Published:
Sunday, July 4, 2010
For our 4th of July BBQ, like many Americans, my family puts together a play list of Americana music. Ours includes Frank Sinatra singing The House I Live In, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., and anything by Aaron Copland. We hang our flag, one that once flew over the Capitol in Washington, DC - and decorate the chocolate cake with stars and stripes.
We are patriots. Not the “love it or leave it” kind, but the “liberty and justice for all” kind. The kind Michael Douglas talked about in the closing scene of the film The American President:
“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".
But tolerating controversial speech is only part of it. Practitioners of advanced citizenship “know that we should measure our nation’s progress by whether every citizen has a fair shot to advance,” as Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer say in their little red book, The True Patriot. “Freedom without an equal chance to enjoy it is not freedom at all.”
True patriotism requires us to get involved, stir up others, be activists, and insist that our country live up to its promise of freedom and equal opportunity.
So while we are enjoying the holiday weekend, let’s celebrate true patriotism and recommit ourselves to acting on our beliefs, resisting cynicism, and insisting that America live up to its values.
The American President is still a great romantic comedy. For more civil liberties-themed movies for this weekend, see this list recommended by our colleagues and friends at the ACLU of Tennessee.
