The ebbs and floes of American Democracy have been written, and re-written into our nation's history since before our founding as a rebellious nation-state. I'm not going to list those times, or those events.
But there is a connection that all (or at least most Americans) share with those times and events: our nation's people. Follow me just below the squiggledoodlethingey fold, and I'll share with you a secret you may need to hear, or at least hear again.
Citizen.
People have risked life and limb to claim the right to use that honorific. Wars were fought for the right to have it, and keep it. Throughout the histories of The United States of America, there has been one solid, unwavering constant that has lived each and every day in Freedom. No, I'm not waving a flag. I wish I had one, I would. I do love it so.
In these harrowing times both past and present, it is to her citizens that America has called. She doesn't call for our agreement, or our niceties, or our "civilized" society. She doesn't even call us to honor.
America calls us to gather under the flag of our democracy, and consider.
Our moral and political philosophies may differ, as they often do. Our sense of honor, of what is right, or what is wrong, or what is just may turn from one side to another, depending on the day of the week, or the year of the world.
But, throughout our nation's history, when things got tough for her, America seemed to always know that her citizens would either get her back on course to the greatness of which she was, is, and might always be capable through her citizens...or create a better course altogether. No matter the result, we have always been, and have always remained America. And American citizens.
The news comes toward us and into our brains like a raging torrent. The responses are as varied as their are people making them. We wish, like many nations of the past, to simply avoid it, ignore it, or somehow be removed from it. Still it comes, confirming, denying, or calling into question who we are, how we would live, and how we would deal with the onslaught before us. And, make no mistake. There is an onslaught before us. There is, I contend, one solution that can not only stop the forward progress of that tsunami of sadness, but reverse it. The American citizen.
Yet, it seems to me that the citizen is either not speaking, or the collective citizen voice is being drowned out by the tempest itself. I know now what living in America must surely have been like in the 1850's. I don't like it. At all. I do not believe rebellion is necessary, required, called for, or even reasonable today. It is the most anti-citizen idea I have heard recently. I believe much more could be accomplished much more quickly by every citizen gathering under our flag at our State House Steps than with guns. It is not the violence of America that is required in these turbulent times; it is a renewing of our hearts, as American citizens.
We are better than this. Don't point to the latest scandal, or the latest interpolation of some congressional action and tell me that you do not wish to BE citizen, or that America somehow does not deserve your citizenship. Don't cry out that American citizens somehow deserve to know everything that keeps us safe. Don't tell me that you have superior rights to mine, simply because of your opinions.
If you have an opinion, state it. But state it with the understanding that there are other positions to be held, and respect those who state them as well as the opinions they offer. That's the way it works in a pluralistic society. We seem to be up to the eyeballs in positions, yet our mutual respect can't clear our shoe laces.
What seems to me to be true is that there are those in this land who would have that reality remain, until America herself is no more. I am an American citizen. I am a writer.
You have been warned.
Do not spend so much time preaching to the choir here. Do not consider yourself above a well-reasoned debate. Play nice. Come prepared. Operate, if you cannot possibly find any other way, from your citizenship. Honor America with your citizenship. Not a citizenship that says she must bend to your will, or look as you would have her appear.
Look to your citizenship which reminds us all that "United We Stand. Divided, we fall."
It's not just a motto. It is a lasting truth. It has been given to you, citizen. Grow up, and act like it.
No matter your party, your philosophy, your faith or religious beliefs, it is imperative that we understand, RIGHT NOW, that it is we who are destroying America today. Her citizens are in a democracy-killing feeding frenzy for nothing more than the need to be correct.
Some will say that I am crying aloud: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" I'm not, but let me ask you a simple question. Did you look up, just to make certain? Now, here's a couple of questions no citizen should fear to answer.
Right where you are. Right where you live. Ask yourself:
Does my citizenship matter to me? Am I willing to be counted as an American citizen, today? Do I know what that means, or what that requires of me, my community, my nation?
In the end, it means looking to the Lady in the harbor, and feeling something inside you that you simply cannot describe, that swells inside you til tears fall down your cheek.
It means looking at our flag, and remembering that it belongs to you. From our beginning, there have been "times that try mens' souls" in these United States of America.
We have weathered much worse catastrophes as a pluralistic democracy, with all it's vagaries and perambulations. Sometimes, it has cost us so very much in our time, talent and treasure. But, in the end, we have weathered these, and many more, much more horrific times because we survived them together. As American citizens.
Unless, and until each of us simply stops, and considers that reality, we stand the chance of learning what it is like to live in a nation without democracy, as so many would seem to prefer. You are being called to account. Are you, or are you not a citizen in the most esoteric, yet explicit sense of the term? I'll never know your answer. I don't need to.
You do.