On American Patriotism...

David asked me why “Traveling to Casablanca…”

In the film, Casablanca is a fictional place, therefore a place of the mind… it is a weigh-station, a point of transition on the journey to a hoped for freedom…

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Politics is about the exchange of power, whether that exchange is granted willingly or through force. Everyday we play political “games.” We make deals in even our most intimate relationships. Very rarely can we enter into a conversation without these exchanges taking place… When I speak… if you listen, then you relinquish power for a moment. I do the same when I choose to listen to you.

To whom will we give power, and from whom will we take it? What is to be gained or lost? It is this exchange which forms the basis of the social contract. The “social contract” exists in theory for some, but in the United States it is an explicit contract. The People’s right to dissolve and/or to establish such a contract was first instituted by the Declaration of Independence and it is in this document that the ideals of our national character were first put forward.

As school children in Government classes we studied this document but perhaps without absorbing its true meaning and the responsibility it places on us as citizens:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security…

This eloquent document remains strikingly relevant. It has implications for U.S. affairs both domestic and foreign. Civil rights are laid bare—the pursuit of happiness, not for some, but for all, as simple as that. The question of “nation building” as a foreign policy “… it is the right of the people (any people)… to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

And just as striking as the relevance of these phrases is that, in this time of flags, we find written between this document’s lines, just what it means to be a patriot. We are given to understand that to be an American patriot is to assist in the perfection and ensure the continuation of the political experiment Lincoln called a “… government of the people, by the people, for the people…” Our founders understood what was required to guard against despotism and the misuse of power. They carefully articulated the mechanisms to do this in the Constitution and its amending Bill of Rights. Imbedded in these rights are the responsibilities of citizenship… an outline of the requirements for the stewardship of our liberty.

The exercise of these rights and their ability to function as a check on the power of government presupposes an educated and well-informed population. A free citizenry is an informed citizenry with the capacity to critically evaluate that information. Patriotism requires the active pursuit of knowledge, a willing awareness of the doings of one’s government and an objective analysis of governmental policies as they relate to the ideals set forth by our founders.

A very real part of our ability to maintain freedom is the critique of government. A government existing without dissent is despotism. It is undoubtedly with this understanding that Article III of the Bill of Rights was written…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As citizens we must hold ourselves accountable… We must ensure that our sources of information are objective and thorough and yet the “news” we listen to is too often cluttered with the sensational and the superficial. It is sanitized for our protection. We do not know, and few ask, how many in addition to our own, have died in this war in Iraq… We digest the sound bite; the easily remembered string of words that is a response to the questions we cannot answer… but Who are we as a people, and what is it that we will stand for? We consume, we consume, we consume, we tear down and build again and spew forth and worry about how to pay for it all… We tie education to property taxes and those professions that most guard our future security, those of educator and care giver, are our least valued and most underpaid. We are tittering on the edge…

We are a kind and generous people living in a country founded on great principles … but we have been misled by those that would make us hard and intolerant… We have lost the rebellion of our founders and have been diverted on our path toward realizing the possibilities of the great experiment.