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You are here: Home / Politics / Proud to Be A Democrat / Open Thread: True Patriotism

Open Thread: True Patriotism

by Anne Laurie|  July 4, 202111:18 pm| 42 Comments

This post is in: Proud to Be A Democrat, Something Good Open Thread

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james earl jones gives voice to frederick douglass' brilliant speech exposing the hypocrisy of the US' foundational myth, its false claim to universal liberty which it denied the most marginalized and oppressed, by answering the question: "what to the slave is the 4th of july?" pic.twitter.com/hMCJg4Os3p

— ☀️? (@zei_squirrel) July 4, 2021

we were designed to keep fixing what we get wrong and it was so important we wrote it into the first 15 words of the constitution https://t.co/UnCRefjpQB pic.twitter.com/FzWve2sUs3

— kilgore trout, dna harvester (@KT_So_It_Goes) July 4, 2021

I mean far be it from me to question the founders’ patriotism but if you have a problem with being critical of america then maybe those guys were not somebody who would agree with you.

you hear it tossed off casually that america was some sort of divine intervention like angels came down & guided the pen strokes but true providence is recognizing the future holds things so incomprehensible to your speck of time on this earth that you leave the door open to them.

this was their true genius. the humility to know they were but a passing leaf on the wind in the broader scheme of things and to write an unlocked door into the hard code of our system.

and that’s what I love about this beautiful, horrible, wonderful, shameful country. it’s never supposed to be made great *again*. it’s supposed to just be made a little better off when you leave it than how you found it.

H/t commentor HumboldtBlue:

This elevator skit is so incredibly simple

And I think that’s what makes it perfect. pic.twitter.com/Now56YsCS3

— Muppet History (@HistoryMuppet) October 22, 2020

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Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    July 4, 2021 at 11:30 pm

    This labour shortage be something…

  2. 2.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    July 4, 2021 at 11:35 pm

    Hope all the US jackals had a great day.

  3. 3.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 4, 2021 at 11:39 pm

    @Debbie(Aussie): 
    Still going, got a couple of hours of fun left.

    From downstairs.

    And I wrote about this back in the day when I still wrote, but the fucking hot dog eating contest that’s been championed by ESPN and sponsored by Nat’s (a brand I used to enjoy) is the most disgusting spectacle that’s treated as some worthy competition.

    Just fucking nasty.

  4. 4.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2021 at 11:46 pm

    Today was the day we commemorated how white males started a country that gave no rights to women and people of color and we're supposed to be super proud of that. Happy #FourthofJuly white males who owned property, whether it be real estate or other human beings.

    — Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) July 5, 2021

    I think we’re going to have the last laugh on the dead old white guys. They may have thought that their words didn’t apply to everyone – we know better, and we’re making the country live up to those words.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  5. 5.

    Winston

    July 4, 2021 at 11:48 pm

    This is the second time I’ve come across Douglas’s comments today. As much as I agree with the sentiment in every aspect, I don’t know what else I can do but to support Democrats and make sure I vote in every election at every level in every election.

  6. 6.

    Suzanne

    July 4, 2021 at 11:49 pm

    What I love most about this country is that I can feel at least two ways about it; there is simultaneously some terrible past and present, but also it is an incredible thing, to forge a thing like this country, over time and change.

  7. 7.

    H.E.Wolf

    July 4, 2021 at 11:54 pm

    An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths…”) spoken by descendants of the original signers.

    https://www.campaignlive.com/article/ancestrys-first-work-droga5-makes-bold-statement-americas-diversity/1437969

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2021 at 11:55 pm

    Something good? Well, TIL about mud volcanoes.

    Fascinating thread about today’s fire in the Caspian Sea:

    Big jet of fire in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan at ~9:30pm local time on the 4th of July.

    First official reports say its a big offshore mud volcano eruption.

    This may be the Makarov Bank mud volcano, which did exactly this in 1958.

    Let's start a quick evolving thread! https://t.co/a38xdBGvPz— Mark Tingay (@CriticalStress_) July 5, 2021

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  9. 9.

    Comrade Colette

    July 5, 2021 at 12:06 am

    It’s not even quite dark here (San Francisco) and the explosions are already continuous. It’s going to be a long night of flashbangs, dogs barking, and car alarms. Where do people get all this stuff? There have been more M80-type super-loud ones  – every night for the last month – than I can ever recall before.

    Battle Hymn of the Muppets should be the national anthem.

  10. 10.

    Sister Golden Bear

    July 5, 2021 at 12:12 am

    @Debbie(Aussie): As darkness falls, the Battle of D-Day is ramping up outside. At least it sounds that way.

  11. 11.

    Anoniminous

    July 5, 2021 at 12:14 am

    I respect two of the founding fathers: Sam Adams and Thomas Paine.

    Sam Adams, when his wife was given a slave as a wedding present, “A slave can not live in my house; if she comes she must be free.” Surry, the slave, lived in the Adams’ house for fifty years. Adams later wrote, “Who, Surry? I practice what I preach, my friend. She’s not a slave, but a freed woman.”

    Thomas Paine, in the March 1775 edition of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser:

    “The chief design of this paper is not to disprove [slavery], which many have sufficiently done, but to entreat Americans to consider:

    1. With that consistency… they complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold so many hundred thousands in slavery and annually enslave many thousands more, without any pretence of authority or claim upon them.

    2. How just, how suitable to our crime is the punishment with which providence threatens us? We have enslaved multitudes and shed much innocent blood in doing it, and are now threatened with the same [by the English]…

    3. [Should] all not immediately discontinue and renounce it, with grief and abhorrence? Should not every society bear testimony against it and [consider] obstinate persisters in it bad men, enemies to their country, and exclude them from fellowship, as they often do for much lesser faults?

    4. The great question may be: What should be done with those who are enslaved already? To turn the old and infirm free would be injustice and cruelty; those who enjoyed the labours of their better days should keep and treat them humanely. As to the rest, let prudent men, with the assistance of legislatures, determine what is practicable for [their] masters and best for them…”

    The rest were like deep dyed hypocrites like Thomas “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” Jefferson, slave owner and rapist.

    ETA: Need to note John Adams wasn’t a slave owner.  My dislike stems from other reasons.

  12. 12.

    Benw

    July 5, 2021 at 12:15 am

    I wonder if the current fascist freakout is because we’re starting to figure out who they are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHxhQPOO2c

  13. 13.

    Winston

    July 5, 2021 at 12:19 am

    If one wanted to cite an example of critical race theory as systemic racism, this day would be it. If only the founders could have felt it in their hearts to release the slaves from bondage on that day, our nation could have pride in the notion that all humans were created equal. But no. Not while our founders were slavers and continued to be

    eta : this should be a day of shame.

  14. 14.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 5, 2021 at 12:21 am

  15. 15.

    Martin

    July 5, 2021 at 12:21 am

    Had a good day. July 4th is always fun to see how different communities celebrate. Visiting with my  son his town had a really nice parade. The local democratic party made a nice showing in the parade, no sign of the republican party.

    Lots of cheers for the local firefighters. They lost a few dozen homes to the CZU August Lightning Complex fire last year.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    July 5, 2021 at 12:25 am

    @Sister Golden Bear: No fireworks here. Nobody setting them off. It seems having part of your town burn to the ground resets everyones priorities.

  17. 17.

    Anoniminous

    July 5, 2021 at 12:26 am

    Slavery was and is a corrosive force that once enters a society and becomes embedded in society corrupts that society.

    Go here and jump to 41:15.

  18. 18.

    Comrade Colette

    July 5, 2021 at 12:37 am

    @Martin:

     It seems having part of your town burn to the ground resets everyones priorities.

    I guess 1906 was too long ago to reset our priorities. I just hope these idiots don’t set McLaren Park on fire like they did last year.

  19. 19.

    James E Powell

    July 5, 2021 at 12:44 am

    @Anoniminous:

    Need to note John Adams wasn’t a slave owner.  My dislike stems from other reasons.

    Jefferson:

    Mr. Adams, damn you Mr. Adams
    You’re obnoxious and disliked; that cannot be denied

  20. 20.

    The Oracle of Solace

    July 5, 2021 at 12:54 am

    Reading Douglass’ speech was one of the most eye-opening experiences I had as a teenager. I had never before perceived the full magnitude of the gulf between our ideals and our reality. But criticizing America’s faults doesn’t make me un-American, as the Right would insist. The ideals are so good that I want to make them reality. The Right disappoints me, because they see the injustices surrounding us, and would abandon American ideals, making us just one more empire built on cruelty.

    I think I had more to say, but I’ve had my absinthe nightcap and am off to lay-down-go-sleepies.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    July 5, 2021 at 1:15 am

    @Another Scott:

    I think we’re going to have the last laugh on the dead old white guys. They may have thought that their words didn’t apply to everyone – we know better, and we’re making the country live up to those words.

    The founders were imperfect. They were willfully blind to many of their worst faults, and despite their best efforts to be visionaries, they were creatures of their time and circumstance.

    But they were not stupid.

    The founding document of this country is not the Declaration of Independence. It is the Constitution. And the founders tried here to write a blueprint for the country that was better than they were. The Constitution has its eyes on the future.

    It is a document written by white guys. And many of them were young white guys when they wrote this. But consider the qualifications for being elected to Congress or elected president.

    Nowhere does it restrict these offices to someone who is white. Nowhere does it restrict these offices to someone who is male, or Christian, or who professes any particular ideology or belief. Nowhere does it limit office to anyone of any particular gender identity.

    Nothing had to be revised or changed to make this possible. But even so, the Constitution includes an open-ended mechanism for amending it, in order to make for a more perfect union.

    Unlike the MAGA dopes, the founders did not look back, nor did they try to simply duplicate the political systems around them. Nor did they expect future generations to blindly adhere to tradition or past custom.

    To quote another favorite son, the founders had a dream…

  22. 22.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 5, 2021 at 1:22 am

    @Brachiator: ​ 
    Well said.

    Elsewhere, the city’s terrible fireworks show drove my poor boy Salad, who had spent an uneasy two hours at my feet, into the kitchen cupboards. It’s all over now, but damn if the poor guy wasn’t spooked.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    July 5, 2021 at 1:43 am

    Muppet elevator tape.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2021 at 1:46 am

    @Another Scott:

    I now better understand why mom didn’t want us tracking mud into the house.

    “Is could house now be up-blowing, children!”

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    July 5, 2021 at 1:49 am

    Making up for last year I guess, tonight’s neighborhood fireworks seem over the top. Luckily, current dog notices but that’s about it. Prior dogs were some degree of terrified/horrified/traumatized. He’s asleep on the sofa. Good boy.

  26. 26.

    Wag

    July 5, 2021 at 1:49 am

    I think that what the GQP doesn’t get is that to the Founding Fathers, America wasn’t perfect at that start. Instead, what we needed to do was to strive to make America MORE PERFECT as the years went on.  And just like in health care, or any other industry where a culture of continuous process improvement is part of the fabric, we must continually reassess whether our country is reaching these goals of becoming more perfect. Perfection can never be achieved, but it can be approached.

    And the surest way to destroy that ideal of incremental continual change is to look back at a fossilized depiction from the past and decide that is what we need to achieve.

  27. 27.

    Wag

    July 5, 2021 at 1:52 am

    And  what  @Brachiator: said, too

  28. 28.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 5, 2021 at 2:32 am

    A herding dog at work.

  29. 29.

    Geoduck

    July 5, 2021 at 2:38 am

    My WA state county has three mashed-together cities at its center, and they all banned private fireworks. Fair amount of people still set them off, though from the sound of it not as bad as some places. The town I’m in puts on a big official display every normal year, and did it today.

    Also lots of sirens, but they died down when the fireworks stopped. Maybe people were being careless.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 5, 2021 at 3:05 am

    Something Hilarious

    pic.twitter.com/7Ao7z0h8QK— strange online sellers (@StrangeSellers) June 25, 2021

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    July 5, 2021 at 4:05 am

    Le sigh. Jolted awake from a sound nap by the snap, crackle and bang coming from next door neighbors’ yard.

    Moving right along and getting more on topic,

    “The government must be the trustee for the little man because no one else will be. The powerful can usually help themselves — and frequently do.”
    – Adlai Stevenson
    .

  32. 32.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 5, 2021 at 4:06 am

    @mrmoshpotato: Sounds like a job for Baud.

  33. 33.

    eclare

    July 5, 2021 at 4:29 am

    @HumboldtBlue:  They are amazing, but wow do they need a job/exercise.  There was one at the dog park I used to go to, and the owner was out there every day before and after work for a long time with a Frisbee and the dog.

  34. 34.

    Pete Downunder

    July 5, 2021 at 5:00 am

    @eclare: ​
      Absolutely. We have a Border Collie and in his youth it was an hour of frisbee in the morning and again in the afternoon and maybe a good walk in the middle. He’s 12 now and doesn’t need as much but will still happily go and move cows for us given the slightest encouragement. They are extremly smart and will run your life if you let them.

  35. 35.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 5, 2021 at 5:35 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: It would really help get Baud more exposure.

  36. 36.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 5, 2021 at 6:09 am

    @mrmoshpotato: Oh, I think Baud may be overexposed.

  37. 37.

    Robert Sneddon

    July 5, 2021 at 6:41 am

    The Queen has awarded the National Health Service the George Medal on the 73rd anniversary of its founding back in 1948. It’s only the third time it has been awarded to a group (the first was the island of Malta, during WWII).

    In her handwritten message, the Queen wrote: “It is with great pleasure, on behalf of a grateful nation, that I award the George Cross to the National Health Services of the United Kingdom.

    “This award recognises all NHS staff, past and present, across all disciplines and all four nations.

    “Over more than seven decades, and especially in recent times, you have supported the people of our country with courage, compassion and dedication, demonstrating the highest standards of public service.

    “You have our enduring thanks and heartfelt appreciation.”

    The George Cross is of equal rank to the Victoria Cross but without the requirement for gallantry in the face of the enemy i.e. direct combat.

  38. 38.

    FridayNext

    July 5, 2021 at 7:09 am

    Wow, stirring. Now I’ve got John Brown’s Body stuck in my head. Thanks Kermit!

  39. 39.

    oldster

    July 5, 2021 at 8:15 am

    I agree with Kilgore Trout’s sentiment, but not with his constitutional analysis.

    The line that he emphasizes — “in order to form a more perfect union” — is not a reference to future improvements, via amendment or other means. Instead, it’s a reference backwards to the Articles of Confederation, which had formed a union, but a pretty lousy one.

    So the point of this line in the Preamble is: we’re replacing the Articles with this new Constitution in order to form a more perfect union out of the states, i.e. one that is more perfect than the Articles were.

    That line does not say anything about future changes. For all it says, the drafters might have gone on to say that there could be no future changes to the Constitution.

    Luckily, they also provided mechanisms for amendment. That’s the place to look for Kilgore Trout’s sentiment. Not in the Preamble.

  40. 40.

    leeleeFL

    July 5, 2021 at 8:29 am

    The Muppets rendition of the Battle Hymn gave me goosebumps and I teared up!

     

    Such is the Power of Jim Henson to touch the heart and teach the Soul!  I was singing Julia Ward Howe, but John Brown’s Body is good as well.

     

    Thanks for sharing it.

  41. 41.

    J R in WV

    July 5, 2021 at 12:31 pm

    Trampling out the Grapes of Wrath

    What a great line from a great song.

  42. 42.

    Neldob

    July 5, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    I like jazz among other things.

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