specific sign on the way to the coffee shop, we might forget that anything bad ever happened. It is a very insulting view of the public, but it is exactly how politicians think.

I have spent enough time in the old cities of Europe to know that history is not something you can sue into place. In Rome, they build subways around ruins. In London, they just build glass boxes over everything and charge you twenty pounds to look at it. But in America, history is a weapon. You use it to hit your political enemies over the head. If you cannot win an argument about what to do next year, you sue someone over what happened two hundred years ago. It is a neat trick. It keeps everyone busy and angry while the actual people in the city continue to struggle. It is the ultimate distraction.

The politicians involved will tell you this is about respect and justice. They will use big, shiny words that sound great on the evening news. But look at the surgical reality of it. It is about power. It is about who gets to decide what we look at when we walk down the street. It is about making sure the correct version of the story is on display at all times. It is a theater of the absurd. The actors are wearing suits, the stage is a courtroom, and the audience is paying for the tickets through their taxes. No one is actually learning anything. They are just winning or losing.

There is something deeply funny about a government suing to keep a display of human suffering in a specific hallway. It shows a complete lack of self-awareness. They are using the legal system—a system that is not exactly known for being fast or fair—to argue about how to remember a time when the legal system was even worse. It is circles within circles of stupidity. I told you so, didn't I? Humans love to complicate the simple things so they can ignore the hard things. If they really cared about the history of slavery, they would worry about the modern versions of it. But that is hard. Suing a museum board is easy.

And let us talk about the lawyers. Oh, the lawyers must be thrilled. There is nothing a lawyer loves more than a case with no clear ending and plenty of public interest. They get to bill the city for hours of research on museum management and historical intent. They will sit in mahogany offices, drinking expensive water, and debating the placement of a plaque. Meanwhile, the actual history of the city—the real, breathing people—are just background noise. The lawyers get richer, the politicians get a headline, and the exhibit stays in a box or moves to a corner. Nothing changes.

So, congratulations, Philadelphia. You have turned history into a lawsuit. You have managed to take a serious subject and turn it into a squabble over real estate. I hope the judge finds a nice spot for the exhibit. Maybe they can put it right next to the lawyer’s fees. That would be the most honest exhibit of all. It would show exactly what we value today: not the lessons of the past, but the ability to sue anyone who makes us feel slightly uncomfortable. It is tragic, it is petty, and it is perfectly what I expected from people who think a cracked bell is a success story.