I am very thankful to be a citizen of the United States of America. It was simply fate that when I was born I was born an American. So many people over two centuries have risked everything and put their very lives on the line to become a US citizen. All I had to do was to wake up.
I am a patriot. I sing the National Anthem. I salute the flag. I honor those soldiers who have sacrificed their lives to make me free and to keep me free. My grandfather fought in World War I. My father-in-law fought in World War II. My own father was in Okinawa at the end of the war. I don't take that for granted.
With that said, when did being "an American" become so politicized? For a number of reasons, both personal and political, some of our pro athletes are refusing to sing our anthem and are refusing to salute the flag. Whereas I don't totally agree with them, I think I understand why they're protesting.. And I fully support their right under the Constitution of the United States of America to do so. In America, protesting can be our patriotic duty.
I have mixed feelings for the U.S. flag.. The flag for me has become tarnished. Although I felt this way before the last year or so, I have certainly come to feel this way now. As I drive around northwest Georgia, I see large Confederate flags waving from the beds of beat up pickup trucks. I also see large Confederate flags flying in front of homes and businesses. But I am not only assaulted by hundreds of these flags in various places, I see them flying on the same poles with Old Glory. When I see this I always wonder if they realize that the US flag belonged to the Union and the Confederate flag belonged to the Confederates. They are flying the flags from both sides of the war. Does this make any more sense than if they flew Old Glory with the Union Jack? I don't know what statement these people are trying to make, but it strikes me as, "By God, I am a proud American and a proud Confederate. If you don't like it, you can just..." Can you be a proud Confederate and a proud American? Since 1865, there has been no Confederate States of America. It seems to me that you have to be one or the other.
Being a patriot has become tainted for me as well. Until recent years I have been as proud an American as an American can be. But sometime back, and I'm not sure when, being a "patriotic American" got all wrapped up in being pro-Republican, pro-Fox News, pro-white, pro-Nascar, pro-country music, pro-guns, pro-military and pro-war. I have come to feel like if I don't support all of those things, then I am not a true blue American. For the record, I'm white. I voted Republican until the last two elections, the Blue Angels make my heart happy, I own a gun, I enjoy watching Nascar and I'm sure there's a country song or two that I like. I just don't think any of it should be a test of my patriotism. In today's discourse it seems that the Second Amendment is not only a test of my beliefs about guns, but is also a test of the way I feel about my country. It seems that immediately after every all too frequent mass shooting before anyone has time to mention gun control, gun activists are shouting about their U.S. Constitutional rights. I say, "Calm down. Nobody's coming after your military grade assault rifles." Recently a man accidentally shot and killed his fourteen year old son at a shooting range. Regarding the tragic accident, it is reported that a few days later the father said, "The gun didn't kill my boy. I did." Just to be clear.
Are there "just wars' and "unjust wars?" For there to be a "United States of America", did Abraham Lincoln have any choice but to go to war against his own countrymen who had taken up arms against him? Regarding the second world war, even the avowed pacifist Albert Einstein said, "Hitler must be stopped." On the other hand, President George Bush was fond of saying about the Iraqis, "They hate us for our freedom." No, they hate us because we bombed their businesses and their homes. We not only killed their soldiers but hundreds of thousands of men, women and children as well. "Shock and Awe" may have been impressive military fireworks to us, but it was instantaneous death to thousands of Iraqi citizens. I know it's complicated, but people much more knowledgeable than me in these matters have suggested that the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS was a direct result of our military intervention and aggression in the Middle East.
As you look back over the history of civilization, you see peoples and countries who go to war to protect their rights and their freedoms. Under their banners they kill thousands or millions of each other, they become friends and trading partners. Our current strongest ally flew the Union Jack as our enemy in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. If American soldiers saw that flag, they shot to kill. Now if you shoot a British citizen, they call it murder. Why would we shoot a friend? Now Krauts and Jerrys are Germans. Gooks are Vietnamese. Japs are Japanese, Who knows, maybe some day insurgents will just be people.
John Lennon died on December 8, 1980. A gun didn't kill John Lennon. Mark David Chapman, a very deranged American did. With five bullets fired from a gun. But before he died Lennon wrote, "Imagine there's no countries, nothing to kill or die for..."
But there are countries. And as countries go I'll take this one. For all its faults and failures, for all its political hypocrisy and social failures, for all of its flags to this country and countries that don't exist, for all of its just and unjust wars, for all of its understanding and misunderstanding of its amendments to its Constitution, when given the opportunity I will stand and "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America" and will proudly sing, "Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight..." "that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this earth."
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