Spirit of '76

Spirit of 76

        At 76, I find there are some issues in life where the players have changed but the “games”, for better or worse, have changed very little. Some (mothers, family bonds, baseball, and the unconditional love of dogs ) are reassuring but some are troubling. Since I am now the same age as the year the Declaration of Independence was signed (different century, smart ass) I feel qualified to make some specific observations about politics and life in general, so in no particular order, here goes.

Patriot/Patriotic/Patriotism - These are my candidates for the English words most overused and misused in the American lexicon.

        A patriot should, of course, love his country, but sadly, in the jargon of too many today it has come to denote love of only those things to which the true believer subscribes, believes, or profits from. Far sadder, for too many, it carries the darker meaning of legitimizing attempts to disdain, persecute and disenfranchise, where possible, those with whom you disagree, even when the disagreement has nothing to do one with the other. Remember, Benedict Arnold, by his own lights was a “Patriot!”

        In my point of view that “love of country” should be manifest not only, or even primarily, in songs sung before sporting events, or rote recitations to symbols to cater to school board fundamentalists but by, in all aspects of daily life and human interactions, acting such that the nation can be the best that it can. One telling index of the merit of this, or any, nation is the way it treats its own - all of its own. The greater the divergence between social groups, the weaker the bonds of government and true patriotism become.

         Sadly, “Patriot” has now become the political confetti of public discourse. I have even seen advertisements for do-it-yourself solar panels headlined “Power for Patriots,” Organizations which are perilously close to being hate crime advocates toss the word around as if it were Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, masking their true natures.

        Here’s what real patriots do. They understand that the 1^st, 13^th, 14th, 15^th and 19th amendments to the Constitution mean exactly what they say. They understand that Loving V Virginia,  Brown v Board, Roe V Wade, and Obergefell V Hodges made some changes in the fabric of government and life in general which protected ALL citizens from the tyranny of State governments which were driven in many cases by cultural, racial  and religious biases which ran counter to the spirit of the right to be left alone to live one’s life without hurting others. In a nutshell, we’re all in this together with the same rights and obligations to one another. We don’t have to adopt each other’s’ religious beliefs, or any at all for that matter. Nor ore we enjoined to  embrace or condone each other’s lifestyle or adopt each other’s attitudes toward most issues, but we do have to treat each other fairly and with respect. We also need to understand that while we are all entitled to our own opinions, no one gets to create their own facts and flog the rest of us with their creations.

       What do true patriots not do? Some specifics? OK. We shouldn’t suborn or tolerate assassination, here or abroad to protect potential profits of military contracts. We shouldn’t invent threats which don’t exist to mobilize a mob of sycophants. As an adjunct to that last, we ought to understand that peaceful demonstrators aren’t a “lawless mob” when they disagree with us but simply “exercising their rights” when they agree with our position. “The right, peaceably to assemble …..and seek redress of grievances” is universal and not subject to the whim or approval of the party in power.  We must realize that when a zealot intentionally drives a car into a crowd of peaceful protesters, they aren’t “Good people.”  We ought not to act without regard to our place in the family of nations so as to undo the international good will engendered by Reagan/Clinton/Obama simply for self-aggrandizement. We ought not to pretend we have moral standing for denigrating the rights of communities of peaceful and non-threatening folks, be they religious, LGBT, non-white, or non-native born, simply to play to a radical religious power base.

        Also, and as valid, it is the sad, but true, fact that not every military veteran is an authority on matters of national policy. In fact, while serving, most have little experience in politics while on active duty. My point? Simply being a “vet” lends zero credibility to your self-proclaimed insight into matters on the political spectrum. If you’ve educated yourselves in matters political feel free to speak from that point of view. I’m truly sick of fighter pilots being treated like political gurus, when many are perpetual adolescents.

        As political acumen goes, there is relatively little linkage, historically, for even the idea that the President should have military experience. Transposing the military from disassociated servants to patriotic pin-ups in order to generate nationalistic fervor is not only insipid, it’s dangerous and un-American. The military serves no political party, nor ideology; its members are as varied as the nation it serves. No party or faction has a unilateral claim to patriotism, and certainly not to “ownership” of the country. We have had good ex-military Presidents (Eisenhower, stands above the crowd) and horrible ones (Grant, Harrison (both of ‘em), Taylor, Nixon come to mind). Why is this? It is so because character and intelligence matter far more than military experience.

        It is noteworthy that, of the three Presidents during the nation’s three great wars after the Revolution, only one, Lincoln, had any military experience (and that was minimal) and the “enemy” were Indians. Neither Wilson or Roosevelt had any military experience whatsoever. So yes, thank you for your service, but it doesn’t give you a political bully pulpit. Now act like a true patriot and defend all the rights of your fellow countrymen.

       To finish on a higher and brighter note, and to prove that sometimes we see light in the places we seldom look for it, The AD council ran a spot on July 4^th 2016, which featured not a politician or huckster, but John Cena, of all things a pro wrestler and surprisingly good actor. (But then, fess up, we knew rasslin’ was an act anyway, didn’t we?)  As he walks through a typical small American town, talking directly to the camera, Mr. Cena draws a line in the sand early on. “Patriotism isn't just pride in one's country”, he says. “It's love for it; and loving one's country means embracing who and what the country really is—not what you might picture it to be.” And, along the way, this small town turns out to be remarkably diverse—the essence of America itself—as we see citizens who are Latino, LGBT, Muslim, senior citizen, African American, disabled, and so on, all just as American as anyone else. The underlying message? To be a true patriot is to accept all Americans regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or ability.

        It’s been two years since that ad ran, and sadly, we’re farther from those ideals now than we were then. Thanks, Mr. Trump and cohort.