Every year, where Memorial Day is concerned, most people fall into one of two camps: you have the people who take time to visit the cemetery and place flowers on the grave of a fallen soldier, go to or march in a hometown parade, and see the occasion as a solemn day of remembrance for the ones who gave everything so that we can enjoy our freedoms. Then you have the ones who see the day as a blessed reprieve from a 5-day work week and flock to the beach or a neighborhood cookout for the unofficial start of summer. Personally, looking back on my own life, I have been in a third category of people who are a hybrid of the two: mentally I acknowledged the men and women who sacrificed their lives in war, but the day has mostly been a day of rest and relaxation, and little more. I can already imagine some of you re-checking the subtitle: a Patriot? Really?
Yes, really.
My generation has often been accused of being the most apathetic group of Americans to ever come of age in our country’s 244-year legacy. That’s right, I’m a Gen X-er, born in the late 1970s. We grew up in the time of increased divorce rates among our parents, the AIDS epidemic, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We watched the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle on TV and lived through the Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. I remember being really sad the day I learned that Kurt Cobain had taken his life. So I could make a strong argument that all of those things contributed to the “whatever” attitude that collectively became our mantra by the late 1990s, because we simply got used to living in a constant state of turmoil.
I said I could make that argument. But I’m not going to. Instead, I want to make the case that my generation inherited the apathy we’re known for, at least in the area of patriotism, from every generation that preceded us.
Before I go any further, I need to put the disclaimer out there that I recognize that there are exceptions to what I am about to say. There has been a remnant in every generation that has held fast to the values that make us distinctly American. But the majority of us have lived in ignorance and by default made the sacrifices of our heroes in vain.
Ignorance of what? Civics. Daniel Webster defined civics as “the study of the rights and duties of citizens and of how government works.” It wasn’t until recently that I discovered how uninformed I actually was when it came to what my rights are. The catalyst for me was the recent shutdown of society due to the COVID-19 crisis. As I watched my friends hurting when they had to close their businesses, prayed for my pastors when they shut down our church temporarily, and felt the loneliness in my own heart after going days on end without having any human contact, I started looking at the science behind it. In my own home state of Colorado, the lockdown made little sense. I won’t go into all the numbers and theories, but the point is I began to question and become increasingly concerned with just how much power the government was wielding over its citizens.
A Little Backstory
The concept of self-government was somewhat foreign to me growing up. In northern New Jersey, where I received my secondary education, civics classes were no longer mandatory by the mid-1990s. In grammar school, I had learned the basics of how our country came into being, and for many years I assumed that as long as I could still answer a question on Jeopardy! I was an informed citizen. I voted when I came of age, and that appeared to be that. I trusted the government to look out for my best interests and accepted my role in society as what I now consider the modern-day equivalent of a serf.
When I was 20 years old, the naval base where my Mother worked as a civilian in Bayonne, NJ closed, but she was offered a transfer to Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach. It sounded exotic, so I decided to pack up and go with her. It was a culture shock to say the least. I had to get used to the idea that if a stranger said hello while passing you on the street, it was because that was how they were raised and considered it common courtesy, not because they were about to ask you for spare change. I had yet to realize that I had settled in an area with a people for whom values and traditions were held in sacred trust, and passed down along with lands or a mother’s string of pearls.
Within a year I had made Jesus my Lord and Savior. The circles I began to travel in were a stark contrast to what I was used to. Over time I got used to living in the Bible belt. But my transformation to Patriot took a bit longer.
It wasn’t until almost 10 years ago when I met my friend Michael that my perspective began to change. At first, I thought he was extreme. And a bit of a kook. He espoused a fervent distrust of big government, quoted Benjamin Franklin, and had a permit to conceal carry a firearm. A firearm! Hitherto this point, I thought anyone who carried a firearm and wasn’t a police officer or in the military was a gun nut. But he encouraged me to ask questions and as much as it humbles me to say so, I began to perceive for the first time just how much I had given up essential liberty for temporary safety. Suddenly, the Patriot Act, which I had fully embraced as a post 9/11 necessity, seemed dangerous and anything but patriotic.
And for the second time in my life, I mistakenly thought I was an informed citizen. Which brings me back around the recent turn of events with the government-mandated shutdown. I began to see arguments from both sides, and while I felt drawn to the cause of liberty, I wondered about where the line is. When does patriotism cross the line into rebellion? There’s a lot I intend to say on that in a future article, but for the moment let me say that sadly, I didn’t really know at the time. I felt I had to depend on other people’s “expert opinions.”
I decided to ask my friend Robert, since he teaches civics classes in his free time. I figured it would be a relatively short conversation, no longer than maybe 30 minutes over coffee where I could ask away to my heart’s content. Except Robert is a bit busy these days, as he’s recently been elected to a seat on the city council in his community. What he did do for me instead was point me in the right direction to some teaching materials, and I began to seek out answers for myself. I was shocked to learn what I had been missing out on.
Ignorance is Not Bliss
I took a NY Times Fourth-of-July-quiz and failed miserably, only getting 4 out of the 10 sample questions correct. The funny thing is, I’m by no means the exception to the rule. A study conducted in 2018 by the Woodrow Wilson National Foundation found that just 1 in 3 Americans would pass a citizenship test. The question in 2020 that we need to be asking ourselves is how will we know if our rights are being violated if we have no idea what they are to begin with? John Jay, the first Chief justice of the United States, Founding Father, and author of the Federalist Papers, made this incredible statement:
“Every member of the State ought to diligently read and study the Constitution of his country, and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.”
Granted, the men of his time did not have to contend with the distractions of TV, Netflix, and social media, but they had an earnest expectation that we, as citizens, would be well-versed to the point of being able to teach the next generation not just to know our rights, but to defend and assert them. I wonder what they would think if they knew that by and large, we have become apathetic about such freedoms so long as we have our “bread and circuses.” These were men who signed the Declaration of Independence with the full knowledge that if captured by the British, they would be hanged and their families stripped of homes, fortunes, and honor. And that is exactly what happened to many of them. Nathan Hale, the oft-quoted American soldier, and Continental spy, famously declared before he was executed, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
He was 21 years old.
Hopefully we can agree, whether you’re a liberal, independent, or conservative, that if these heroes felt so strongly about defending our freedoms that they laid down their very lives for the cause, it is a small thing for us to take the time to read and study the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In case you may have forgotten, 2020 is an election year. Maybe the thing that needs to be uniting us right now, beyond our support of a particular political candidate, is the love we have for our families and the hope that freedom will endure for the coming generation. And that our resolve in these values would propel us to action.
Studying the Constitution is not as daunting as it may sound, especially when there are so many tools available at our disposal. One that I am really enjoying is a series called Constitution Alive! taught by historian David Barton and former Texas legislator Rick Green. Hillsdale College offers free online Constitution courses, as does the National Archives and the Bill of Rights Institute.
If we continue to remain apathetic concerning our rights, did our heroes not die in vain? I have decided that I’m not going to remain ignorant any longer; the question is, will you join me?