Free Love; Free Patriotism
Happy Constitution Day! Of all the days celebrating our nation, Constitution Day has always been my favorite. I always celebrate it by celebrating the First Amendment, and almost every year, I ask, Can You Name Your Five Freedoms?.
(Quick! Don’t look! How many can you name?)
On dating sites, saying things like “I love our country,” or “I’m patriotic” is a euphemism for “I’m a conservative Republican,” which is really sad. I love my country and I’m very patriotic, but I am not a conservative Republican.
Patriotism is love – love of country. While it’s true that love sometimes develops in an arranged, forced marriage, happier love happens when two individuals come together freely and by choice and with the freedom to be who they are.
That is why the Supreme Court upheld students’ right to refuse to recite the pledge in 1943. Kent Greenfield opined in the New York Times, Happy Illegal Holiday!:
Genuine patriotism is the product of choice, and one thing we know from observing how Constitution Day and the Pledge of Allegiance work in practice is that neither is a matter of real choice. They are enforced in different ways and have different targets, but there is no denying their mandatory nature.
I want to quote more of the article, but you should go read it. It’s awesome. Okay, just one more quote:
We should recall Justice Robert H. Jackson’s words from almost 70 years ago, in his opinion protecting the right of students to refuse to recite the pledge: “To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine, is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.”
And because I always check in on the State of the First Amendment, (Know Your Rights or Lose Them!), I’ll leave you with two great tidbits:
A new poll shows a sharp decline in the percentage of students who think it [the First Amendment] goes too far in the rights it guarantees, from 45% in 2006 to 24% this year.
Yay! And while knowledge of the First Amendment and our five guaranteed freedoms is increasing, 30% of our population still cannot name any of our five freedoms. (Full study available here.)
- 62% could name Freedom of Speech (up from 49% in 1997; up from 61% in 2010)
- 19% could name Freedom of Religion (down from 21% in 1997; down from 23% in 2010)
- 17% could name Freedom of the Press (up from 11% in 1997; down from 18% in 2010)
- 14% could name Right of Assembly (up from 10% in 1997; same as last year)
- 3% could name Right to Petition (up from 2% in 1997; down from 6% last year)
How many could you name? Which ones?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
Great post. I don’t think patriotism knows a color either, certainly not just red or blue. I fall somewhere in between myself.
I agree, Charles. Me too, mostly!
I agree; it’s annoying that conservative Republicans have pretty much co-opted the term “patriotism” and reserve it for themselves.
It’s also annoying when I encounter someone who clearly thinks that being patriotic or loving your country means blindly agreeing with and supporting absolutely anything the US government might do or say. To me that’s an abandonment of our responsibility as citizens. It’s like a parent who continues fawning over their kids and giving them candy while said kids are mugging their neighbors and vandalizing their school. We’re responsible for our government’s behavior, fates preserve us, and often that means protest and criticism. The smart Republicans know that, but unfortunately they’re not the ones running the party right now.
Angie
That’s a good way to put it: “an abandonment of our responsibility as citizens.” It is our responsibility!