Being a patriotic citizen

This weekend marks the 244th anniversary of our declaring our independence, when, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

This is the perfect moment to consider binding up our nation’s wounds, as he also wrote, in his second inaugural address.

Our nation. Our wounds. Our defense. It is us, plural. We are both citizens and patriots together. Patriots defend us, the people, our country. That is we, together, whether it is the community of La Conner, the state of Washington or the entire United States.

Everyone is a citizen. That comes with obligations and responsibilities, but the only enforcement is internal. Each of us is guided by ethics and shaped by our environment and education.

We are citizens together, but each citizen decides how to interact with her neighbors and participate in the community. Attending meetings, speaking in public, writing letters, voting, these are all icing on the cake of community that make it denser, richer, tastier and more vibrant for others as well as oneself. All of these are necessary, but none are mandatory.

Citizenship’s responsibilities are all voluntary. That is the wonderful, frustrating miracle of democracy. We trust, and thus depend on each other. Yet anyone has the freedom to absent herself. But individualism does not mean disregarding the governor’s public health directive. That is neither freedom nor choice. That is chaos. It is the non-choice of shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Anyone making that choice can destroy lives, literally.

Some, calling themselves patriots, are eager to do what they want, freedom for themselves. That confuses patriotism with narcissism, a love of oneself and, in the dictionary definition, a lack of empathy.

Samuel Johnson, a wise Englishman who observed his country carefully 250 years ago, found that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” When one fails to make a solid case, he makes a show of wrapping himself in the flag.

But true patriots defend their fellow citizens. Patriots protect the community. Love of country is not the bluster to do what you please. That is immaturity. Real patriots defend their neighbors. Today, in the midst of a pandemic that has killed 125,000 of their fellow citizens and is growing in size daily, arguing for the freedom to spit out breath that may contain a virus that has no cure is no public health policy at all.

Public health departments and professionals exist to protect the community. They are another breed of first responders. They defend the young and old, the most vulnerable among us. The very nature of their work is patriotic.

They are preaching the gospel that the first line of defense of our citizens and country is mask wearing.

By definition, patriots sacrifice for their neighbors. If wearing a mask is bad for your image or fogs your glasses or makes you claustrophobic, or worse, you feel you can’t breathe, the patriotic thing to do is suck it up and march on. It is because of your fellow citizens that you act patriotically.

Anyone who is not sacrificing for their fellow citizens and the safety and health of their country to ensure the glory of its future is not much of a patriot.

Our time tries men’s souls, as Thomas Paine wrote in “The Crisis” in the early, dark days of the Revolutionary War, continuing: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

The struggle today is to mask up – that and keep six feet of distance and keep from mixing with more than five people a week who are not members of your household.

Those are our marching orders, as critical as any given to any soldiers at any time.