ADAMS’ IRATE, TIRELESS MINORITIES

 

 It does not take a majority to prevail...

but rather an irate, tireless, minority

keen on setting brush fires of freedom

in the minds of men. 

 

     Powerful words, penned by Samuel Adams.

     But is that it? An irate America declared and won its freedom from the Monarchy in the 1770’s. The Union fought for and won freedom for slaves of all minorities in the 1860’s. Americans again lit brush fires to end segregation in the 1960’s.

     No period in history ever achieves the “positive absolute.” Each era slowly, often painfully, transitions from one dominant way of thinking to the next. Sometimes, we hope more often than not, we get closer to, though never reach, the positive absolute. Perhaps one or two scorching fires per century is about all an evolving culture can absorb.  
     Unfortunately today we find more cultural brush fires burning than Southern California’s Santa Ana season. Adams’ irate, tireless minorities are at work everywhere, fanatical firebugs, hiring lawyers, organizing marches, printing posters and tweeting like nests full of hungry canaries. But many fight for freedoms they already have.

     In 21st Century America, are gays not free to be gay? Are atheists not free to mock God? Are not environmentalists free to protest on behalf of fish and bugs? Are not Native Americans free to protest against professional sports teams’ names and heralds? Are not trans-gender people free to be? Are not muslims free to exercise their religion? Are not minority races free? Are not women, who we are told actually constitute the majority in America, free? Freedom they have, and with rare exceptions, safety under the law.

      Yet, many go on preaching the myth that society inhibits them from freely exercising their chosen paths. But surely society cannot be blamed for what reluctance individuals may have to freely pursue their lifestyle. Does not The Constitution guarantee each is free to walk his or her own path?

    Methinks what already-free minorities crave most of all is acceptability and fame. Fame comes to some degree with the lighting of Adams’ brush fires. Acceptability, on the other hand, has a way of eluding their grasp. The reason is tradition. The First Amendment of this very same Constitution guarantees an equal right to express disdain for non-traditionalists as non-traditionalists express for traditionalists. So while the law guarantees one is free to choose a non-traditional path, it also guarantees critics are free to use their own rhetoric and ideas to oppose questionable change. Non-traditionalists are quick to use their Constitutional guarantees of freedom to achieve their goals; even quicker to cry foul when the other side employs its guarantees to oppose them. Yes, they like The Constitution when it supports them, but when it supports the other side... not so much.

     Some historians criticize Samuel Adams for what they judge as emotional propaganda which resulted in unnecessary deaths in the years leading up to America’s Revolution. It’s all a matter of perspective. Either way, common sense America must not pour fuel on fire, to insure Adams’ brush fires are not stoked by the irate on either side. So far, with some notable exceptions, we have done a fair job. But there is always the danger that these little brush fires spread, joining together to become terribly destructive human infernos which nations suffer from time to time.

PRIDE IN ONE’S COUNTRY

     My Country
     ‘Tis of Thee,
     Sweet Land of Liberty,
     Of Thee I Sing; 
     Land where my fathers died,
     Land of the pilgrims’ pride 
     From ev’ry mountainside 
     Let freedom ring


     These graceful lyrics, penned by Samuel Francis Smith, to a melody borrowed from the UK’s rousing, “God Save the Queen,” served as one of our de facto national anthems, along with “Hail, Columbia” and “God Bless America,” before “The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially adopted as our national anthem in 1931.
     We used to sing these anthems in grammar school when I was a kid, in the years after WWII. The thought which always produced a transport of emotion in this kid was “pride” in one’s country. Today, among so many in what has become a nation of mutts – mixed salads, if you prefer – chests do not swell at thoughts of the “Land that I love,” or our “Gem of the ocean.” It’s obvious that if there is any pride among our people nowadays, what produces it is very different from in the past. It’s more like, well, we don’t really love America, we love her benefits. To many on the Left, it’s sort of like Land that I don’t love, I won’t stand beside her, or guide her, through the night with a light from a Bud. To some on the Right, the anthem runs a bit like Glen Frey’s

“I’ve got mine,

Don’t want a thing to change,

‘Cause I've got mine.”

     Do educators teach, and students learn, of the proud accomplishments and traditions of our nation? The liberal theme seems to be that if they could just turn America into The United Marxist States, perhaps shucking just the downside of Karl’s failed philosophy, then they might feel some pride. Libertarians might feel it if we could just drop all those annoying restrictive laws, and allow millions upon millions of stupid people to just do what they please. And while Conservatives do express pride in the military and maybe the cops, or maybe some sports, they feel no pride in the Congress – I should say the entire Federal Government – or their own Party leaders. Jane and John Q. Public have more pride in their fave football team’s logo and mascot, or in their new lawn mower, than they have in their nation. Why?
     It’s a mess. And it ain’t gettin’ any better.

     Lack of pride?
     A lack of pride in one’s self, one’s family and one’s community is like a barbed-wire fence which keeps the growing underclass enslaved by their street culture and scheming leaders. Lack of pride suffocates the fires of self-determination. Allows self-serving dunderheads to tell you how to live, what to eat, drink, wear, how much of this or that you can use, how to vote, and worst of all, how to think. How can anyone who has no positive accomplishments of his own feel pride in his country? He has been taught that his nation is the reason he has not succeeded. This dreadful way of thinking leads to total dependence on the government to provide whatever it takes to keep the undersheep going. Just enough to keep it going. Never enough to allow it to break free from the shackles of an ever-growing government. Can anyone feel proud in a culture like this? Ask those who survived life in the totalitarian USSR.

     So, out of this milieu comes a very different candidate for president of the United States. One who senses this lack of pride; in the joblessness of blue collar America, the hopelessness of inner city America, the ineptitude of our foreign affairs officers, the demoralization of our local and border police officers. He hears of it everywhere. So, having made his own fortunes, needing no more, he claims he owes our nation a great debt (and so he does!) He insists he will make America great again. Like it was in the years he and I were not embarrassed to sing about this sweet land of liberty.
      But the naysayers in media and politics skip gingerly over his essential idea – that under his leadership our economy and foreign affairs will improve greatly, that his policies will return our economy to it natural dynamism. He will lower taxes, which will bring business back to America, which in turn will produce more jobs, and produce excess revenue, which we can use to pay down the debt, which will once again make us the world’s acknowledged economic powerhouse, which will restore our greatness. 
     Yet the media natters and pffs! Exactly how can we trust someone who has declared bankruptcy several times to do all this? Nevermind that he has always emerged more successful in the end. Wobbly-kneed Republicans make worried faces and say yes but he’s not nice. They don’t like him. He’s too bombastic. Or, well, they think he has too much pride in his own accomplishments to be president.
     The establishment wants someone more docile. Someone whose greatest accomplishments have been more like those on the Democratic side, ie: government solutions. They want someone more... well... pliable.
     Too much pride?
     If Donald Trump can make America great again, won’t all of us feel a sense of pride in a resuscitated nation? Won’t that pride spill over into our attitudes, in our work, in our family and community, and lift the standards of our personal ambitions? Of course it will. More kids, especially those in inner cities, will once again grow up hearing about broader possibilities for them, about the national pride that inspired so many of us back in the day to climb up out of whatever socioeconomic depth we may have been in, to break the chains that held our parents. The sunlight of greater personal opportunity should warm every American’s easy smiling face.
      Wasn’t this our Founders’ vision for the future of their new republic. One free from the interference of an overly large government? Where opportunity is the fundamental engine of accomplishment and economic success? No matter how many millions of citizens might dwell within?
     The pilgrims’ pride must be everyone’s.