Today marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and, with it, the founding of these United States of America.
I’ve had conversations with friends who have said they don’t really feel like celebrating this year. They don’t feel particularly patriotic.
And to that I say: Don’t let these conservative and Republican losers take that away from you.
They’ve already taken so much from this country. Don’t give them this, too.
They don’t have a monopoly on loving America.
There are people out there who will say, “Love it or leave it. You’ve got to love our president because he’s the president of everybody. And if you can’t do that, you can get the fuck out.”
Fuck that.
I don’t walk away from the things I love.
I stay, and I fight to make them better.
The people who believe otherwise are part of what’s wrong with this country. They accuse everyone else of being divisive while demanding unquestioning loyalty to their vision of America.
But I can reject that vision and still love my country. I can oppose the people in power and still love the people who live here.
You can, too.
You can still celebrate, even if the current administration makes you feel like you can’t.
The U.S. Men’s National Team is kicking ass right now. We’re seeing the rise of democratic socialism and a new wave of politics centered around caring for people and fixing the things that are broken.
You can be happy about that.
You can celebrate that.
You can be proud of where you live without being some die-hard Republican bootlicker.
In years past, I’ve written about the Founding Fathers and the framework they provided for future generations to continue the work of making this Union more perfect.
But there’s something else worth remembering about the Founders.
They dissented.
You can dissent, too.
In fact, dissent is one of the things that makes this country great.
When I think about the Declaration of Independence, I always come back to its second paragraph. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All people are created equal. We have rights that cannot be taken away from us. Among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments exist to protect those rights, and their power comes from the consent of the people they govern.
Those are powerful words.
And for 250 years, we have struggled to live up to them.
The men who wrote those words didn’t fully live up to them. The country they created didn’t live up to them. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, we still don’t live up to them today.
But I don’t think that makes those words meaningless.
I think it makes them a challenge.
Every generation of Americans inherits the same unfinished work: to take those words seriously and push this country a little closer to becoming what it has always claimed it could be.
That means telling the truth about our history. It means acknowledging the people our country has failed. It means criticizing our leaders when they betray those ideals. And yes, it means dissenting when the government no longer represents the interests or protects the rights of the people it serves.
That isn’t hatred of America.
That is patriotism.
We are not supposed to be a dictatorship that props up a shitty leader, censors information, and hides the ugly parts of our nation’s history.
That isn’t who we are supposed to be.
But there are people who want us to become exactly that.
Telling the truth about the shitty parts of our history doesn’t mean we hate America. Confronting our failures is how we learn from them. It’s how we become better.
It’s how we continue the work of creating that more perfect Union.
So celebrate if you want to celebrate.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a leftist, progressive, anarchist, Mormon, Scientologist, or if you believe in the Great Spaghetti Monster in the sky.
Celebrate what you love about this country.
Fight for the things you believe it can become.
Dissent when it fails to live up to its promises.
And don’t let anyone else tell you whether you’re allowed to love America—or what loving America is supposed to look like.