Will America still be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'? Please note that that quote came in the form of a question in its original source: the National Anthem. And it would be a good question to ask ourselves if we were so disposed to be honest with ourselves. But are we honest enough with ourselves to ask that question or are our corporate and individual egos so fragile that attempts to answer that question produces a conflict of interests?
My guess is that conservatives are less prone to honestly ask whether America is the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' After all, thinking that America the greatest nation in the history of the world is one of their basic tenets. In fact, affirming that to be the case about America is one of the litmus tests many of them use for determining who is a real American and a true patriot. They tell those of us who don't believe that about America to leave. Ironically, staying in America because one believes that it is the greatest nation in the history of the world is being nothing more than a fair weather patriot.
But there is another indicator that reveals why conservatives are less prone to honestly ask whether America is the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' That is because of their extremely sensitive allergy to change--and being able to change is mark of both being free and being brave. In fact, calling their reaction to change an extreme allergy is an understatement. Rather, change is to most conservatives what Kryptonite was to Superman. But let's be fair, once we are established in a favorable situation or way of thinking, we all resist change. However, not all of us react to change like many conservatives do.
What changes do conservative resist? They resist changes necessitated by the reality of climate change, the pandemic, systemic racism, and the fairness of the 2020 Presidential election. Their resistance to changing in the face of theses situations went so far as to cause them to embrace conspiracy theories and pseudo science to deny those realities.
Their avoidance of changing in order to reduce systemic racism has caused them to take the approach to racism taken by the Reagan Administration. His Administration took the position that, after the Civil Rights Movement, the only racism that still exists is that of personal prejudice. And so they believed that the continual harping on the presence of systemic racism causes some to feel and express racism in response. Meanwhile, some conservative are parading individual blacks on social media who say that they do not see systemic racism. But these same conservatives ignore the statistics and reports of the racism practiced by institutions like law enforcement, the justice departments, in our economic system evidenced by the ever growing wealth and income disparities between the races, in our election system as there seems to be an erosion of voting rights as seen in the elimination of parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, in the reports of environmental racism, or in the testimonies of blacks who have been questioned or arrested by law enforcement because they were walking or driving while black. The recent SCOTUS decision to undo Affirmative Action policies by the conservative Court also bears testimony to the denial of systemic racism.
Another rejection of change by many conservatives is their refusal recognize equal status and rights for those in the LGBT Community. Religious conservatives reject analogies being made between the struggle for equal rights for the LGBT community and the struggle for civil rights for blacks during the Civil Rights Movement because they say that there is no sin in belong to a minority race. What that view implies about those in the LBGT Community is more obvious than an appearance of a drag queen show. And while conservatives proudly brag about how they adhere to science on LGBT issues, what the scientific community is reporting is the need to change some of our views about why some have same-sex attraction or why some have gender dysphoria.
We might want to consider another marker of freedom and bravery: tolerance. Here I am thinking of how disingenuous the title of Ron DeSantis's book called, The Courage To Be Free. Are we talking about the diminishing freedom of teachers to teach racism from a non white, religiously conservative American perspective. We are also talking about the right of school libraries to carry books that mention same-sex attraction (SSA) or other LGBT issues. Doesn't DeSantis know that Freedom - Equality = Privilege. And thus, the title of his book should be 'The Audacity To Seek Privilege.'
But bravery isn't seen when we try to repress those groups of people who are significantly different from our own. It isn't bravery to try to marginalize a group of people, who are not denying the equality or rights of others, because you don't like that group. Trying to silence, control, and marginalize them is a sign of fear, not courage.
However, it seems that some groups of conservatives are not the only ones who lack the courage to tolerate those who are different. The Politically Correct crowds, there is more than one, also try to silence and marginalize those whose language or ideas they do not like. And some in the LGBT Community, while striving for equality, use labels and other tactics to silence those who do not believe that one cannot change one's own biological sex because of how one feels or transitions.
As much as we should be working for the full equality of all in the LGBT Community in society, that doesn't mean that we have to change the biological facts of life. The problem here stems from the fact that we categorize people by one of 2 biological sexes even though there are more than two genders. Therefore, we need a more complex way of categorizing people that recognizes their gender identity and biological sex independently from each other while promoting full equality for those from each gender identity.
Part of our intolerance of others is that we either refuse or have become unable to make some necessary distinctions. And thus we unnecessarily engage in too much black-white thinking and cannot see the 50+ shades of gray that lies between the polar opposites. The refusal or inability to make distinctions lies at the heart of many of our intolerances, attempts to silence others, and prejudices.
An example of a distinction that some either refuse or are unable to make practiced by some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians is to differentiate between people disagreeing with one's religious beliefs and being persecuted. Much of the disfavor that religiously conservative Christianity has found itself with many people is that such Christianity has, during the time of Christendom, oppressed certain groups of people by denying them their equal status and rights in society. And when people voice this disfavor, many of us religiously conservative American Christians interpret it as persecution of the faith rather than a protest against our attempted control of them.
Though I have picked on conservatives quite heavily here, there are a significant number of liberals and leftists who lack courage as evidenced by how they treat conservatives or others who disagree with them. This lacking of courage and the desire to replace freedom with the ability to control others is prominent throughout the whole nation and it knows no ideological boundaries. And so when we celebrate July 4th today, we need to honestly ask ourselves whether our nation is as good as we say we are, or are we floundering because we have too easily believed the headlines that we have written about ourselves.
The short of it is this, America is not the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' It isn't that not because there is a giant meteor is heading for our heartland or a mighty nation is poised to attack or invade us. Rather, we are not the 'land of the free and the home of the brave' because of how we feel about our fellow Americans whom we deem to be too different from ourselves.
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