Patriotism, Jingoism, Theology and Love

TRUMP WILL START THE END OF THE WORLD, CLAIM EVANGELICALS WHO SUPPORT HIM – Newsweek, January 12, 2018   “If you’re a Christian, you shouldn’t care about the end of the world, you’ll be in Heaven. Let Trump drop the bomb, I don’t care.” – paraphrased from several conversations I’ve had (and maybe you have […]

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Christians Are Not Allowed To Be Racists Or Nationalists Of Any Kind

Once again our headlines are filled with stories and images of people, mostly 20-40 something men of European descent carrying banners with swastikas on them, flashing the Roman salute that has become forever associated with Nazi Germany, and other horrible things we thought we as people of the world had put behind us at the […]

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An Unpopular Opinion On 9-11

The opinions expressed here are the authors and do not necessarily represent the moderators or members of the Christianity Without The Insanity community.

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I remember 9-11, 2001. I was working a sucky minimum wage job after getting laid off from the phone company where I was a software engineer. The post Y2K fallout put a lot of us tech types out of work and we took anything to make ends meet.

My commute was long, way too long for  minimum wage, so, of course, I had the radio on. They cut in on the music to say a plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. It had just happened and things being what they were in 2001, no one knew at the time even what kind of plane it was. The local radio folks speculated it was a little plane and not many people were hurt.

By the time I got to work at the big-box store the news was on every TV. We learned the details as they came in. It was a big plane. There was fire and smoke. Soon they were non-stop broadcasting a live feed of the towers.

And we watched as the second plane hit the south tower.

Our boss sent us all home right after that. He said he was closing the store and we needed to be with our families.

I got home to my homeschooling wife, always the teacher, telling the kids what was happening in calm tones. We watched together as they reported  about the Pentagon. There were images of people jumping from the top of the towers. And then they fell.

And then they fell. First one, then the other.

And like every American, we wondered what would happen. We thought of those that died, and we prayed and we went to church that night because we didn’t know what else to do. And we heard about the firemen and the police and so many others that saved so many, yet so few.

And time passed. And there was war. And another war. Neither, it turned out, was directly related to the attacks on that day.

And time passed.

Now, here we are, 15 years later. We’re still reeling from the events of that day, in spite of the rebuilding. Our children, if they remember at all, have only vague memories and old images on TV. Freshmen in high school will study the events as something that happened before they were born.

And we remember. We remember the day with sadness, displays of patriotism, remembrances of those lost, the firemen and police and civilians. But also veterans for some reason, though the wars came later.

And that brings me to my unpopular opinion.

I respect and honor veterans. There’s a history in my family dating back to the Revolutionary war. Men and women in my family served and continue to serve. And they deserve respect. Especially those fallen.

But here’s the rub. And this is where I may lose followers and even make some enemies….

War is not a patriotic act. Not every soldier is “fighting for our freedom”. In fact, I will say that no soldier has fought for our freedom since World War II.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the soldiers themselves are not willing to fight for our freedom, I’m not saying they’re not doing their patriotic duty. What I’m saying is that since the invention of the nuclear weapon, there hasn’t been a need to fight for our freedom. I am saying that Korea, Vietnam, and just about every military action that came after WWII has NOT been about freedom. No matter how ‘patriots’ want to romanticize military service, to insist that we stand during the national anthem to ‘honor’ veterans, and a whole list of other demands, US military actions since the middle of the 20th century have been more about politics, land, oil, and a lot of other things.

Just not about freedom.

And I think it’s wrong to insist that 9-11 be made another military ‘holiday’.  Honor those lost. Remember the acts of terrorism. But don’t romanticize the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq as some great patriotic act. We know now that neither country was directly involved in the acts of 9-11 and we’ve spent thousands of lives and trillions of dollars not just on the acts of war, but on making reparations for our hasty invasions, for our need for revenge.

And now we have more terror. Isis lurks around every corner – an organization (if you can call it that) that was birthed directly because of our actions in the middle east.

We messed up. And unless we admit that, unless we stop worshiping the war dead and making patriotism our national religion, unless we stop glorifying the mistakes of our collective past, we can’t move on, move ahead and listen to each other.

This year, 9-11 is Sunday. You might be reading this after the fact, but as I write this, there are hundreds on my facebook timeline insisting that as our National Anthem is played before the football games players and others currently participating in the protest started by the 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick be FORCED to stand, rather than sit or kneel as is the form of their protest. Because veterans deserve the respect on ‘their’ day.

9-11 is not ‘their’ day. It’s not anyone’s day. It’s a day of mourning. Of remembering. But it’s not Veteran’s Day. Or Memorial Day. Or Flag Day, or 4th of July, or any other day we’ve chosen to ‘worship’ veterans.

We need to stop the cycle. We need to stop glorifying war-time military service. Honor those who served as is appropriate, yes, but not in excess, not to the degree that everything is about veterans.

The flag is not about veterans. The National Anthem is not about veterans. 9-11 is not about veterans. The first amendment is not about veterans. Nor is the second, nor any of the rest. (The second is all anyone cares to talk about these days.)

The most honorable thing we can do for current and deceased veterans on 9-11 is work to not make any more war vets.

My unpopular opinion may be mine to share because of the freedom I have, and there are events in this countries past that were acts of protecting and creating that freedom. But my unpopular opinion is that none of those acts have happened in my lifetime. Nor my parents’. And 9-11, especially, should not be used as an excuse to romanticize war and make excuses to squash the freedoms we claim veterans have served and died to protect.

 

 

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A Sunday Morning Rant

I’m up early this morning, feeling anxious about today’s church service. In the past, my church has done a little something in honor of Memorial Day, but this year most of our service is dedicated to it.

And while, on the one hand, I think that’s good, on the other I am sort of uncomfortable with the whole “patriotic” aspect of it and Memorial day in general.

I love and respect our service men and women. They committed to a cause I could not. Even my father was prepared to serve his country during the time of the Vietnam war. (He’s passed now, so I don’t know the whole story of why his service was cut short – the war ended, I know that’s part of it… but I digress). It’s not something I was able to consider in my life due to poor health as a kid (and, honestly, not having any real interest in it).

But patriotism, the concept just eludes me. The whole idea of loving one’s country and all the parades and flag-waving and everything that goes with it, I just don’t get it. The almost fanatical support of our military as a whole and the glorifying of wars… the nostalgia of it….it’s beyond me.

Call me un-American if you wish, but I just can’t participate in the religious fervor of glorifying “country”. What are we supposed to love?

The land? I live in the desert, and there are some incredible views near my house. It’s like living in the Grand Canyon sometimes. But while I “like” the place, I don’t know if I “love” it.

The people? I love all mankind (generally speaking) and wish we could all live in peace and equality,  but do I love what people have done for this country? The elite few with massive wealth while the middle class has all but vanished into poverty and the division of the left from the right…. I don’t know if I can love that.

Am I to love the government? I’m not even going to go into that.

Am I supposed to love our “rights” and “freedom”? Well, yeah, ok. But there are other countries that have just as many (and in some cases more) “rights and freedoms” as we do (I know there are second amendment types that will say “what about the guns?” I count that as a freedom FROM gun violence – but that’s a debate for another post.) And our religious freedom? Well, yes. There is that. But again, it’s no longer unique to us. Most “first world” countries have similar rights when it comes to church going (and my atheist, humanist, and agnostic friends might even say they have more freedoms when it comes to the right to “not believe”.)

“But there are so many that died to protect our rights!” well, yes. I’ll give you that. Up to and including WWII. While I respect the sacrifice made by those in Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, Afghanistan, and dozens of other military actions that are too numerous to mention (Panama, Nicaragua, etc), I don’t think those military actions were about protecting Americans and American Rights.

Before you stone me, hear me out. Then you can still stone me, but I stand by what I’m saying.

World War II and the”great war” that preceded it were about countries of the world coming together to protect not only their own people, but to protect others. Axis and Allies. There was a great “evil” that needed to be stopped. And while the price was high, it was the right thing to do, not just for America and Americans, but for humanity.

Since then we have either gotten involved in things that we didn’t need to be  (Korea, Vietnam) or we were doing it for “American Interests” and not Americans. We sent troops to protect sea ports and oil wells. And yes, Bin Laden was bad, and Al Queda continues to be a threat, but they’re like stinging bees. You swat them; you don’t invade the wrong country with thousands of men and shoot innocent people who are just in the wrong place.

I support the men and women that serve, but I cannot feel patriotic about the government and military machine that has sent them more to protect the rights of Exxon than for the freedoms of Americans. There is nothing I can feel any sense of pride or any urge to wave a flag in anything that I have seen in the history of our military actions since the 1950s. It’s now more about using this massive military toy we have, having an excuse for its existence rather than any real “fighting for Americans and freedom”. There have been no acts of war on American soil since Pearl Harbor. And yes, I’m counting 9-11. That wasn’t an act of war; it was an act of terror. It wasn’t an attack on American Freedoms and Rights, it was an attack on false ideas and committed out of misplaced hate. And it wasn’t a world power seeking to dominate and subjugate humanity, it was a few men, a handful. We don’t need a huge military machine to deal with a handful. We need a few well trained snipers and drone pilots.

No. I don’t feel patriotism for our military as a whole. I feel a sense of awe and respect for those that have served. I will honor the ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I will give all respect to those that were willing to do so and served in times of peace, prepared to make that sacrifice if needed. But I have nothing but contempt for the Commanders and Presidents that have involved American soldiers only for capitalism. Then tried to push it on the American public like they were doing the world the same great service we gave in WWII. I can’t support that.

So what does that leave for me to feel like a “patriot”? Our history? Our historical documents? OK, sure. I get some of that. Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, good stuff. Great writing. The Revolutionary War? I have an ancestor that fought to create our country. That’s something I can get behind. Somewhat. But is what I feel “patriotism”? Awe? Sure. A bit of pride? OK. But is that patriotism?

Maybe.

And if that is what I need to get behind the idea of Memorial Day as a patriotic holiday, then I guess I can do that.

I’ll stop ranting now. God bless. Have a great weekend.

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