Ohio Presidential Graves
On this 250th anniversary of the United States,* we find ourselves thinking about patriotism.
Too often the word is used to describe a blind jingoistic faith that assumes inherent righteousness.
But here it can also mean faith in democracy, however imperfect it may be. That means belief in community action to protect the weak from the strong, in meaningful debate to decide when we can compromise and when surrender would mean losing ourselves, and in the enforcement of just laws to ensure all voices are heard.
It is easy to give up, easy to forget that our “government” is not just words and uniforms, but a thing summoned and shaped to give form to our collected and collective selves. It is a magical thing.
We are not going to lie. Things are grim right now. We don’t want to minimize that, but we also think it is important to hold on to hope, and to remember this isn’t our first national crisis.
To help remind ourselves of that we took a road trip in June to the graves of the five presidents buried in Ohio.
Things are worse today than they were a decade ago, but they are better today than they were two centuries ago when Harrison was president, or a century ago when Harding was.
We see a lot of young people in the shop. They fill us with optimism, and remind us that this is not a land in which kings can long prosper.
Happy Fourth of July.
*This is really the anniversary of a declaration penned by a hypocrite who spoke about universal inalienable rights even as he kept and abused human slaves. Part of patriotism is being able to acknowledge ugly truths.
Too often the word is used to describe a blind jingoistic faith that assumes inherent righteousness.
But here it can also mean faith in democracy, however imperfect it may be. That means belief in community action to protect the weak from the strong, in meaningful debate to decide when we can compromise and when surrender would mean losing ourselves, and in the enforcement of just laws to ensure all voices are heard.
It is easy to give up, easy to forget that our “government” is not just words and uniforms, but a thing summoned and shaped to give form to our collected and collective selves. It is a magical thing.
We are not going to lie. Things are grim right now. We don’t want to minimize that, but we also think it is important to hold on to hope, and to remember this isn’t our first national crisis.
To help remind ourselves of that we took a road trip in June to the graves of the five presidents buried in Ohio.
Things are worse today than they were a decade ago, but they are better today than they were two centuries ago when Harrison was president, or a century ago when Harding was.
We see a lot of young people in the shop. They fill us with optimism, and remind us that this is not a land in which kings can long prosper.
Happy Fourth of July.
*This is really the anniversary of a declaration penned by a hypocrite who spoke about universal inalienable rights even as he kept and abused human slaves. Part of patriotism is being able to acknowledge ugly truths.
Full post here.
