Enthusiastic Patriotism

I have been shamed. Our whole society has been shamed.

Shamed into believing that America is not a great country.

She has too many flaws, too many imperfections, too many blemishes in Her past. She is unworthy to be applauded or celebrated. She has done more bad in the world than good.

I don't know when it was, but sometime during the last couple of years I started to believe these lies. Well, I like to think that I didn't really believe them. But I was at the very least shamed into silence. I didn't dare oppose the lies.

Cultural genocide.
Imperialism.
Slavery.
Racism.
War-mongering.
Medling.

These words have come to dominate into the conversation about the history of our nation. And how do you oppose that? They have the facts, they have the proof. They say, America has a dark past that must be revealed. They insist, we have to tell the world how truly bad we've been. They argue, not only must we reveal this dark past, but we must make it the dominating view on our history.

I saw the effects of this "new history" during my college classes. American Studies was my major. No longer did I hear about the great and wonderful America that I'd grown up learning about and loving. Now I was being told that it'd all been a lie. America wasn't that good. They made a point to highlight every flaw at every opportunity.

This gets a little depressing after a while.

And pretty soon, I was a once-proud American who is too afraid to celebrate Independence Day with too much enthusiasm because I'd been told it's all fiction.

Founding Fathers? Slave holders.
Declaration of Independence? Just talk.
Constitution? Racist.
Colonists? Native killers.

I read an article called, "What I'm Celebrating Instead of America's Birthday this Fourth of July," and it made me sad. Really sad.

Now it's not even worth celebrating. We have to create a new, unintelligible, mish-mash holiday to replace it, because it's just that bad to say, "I love America!"

And then later that day I read a friend's post on Facebook, and it shook some sense into me:

"Do we love our country less when we wish it was better? OF COURSE NOT!"

And that made me realize, dang it, I love this holiday! I love this country! I FREAKING LOVE AMERICA!

Think about it this way. I seriously love my husband. Is he perfect? Has he never made a mistake? Has he never been wrong? Does he always live up to expectations? OF COURSE NOT. But you better believe that I love him. And I don't have to qualify my love with any "buts" every time I tell him or someone else that I love him.

It's the same concept. Don't be afraid to love America-- and don't apologize about it either!

So that's how I came to realize: celebrating something doesn't make you blind to its imperfections. And when you love something you don't have to add reservations to that love because of shortcomings.

It feels good to be enthusiastically patriotic again.

Celebrate on!