Are Americans too craven to die for their ideals?
By Chris Satullo
07/04/05 "Philly.com"
- - Some men, flawed but rising to their moment, signed a document 229 years ago in Philadelphia. It ended with these words: "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
No idle vow, that. They were rebels, and an army of imperial power lurked nearby. Before that July was done, they might all be captured and hanged from trees.
Their rebellion had arisen from tangled reasons, some less admirable than others. But the men in Philadelphia arrived at a fresh, ennobling idea for a new nation: that men were meant to be free and that free men could govern themselves to uphold justice and the common good. It was a breathtaking vision.
They were willing to die for it.
Are you willing to die for the idea called the United States of America?
Are most Americans ready to die for their country?
On this patriotic weekend, most of us would blurt in reply, "Of course.
"We are lying. At best, kidding ourselves.
That is the sad message of the days that have passed since the awful one we call 9/11.
Die for the idea called America?
Many of us aren't willing even to conserve a little gasoline.Or pay our fair share of taxes.
Or spend less than we earn.
Nor, it seems, will we accept the slightest personal risk to defend the ideals the founders sketched in the Declaration, then spelled out in the Bill of Rights.
Sept. 11, the instant cliché proclaimed, changed everything.
Yet few Americans, least of all our leaders, seem to grasp what really changed on that day of fire and fear.
To defend the American idea in the face of this novel threat, every last American must be willing to risk death rather than let our ideals be trampled in a rush for "security." For most of us, the risk is infinitesimal, less than we accept when we merge onto the Schuylkill or board an airliner.
But it's there. Bravery isn't just for soldiers anymore.
Yet too many of us cower and cry to our profoundly inadequate leaders, "Do whatever you want; just protect us!" The propagandists call it patriotism; they call it toughness. It is cowardice.
If we all had the guts to die for the idea we call America, the halls of Congress would be jammed, the White House encircled, by citizens demanding an end to the sinful violations of our ideals: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and "extraordinary rendition
."They would proclaim they'd rather die at a terrorist's hand than watch America move from "rule of law" to "arrogant outlaw.
"Instead, near silence. Alibis. Self-absorbed complicity. >>>continued
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9374.htm
07/04/05 "Philly.com"
- - Some men, flawed but rising to their moment, signed a document 229 years ago in Philadelphia. It ended with these words: "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
No idle vow, that. They were rebels, and an army of imperial power lurked nearby. Before that July was done, they might all be captured and hanged from trees.
Their rebellion had arisen from tangled reasons, some less admirable than others. But the men in Philadelphia arrived at a fresh, ennobling idea for a new nation: that men were meant to be free and that free men could govern themselves to uphold justice and the common good. It was a breathtaking vision.
They were willing to die for it.
Are you willing to die for the idea called the United States of America?
Are most Americans ready to die for their country?
On this patriotic weekend, most of us would blurt in reply, "Of course.
"We are lying. At best, kidding ourselves.
That is the sad message of the days that have passed since the awful one we call 9/11.
Die for the idea called America?
Many of us aren't willing even to conserve a little gasoline.Or pay our fair share of taxes.
Or spend less than we earn.
Nor, it seems, will we accept the slightest personal risk to defend the ideals the founders sketched in the Declaration, then spelled out in the Bill of Rights.
Sept. 11, the instant cliché proclaimed, changed everything.
Yet few Americans, least of all our leaders, seem to grasp what really changed on that day of fire and fear.
To defend the American idea in the face of this novel threat, every last American must be willing to risk death rather than let our ideals be trampled in a rush for "security." For most of us, the risk is infinitesimal, less than we accept when we merge onto the Schuylkill or board an airliner.
But it's there. Bravery isn't just for soldiers anymore.
Yet too many of us cower and cry to our profoundly inadequate leaders, "Do whatever you want; just protect us!" The propagandists call it patriotism; they call it toughness. It is cowardice.
If we all had the guts to die for the idea we call America, the halls of Congress would be jammed, the White House encircled, by citizens demanding an end to the sinful violations of our ideals: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and "extraordinary rendition
."They would proclaim they'd rather die at a terrorist's hand than watch America move from "rule of law" to "arrogant outlaw.
"Instead, near silence. Alibis. Self-absorbed complicity. >>>continued
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9374.htm
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:47 PM
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