Skip to main content

American Patriots

 


Recently a friend posed this question on Facebook:

Question for you all: What does it mean to be a true American patriot?

It made me uncomfortable. I countered:

What would you say is the opposite of a true American patriot? I have such a hard time worth the word patriot because of how it has been poisoned by the Right. I have become so conflicted that I can’t even put it into words. So then I wondered what the opposite of patriot is.  

I suppose I was asking what qualities would indicate that someone was not patriotic. 

To be fair, that wasn’t the question they were asking. 

So, what is patriotism? Merriam Webster defines it as: love for or devotion to one's country.

That’s it. Pretty simple, isn’t it? So, what is “American” patriotism?  It depends on what you love and what aspects of this country you are devoted to, I guess. I came up with this answer:

The simplest definition for me would be that an American patriot is someone who believes that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is for ALL and lives their lives accordingly. It is in the being and in the doing.

Under no circumstances should patriotism be confused with the old clichè: my country, right or wrong. That’s jingoism.

This morning I came across something which legitimately evoked in me a feeling which I recognized as patriotism. It’s from the Milwaukee Public Library.


Still image from Milwaukee Public Library, Instagram


A Quick Guide to the Library Bill of Rights, Milwaukee Public Library 

To all the folks who think we don’t need a new downtown public library and/or that we can’t afford one, I have a question for you. In this time of deliberate eroding of the Democratic principles - - upon which our nation is founded - - how can we not make every effort to strengthen and invest in libraries?

Standing up to authoritarianism feels deeply patriotic to me.

Village Green/Town² Comments 

Comments

  1. Julia A. McCreadyJuly 1, 2026 at 7:41 AM

    Please do not submit comments here. This function will be disabled shortly. Use the link above instead. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more