It’s not the Fourth of July, it’s not a patriotic holiday, but I’m feeling the fire of patriotism burning in me. The spark that ignited it came from President Trump, but not in the way he intended. His words and actions to “Make America Great Again” are an affront to American values, and it’s those values that I love.
What are those values? I’m going to start with something that should warm the hearts of the conservative originalists; I look to our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
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,
When Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, et al, wanted to define what America stands for, these were the words the chose. Not proclaiming our greatness, nothing about our power, nothing about our heritage. Those were for old European powers they were rebelling against. America is about unalienable Rights and equality. Everything else is means to that end. That is something to take pride in. It is something I do take pride in. It’s what inspired me to write this.
That is not to say that our founding fathers were perfect. They were flawed humans, imbued with the prejudices of their times, as are we all. They were well aware of their imperfections. They knew they’d make mistakes. They are clearer to us now; there were no founding mothers. Slavery was not jut legal but integral to the economy. Later in the Declaration it refers to the Indigenous Americans as “the merciless, Indian Savages.” These prejudices are what the originalist look to as doctrine. It’s the America that Trump thinks made us great. But no one should be defined but our worst moments and worst flaws. There is more. It’s who we were but not who we wanted to be. It’s not the goal we’ve been aspiring to.
When we had to come up with a constitution to make governing workable, Madison still started with a declaration of ideals.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Even then when the states were jealous of their power it was not the states that gave legitimacy to the government but the people. And what is the purpose of the government? To secure the Blessings of Liberty. An unusual locution was used, “A more perfect union.” Not a better union and not a perfect union. Perfection was an aspiration that cannot be achieved but one that should be our lodestone.
The Constitution did much good, the first ten amendments put some rights explicitly in the document, but it was not perfect, just more perfect. Slavery was institutionalized; a black slave was three-fifths of a human being. In 1856 Dred Scott decision the Supreme Court said that a descendent of African slaves was not a citizen, but property. Then came the horrors of the Civil War, but out of the flames rose a nation that was more perfect. The Dred Scott decision was expressly overwritten by section one of the Fourteenth Amendment;
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
No temporary majority was free to say that some class of Americans were inferior to others. Citizenship was not an exclusive club, but an inherent right due to all people born in the U.S. It is our birthright, belonging to all of us, and we are not free to discriminate who us is. The nation became more perfect, closer to our aspirations, closer to “All men are created equal.”
For years after that we backslid on the rights of blacks. They were systematically denied their rights and in the South that was the law of the land. Then came the challenge of Hitler and his ideals of blood and soil, totally contrary to ours. We rose to the challenge and won on the battlefield. We looked at Hitler’s ideals and saw shadows of them in ourselves. Then we rose to the challenge and started the process of once again making ourselves more perfect. During the War and Attorney General of California, Earl Warren had a large role in the internment of Japanese Americans for no cause other than their heritage. A decade after the war ended the Supreme Court with Warren as Chief Justice, found that de jure segregation violated the 14th Amendment. Separate is never equal.
While the rights of African Americans were ebbing the rights of women were growing. Women’s suffrage went from being a cause of the fringe, to being embedded in the Constitution. That proved not the end of the battle but the start. Women are still discriminated against, blacks are still discriminated against, but they have freedoms beyond the wildest dreams of times in living memory.
The rights of LGBT have gone from their right to simply live in peace, a right denied by the police at the Stonewall Riot, to the right to marry. The constitution is now read to protect gays from discrimination, a reading that is in temporary jeopardy but one I am sure will in my lifetime be taken for granted. For it isn’t just the laws but the people that have become more perfect.
I have not been living in a cave. I am totally aware of wave of hatred and intolerance that is flowing over the country. Eleven Jews were just killed, for nothing more than being Jewish. We have a president who was elected by a large enough minority to fall in the cracks of our imperfect way of choosing a president, that wants to declare by fiat that the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t mean what it unambiguously says. He doesn’t believe doesn’t share the core American value of equality and a significant share of the people agree with him. It is not the ideals of our founding fathers they look to, but their flaws. But they are a minority though there is a larger minority that is willing to go along with them to get other things that they want, whether it be lower taxes, or restrictions on abortion. But they are still minorities, and they are no more defined by their worst choices than Earl Warren is defined by the Japanese internment.
American tradition is optimistic. We see ourselves not as who we are but who we are capable of being. That’s the patriotism I am feeling. I see a people that are more energized politically than any time since the 60s. We are energized and working to making our union more perfect. Trump and his kind depend on people living in a constant state of fear. At some point when the sky does not fall people turn on Chicken Little. We are fighting for true greatness, greatness of mind, greatness of spirit; Not just power but justice, mercy, and simple kindness.
The glow in the eyes is fading. These pieces always end up being but echoes of what’s in my mind. I write them because even the echoes are better than silence. Patriotism isn’t about flag waving, it isn’t about saying, “We are better than others.” It is about helping the country do the right thing, about being great by being good. It’s time for us to be like Rick and Louis.
Wise Madness 