Friday, January 15, 2010

A Liberal's Love of Country: Honoring Dr. King

A conservative friend of mine has suggested that I see our country as a place that needs to be fixed. I always found fault with his premise, because it supposes that I see little good in this country. Every relationship worth having requires work, and an experiment as grand as the American experiment is no different.

I've long known that our hearts, generally, are in the right places. Overall, I actually do think that the nation as a whole inherently has a desire to be a force of good in the world. Our response to the horror of the earthquake's aftermath in Haiti is a vivid reminder of precisely how good we can be as Americans, and it really makes me quite proud. Yet, if we are going to form that "more perfect union," we have to continue identifying areas where the work can be done to achieve that, while strengthening that which makes our country unique among the community of nations.

Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., and those who assisted him in the cause of expanding American freedom, worked in that effort to form a "more perfect union." Sometimes, I think the people who truly love this country are the ones who are able to see the nation as it is, maintain an expansive vision of what it can be, and then work toward implementing that vision.

So, just because I see things that I think need to be fixed in this nation, I know that I want them fixed, because I believe the country will be better for it. I am proud that I have that perspective, and I will continue working in the tradition of forming that "more perfect union."

2 comments:

Scott said...

Free, you say...
"Yet, if we are going to form that "more perfect union," we have to continue identifying areas where the work can be done to achieve that, while strengthening that which makes our country unique among the community of nations."

As proof that great minds think alike, here's one of my favorite H.L.Mencken quotes--
"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."

I've always been surprised that the people most likely to wrap themselves in the flag are also the people who have the least idea what that flag stands for.

hscfree said...

What's interesting is that I am sure many of the tea party people feel the way that I've described. However, I add a qualifier in my position. I don't think anyone who harkens back to a fictional past, as many of the tea party types I've heard seem to do, is working to form a more perfect union.

I think a fair few of the tea party people envision a virtually white utopia that looks like something out of the movie "Pleasantville," which was pure fiction as the movie put forth. I also think a fair few of the tea party people are not thoughtful people. I think that their complaints against the government are as shallow as the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

You can tell the folks within that crowd who offer substantive criticisms of what they feel the government is currently doing. I will always give respect to a substantive argument, even if it is one that I disagree with. But that is not the majority of the tea party people. I think the majority of them are pissed at the outcome of the election, and are simply following the lead of the likes of Limbaugh in hoping that Obama fails.

As much as I loathed the Bush administration's policies, I hoped that they would have good ends. I didn't want the POTUS, and thus the country, to fail, ever.