For July 4th: “America” is NOT the government. It is the ideal

I hate America!

OK, now I have your attention.

I don’t hate America, but some Americans do. Or are at least embarrassed to be Americans, and these people tend to be Democrats who feel that way because of the man who is in the White House, elected by a majority of the American voters who actually bothered to vote. 

Prior to Donald J. Trump’s election, I believe the results would have been the opposite. Republicans were in the dumps about our nation when Joe Biden was President. 

They let the occupant of the Oval Office dictate their feelings of patriotism.

Here’s the fallacy we have to explode: America is not its government. They are not one and the same.

Governments change. Politicians come and go. 

American idealism is the constant.

I say that knowing our Founding documents are aspirational, and imperfect.

The Founders suspected imperfection, too, which is why they included a way for we, the people, to amend the Constitution they labored into existence.

—-

As we stand on the doorstep of our 250th year, looking back and looking forward, I love America.

I don’t always love America’s government, its elected leaders, its thought leaders, its schools, its police, its media, its conspicuous consumption.

Truth is, I don’t love all Americans. We got some real strappers among us.

Racists. Homophobes. Anti-Semites. Misogynists. Islamophobes. Anarchists. Cheapskates. Pedophiles. Animal abusers. Deadbeat Dads. Cheaters and criminals of every stripe. 

Not lovable at all, but they are a minority, and a small one, I think.

We are at a moment of national division, and of distrust in our institutions, sometimes fomented by our mendacious President. But we have had doubts and distrust before, a horrendous Civil War, yet we have always returned to our Founding documents.

We sometimes forget how good we are, how good we have it. Have you been following the global love notes posted on social media by World Cup visitors? They love America, and Americans.

Back to the Founding documents.

Let’s start with Big Daddy — the Declaration of Independence, which in its second paragraph passes off a whopper — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . .”

Even if you read “men” to mean “mankind” (to include women), the just-born United States permitted slavery, which screams of inequality.

The document continues to list rights, one being “liberty,” and says governments are devised to guarantee such rights. Our government denied such rights.

As my friend, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong, recently wrote: “It’s problematic enough that America’s Founding Fathers were too sexist and racist to include equal rights for women, African-Americans, and Native Americans in the Constitution.”

Which is true, and an example of presentism — judging long-ago cultures by the standards of 21st Century America. In 18th Century America, and the rest of the world, women did not have equal rights. Slavery was global, with Africans as a chief supplier of their Black brethren to Arabs and Europeans, and indigenous people were enslaved or at least conquered by many so-called enlightened Christian nations. Indigenous people themselves enslaved Blacks and other Native Americans. 

Still, slavery was permitted and that is why I described the Founding documents as aspirational, rather than actual.

Armstrong then said, speaking for many,  she shudders to think what the celebration will be with Trump in the White House.

Armstrong fears, with justification, that Trump will turn July 4th into a massive ego massage for himself. 

No one would be surprised by that, least of all his acolytes.

Two words: Ignore him.

Armstrong is falling into the trap of commingling America with its government. That’s where we differ.

Differing is as American as apple pie.

You know who differed? The Founders differed — a lot. 

On slavery, on states’ rights, on commerce, on the ability of the government to tax. Hell, at the outset, they didn’t all even agree on independence.

They were setting off down a dangerous path — bicameral, tripartite, representative self government with an elected head — that had never been done before. Yes, they borrowed bits and pieces from the Romans, the Brits, the states, Native Americans, but in the end they created a unique, magnificent structure that has lasted 250 years.

And they set about doing  it — forming a government — by pulling on the beard of the world’s most powerful military force. They were committing treason.

As my favorite Founder, Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

How Independence should be celebrated was described by another Founding Father, John Adams: “It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”

Parades and fireworks and music and hot dogs and celebration.

Not because — at that moment — we had achieved anything. Our Independence was secured only by seven years of a horrible, grinding war.

I love America. I love the Flag because it is a symbol of the land I love. I agree with Bill Clinton who said there is nothing that is wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what is right with America.

We celebrate the Declaration as a promise made by a just-born nation to its people — and to all the people of the world: We are the country of the people; of, by, and for the people.  The land belongs to we the people.

Whose land? Our land.

Celebrate with these lines, penned and sung by Woody Guthrie for the first time in 1945:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway;
I saw below me that golden valley;
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me. 

America was made for you and me. You don’t like who’s in the White House?

Celebrate in your house, with friends and family.

Happy early July 4th.