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I didn’t count, but I do love that it concludes with “…our sacred honor.” And it is interesting how many of the grievances tend to persist.
A couple of years ago I spent the Fourth with a favorite cousin. Among her many talents I discovered that she knew the Declaration by heart and could recite it, with appropriate emphasis, from memory on demand. She had to memorize it in the fourth grade for some patriotic assembly and she always remembered it. Naturally, we called on her to recite it on the Fourth, just before the fireworks. It was amazing. It is really one of those documents that is best understood when read aloud.
“…our sacred honor…” seems to be been mislaid over the past few years by the Bush Administration. In so many ways I don’t know where to begin to count.
What is patriotism to me?
Loving your country more than you hate her politicians.
Loving your country enough to make sacrifices for her even knowing that if you have a child at the battlefront and would do anything to trade places with your child, and knowing that you cannot and you STILL love your country.
Loving your country and respecting the people who reside within her boundaries.
Loving your country but not to the extent that you dislike all other countries.
Loving your country and the documents that create the foundations of our government.
and finally,
Loving your country even when you want to hate your country because she is not perfect and you want her to be perfect.
Patriotism to me is when I hear God Bless America, America the Beautiful, My Country ‘Tis of Thee and The Star Spangled Banner and tears form in my eyes. Just like I felt in the first weeks after 9-11.
Let Freedom Ring!
America is a wonderful experiment, a work in progress that has survived many chances to break apart, the most serious of which was the civil war. Ideologies and politicians can come and go, but the basic framework, system of government laid down by the founding fathers should never be changed. Freedoms never allowed to be compromised.
Patriotism to me is being ever vigilant that no group is ever allowed to damage this fragile work in progress that we are.
Well said, Marjorie.
Having lived in a number of countries, and been frequently hit with “you Americans think you are so great- what about [insert episode]? I have learned to say ‘when you reach high, you don’t always get there the first time (or the second or the third…)- but you get farther than you would if you didn’t try’. We are a collection of people with some truly great aspirations, and when we let ourselves down (and we can all list times when we have), we dust ourselves off, get up and try again. It makes me proud that we try, and prouder when the system works.
I’LL SAY I KNEW YOU WHEN~
There were black and white movies,
Not films, that portrayed you
So courageously, so majestically,
So all American Red, White and Blue.
Seems like yesterday I got all misty-eyed
Just knowing I was part of you.
Now your reputation seems sullied
By an overzealous zeal—
You’ve enraged your once admiring fans
Who fill their buckets with tears
Shed from sheer heartbreak & fear
That you would come to this.
And to think I forgot to mention love—
My country tis of thee~sweet land of liberty,
Of Thee I sing.
From 2003
Patriotism means acknowledging that America is exceptionally good, exceptionally smart, exceptionally productive, and exceptionally free.
This American Exceptionalism allows us to be helpful and inspirational to people around the world, especially those people that are being held hostage and tortured by their own governments like the people of Sudan, Burma, Somalia. Our freedoms are a beacon of light and hope, and being patriotic means respecting and acknowledging us as that beacon.
Patriotism is epitomized by Ronald Reagan,
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.”
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