Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

When I was young, we used to have a saying: "Red, white and blue makes a monkey out of you." If you said that today, you would no doubt get pounded by everybody on the playground, including the teachers.

This was at the same time somebody had stuck a sticker on one of the desks that said, "Remember the hostages," referring to the American hostages in Iran.

And we understood, in those days, that we only said things like "Red, white and blue makes a monkey out of you" because it was an easy rhyme and it gave us more excuses to pick on somebody for what they wore to school.

So how come all of a sudden you're not patriotic if you criticize anything about this country?

It's a favorite ploy of conservative pundits right now to accuse Democrats and left-wingers of being unpatriotic whenever they question, for example, our motivations for having gone to war in Iraq. I mean, I concede that it is entirely possible that George W. Bush was himself misled by the quality of intelligence as it was presented to him. The truth is, when American lives and credibility are at stake, we ought to find out if there was an intelligence failing and, if so, what we can do to prevent it in the future.

Now I don't find anything unpatriotic about saying that we need to be certain, before we endanger American lives in a foreign country, that we know what we're doing there.

And these same pundits found nothing unpatriotic about mercilessly attacking President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, when he was in office and even leading the charge to impeach him for so-called "high crimes and misdemeanors." But that's a debate we can have another time, especially what the framers of the Constitution might have meant by "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Ironically, these same commentators (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, for example) give themselves a free pass when it comes to their own criticisms of the Bush administration. They seem to think it's perfectly okay to criticize Bush's high spending when it comes to programs such as the child tax credit, a prescription drug plan for seniors or money to fight the worldwide AIDS epidemic.

And despite the fact that they, themselves, feel free to criticize the administration whenever they want, they call left-wingers the "Blame America First" crowd and say that they're not happy with anything that America does. I don't think that's true. But I think that, as a country that's set up based on the kinds of high moral principles on which the United States is based, in a country where spirited debate is not just a perk but a right, in a country where our equal rights for all citizens are guaranteed under our Constitution, it's especially patriotic to say whatever is one your mind, provided it stops short of threats, obscenities or other unprotected speech.

That's not unpatriotic; that's as American as you can get. Do you think the Founding Fathers always agreed on everything?

Am I unpatriotic because, like my Quaker ancestors, I urge government to urge a peaceful solution to crises? I don't think so.

Am I unpatriotic because I still have trouble wearing red, white and blue without thinking about monkeys? Not at all.

America is an amazing experiment which brings together people of all ethnicities, nationalities, faiths, languages, economic status and political opinions and says to them they're entitled to say whatever they want, but they must do it peacefully. And despite failings over the years, such as the treatment of Native Americans, African Americans and other minorities, this 227-year experiment is going pretty strong.

Which all reminds me of something a famous American once said, "I may not like what you have to say, but red, white and blue makes a monkey out of you."

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):