U.S. flags seem to be everywhere now, on houses and T-shirts and cars. Some cars even have two or more flags, looking like official government limousines-- except that they're 7-year-old BMWs or 15-year-old Toyotas.
And that's only the beginning: Songs praising our country are getting heavy rotation on radio, while news media detail accusations of unpatriotic behavior, leveled especially at peace activists on college campuses. But of course the activists claim that they're being patriotic, to improve their country in their own way.
So who is being patriotic? How, in this time of stress and fear, do we deal with arguments that seem to erode the unity we feel is necessary to face our dangers and worries?
Nearly everyone is horrified and dismayed by what happened in September; the rest are either lying for effect or are spiteful people who rationalize their insensitivity with personal or ideological selfishness.
Further, we all continue to be concerned--even nervous--about what could happen next. A sense of crisis surrounds many of us, but nearly three months later, we still debate whether our nation is doing the right things. Some people speak of suspending certain civil liberties "for the duration" of the war, while at the same time others claim that this kind of conflict never ends--that it defines a duration too long for most of us. And most people want both security and freedom.
So what to do?
Flying a flag seems a reasonable thing, out of respect for the dead and their loved ones, the nation so injured, the ideals it represents or those now risking their lives in military operations.
But even the simple imagery of the flag is imperfect. Heck, even the Pledge of Allegiance is of dubious ancestry--it originated simply as a scam to sell flags. And the flag itself is only a symbol, charged with whatever significance the holder intends, and open therefore--as noted above--to great interpretation.
No flag, or other mere symbol, can fully encompass what we hold dear. In truth, it is only by engaging in actions that embody our beliefs that we can sustain them.
We must uphold our freedoms, particularly freedoms of speech and the press, by allowing all of us to exercise them.
Democracy, or at least ours, holds that no one person could possibly know what's right, all the time, every time. Indeed, the very strength of our system is, to paraphrase Lincoln, that not all of the people can be fooled, all of the time.
But one corollary to that idea can be that many of the people can be fooled, much of the time.
So it is essential, both for our own individual liberty and our democratic system, that we allow voices crying in the wilderness to continue to cry out.
Not because they are always right, but because they are sometimes right. And in those instances when the few have convincing arguments, they can sway the destiny of the nation.
Initially, those who argued against slavery or for the 40-hour work week were the few radical souls who dared to question assumptions everyone else had thought of as simple facts of life. But when they garnered sufficient evidence, they persuaded and won over mass opinion.
The patriotic action is to accept questions--and arguments--not because they weaken democracy but because they strengthen it.
Look to that handful of zealous idealists whom the British crown sought to snuff out but whose speeches and writing illuminated not only their own times but ours as well.
Ben Franklin: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Thomas Jefferson: "If there be any among us who would wish to... change [this Union's] republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
George Washington: "If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter that may involve the most serious and alarming consequences... [then] reason is of no use to us; freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
So let right-wing nuts rail in National Review about the need to consider using nuclear weapons, while left-wing nuts on campuses tote signs demanding an end to all war.
Let's stay firmly on the ever-slippery slope of debate, persuasion and thought. Let's allow the refiner's fire of open discussion to enlighten unexamined assumptions, burn up unsupported claims and reveal the truth as best it can.
Because that's the finest that any democracy can aspire to and the least we should demand of ourselves and our republic: That's as patriotic as a democracy can be.
Edward Benson is a Durham resident.
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