Happy Birthday, United States
I won't quibble over the dates--July 2nd, July 4th, no matter. Two hundred thirty years ago, for the first time, colonies declared their independence of their mother country. Even more important, the elected representatives of those colonies ratified a statement that governmental authority came from the consent of the governed rather than from God. Further, the representatives ratified that this concept included the corollary that if government did not protect the rights of the governed--which did come from God--the governed had the right and the duty to replace it. A host of other rights followed from these fundamental concepts: the freedom to express ideas, no matter how obnoxious; the freedom to worship as one saw fit or not to worship at all; the freedom to be left alone.
Every year at this time, and every year on Memorial Day, and every year on Veterans Day, we are told that freedom is not free and we are asked to think of those who have died for freedom over the last two hundred thirty years. But the reality is that freedom lives, not because it is protected by military force, but because people use it. When Natalie Maines says that George W. Bush makes the Dixie Chicks ashamed to be from Texas, freedom becomes stronger. When John Scopes taught his students that the Creation story in the Bible wasn't the only possible explanation for the origin of the universe, freedom grew stronger. When John Kerry returned his military medals, freedom grew stronger. Had the Revolution failed, had the British Army captured and hanged the Continental Congress, the United States might not have been born, but freedom would have grown stronger.
We have an administration that fails to understand that freedom is best defended by living free. Thousands of armed troops in the middle east cannot protect freedom as effectively as can people who have the courage to question the truths they have been given. They don't have to reject what they believe necessarily. A former student of mine told me some time ago that a series of assignments I gave based on the Harry Potter novels had challenged her intellectually and spiritually because her religious background taught her that novels about witchcraft were sinful. But she was willing to question that, and in the end, she said, her faith was stronger, even if some of her beliefs had changed.
If the United States is, in reality, the land of the brave, it is a land where we value honest doubt and dissent and grow from addressing both with equal honesty. It is a land where we can grieve the loss of lives in terrorist attacks and still go forward without making terrorism the center of our national life. We can remember that the German army invaded and occupied Holland by force during World War II--but the Dutch people still cherished their freedom and defied their oppressors at every opportunity. We can remember that when Martin Luther King, Jr., began working for freedom, he was put into the Birmingham jail--by force--but he understood that freedom belongs to those who refuse to give it up and drew others to his cause with his writings from the jail. We can remember that when we teach children to think for themselves, when we don't dumb down the past or the present because we are afraid they won't figure it out or will come to conclusions different from our own, we are making freedom stronger.
On September 11, 2001, teachers across the United States received word of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In many instances, this information arrived with instructions from administrators to avoid telling the students what had happened; that was a task best left to parents. So the teachers went on, focusing on their plans for the day, until school was dismissed. And the next day that school was in session, they went back and did it again. And again. And again. Those of us who teach, unlike those at the highest levels of government, have not adopted a new world view in which 9/11 is a watershed. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the message of the Declaration of Independence that I taught in the fall semesters of 2001 through 2005 is the same one that I taught through 2000. And it will still be the same in 2006--no matter what George W. Bush and his minions and courtiers want to say about how everything has changed because of terrorism. It is still a message of freedom, the dignity of the individual, and the source of governmental authority.
Jefferson wrote that he had sworn on the altar of God eternal enmity against every form of tyranny over the human mind. He was a man who knew that freedom, on rare occasions, must be defended militarily, but that it is more important to defend it daily by using it and by teaching others to use it. I'm pretty sure that the people in the military have been stroked more than enough for one day, so I'm offering my thanks to my teaching colleagues who understand that regardless of our disciplines, regardless of what level we teach, when we teach our students that the answers to life cannot be reduced to choices on a standardized test or other knee-jerk responses, we're defending freedom every day.
Every year at this time, and every year on Memorial Day, and every year on Veterans Day, we are told that freedom is not free and we are asked to think of those who have died for freedom over the last two hundred thirty years. But the reality is that freedom lives, not because it is protected by military force, but because people use it. When Natalie Maines says that George W. Bush makes the Dixie Chicks ashamed to be from Texas, freedom becomes stronger. When John Scopes taught his students that the Creation story in the Bible wasn't the only possible explanation for the origin of the universe, freedom grew stronger. When John Kerry returned his military medals, freedom grew stronger. Had the Revolution failed, had the British Army captured and hanged the Continental Congress, the United States might not have been born, but freedom would have grown stronger.
We have an administration that fails to understand that freedom is best defended by living free. Thousands of armed troops in the middle east cannot protect freedom as effectively as can people who have the courage to question the truths they have been given. They don't have to reject what they believe necessarily. A former student of mine told me some time ago that a series of assignments I gave based on the Harry Potter novels had challenged her intellectually and spiritually because her religious background taught her that novels about witchcraft were sinful. But she was willing to question that, and in the end, she said, her faith was stronger, even if some of her beliefs had changed.
If the United States is, in reality, the land of the brave, it is a land where we value honest doubt and dissent and grow from addressing both with equal honesty. It is a land where we can grieve the loss of lives in terrorist attacks and still go forward without making terrorism the center of our national life. We can remember that the German army invaded and occupied Holland by force during World War II--but the Dutch people still cherished their freedom and defied their oppressors at every opportunity. We can remember that when Martin Luther King, Jr., began working for freedom, he was put into the Birmingham jail--by force--but he understood that freedom belongs to those who refuse to give it up and drew others to his cause with his writings from the jail. We can remember that when we teach children to think for themselves, when we don't dumb down the past or the present because we are afraid they won't figure it out or will come to conclusions different from our own, we are making freedom stronger.
On September 11, 2001, teachers across the United States received word of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In many instances, this information arrived with instructions from administrators to avoid telling the students what had happened; that was a task best left to parents. So the teachers went on, focusing on their plans for the day, until school was dismissed. And the next day that school was in session, they went back and did it again. And again. And again. Those of us who teach, unlike those at the highest levels of government, have not adopted a new world view in which 9/11 is a watershed. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the message of the Declaration of Independence that I taught in the fall semesters of 2001 through 2005 is the same one that I taught through 2000. And it will still be the same in 2006--no matter what George W. Bush and his minions and courtiers want to say about how everything has changed because of terrorism. It is still a message of freedom, the dignity of the individual, and the source of governmental authority.
Jefferson wrote that he had sworn on the altar of God eternal enmity against every form of tyranny over the human mind. He was a man who knew that freedom, on rare occasions, must be defended militarily, but that it is more important to defend it daily by using it and by teaching others to use it. I'm pretty sure that the people in the military have been stroked more than enough for one day, so I'm offering my thanks to my teaching colleagues who understand that regardless of our disciplines, regardless of what level we teach, when we teach our students that the answers to life cannot be reduced to choices on a standardized test or other knee-jerk responses, we're defending freedom every day.
posted by amsterdr at 7:56 PM
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