Will we be ashamed to call ourselves American?
On April 30, 1945, four U.S. divisions stormed the city of Munich, Germany. Painted on the walls of the Feldherrnhalle, where the 1923 Putsch was annually celebrated, they found these words in large white letters, “I am ashamed to be German.”
In later years, will many of us feel the same, given the extra-judicial killings, the drone missiles, the aggressive and undeclared wars our country has engaged in?
Will we be ashamed we did not stand against the gradual loss of our liberties, the surveillance, the collection of personal data? Accept that our secret organizations have secret laws we are not allowed to know? Accept the whittling away of the requirements of legal warrants? Accept that torture is not torture because your own government does it? Accept that killing innocent women and children is just part of the price of “freedom”? The support of dictators and repressive regimes the world over, time after time after bloody time?
I am not a constitutional scholar but I know dead wrong when I see it. Ben Franklin was asked after the signing of the U.S. constitution what had the framers given the people. He replied “A republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping it means that first you much understand and glory in that precious document. And then, you must be prepared to fight for those who would take it from you. That fight is now, and really, it always has been.
Harvey McDaniel
Naalehu