I should be studying for my business law final, but I’ve been struck with the desire to write. As many who know me will attest to, I’m a bit of a political firebrand when it comes to issues I’m passionate about. I’ve attempted to mask these tendencies in my cocktail writing, with some success, but today I’m going to go all out on what may end up being a controversial point. As you’ll see, the point of the post is in fact my right to be controversial, so take it as you will. I have chosen to make this point now because I have made a connection between this special day and and feeling I’ve had for some time. I also should point out that this post is (mostly) only relevant to Americans, but my international friends are welcome to peruse and respond.
Today is Repeal Day, an as of yet unofficial holiday in the United States, and that unofficial-ness is what has me steamed. On December 5, 1933, the 21st amendment was ratified, which ended Prohibition. For a few years now, Portland, Oregon bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler has been promoting the idea of turning Repeal Day into a real holiday. I won’t go through his reasons, as he does a really good job of explaining himself on RepealDay.org. What I am going to do though, is expand somewhat on his base.
A question: what do we celebrate on our holidays? Let’s first dispense with non-secular holidays, as in the United States, they cannot be officially recognized (though we, unfortunately, have ignored or evaded that part of the Constitution). Beyond religious holidays, we have national, or patriotic holidays. Most countries have these, commemorating independence, or great battles, or birthdays of great countrymen (or those of self-important dictators). In the U.S., we celebrate our independence, a relationship with exploited native peoples, the birthdays of great presidents and a civil rights martyr, the memory of the back breaking work it took to build the country, and, on two separate days, the lives of the men and women who died in military service to the nation. These are all good reasons to celebrate, but something is left out.
Now, I have to admit that I do not view military service as something that is inherently patriotic. I think we’re naive as a nation to believe that every person serving in the military is a true-blue American Hero. *Note, I held these beliefs before the tragedy at Ft. Hood and I do not mean to use that horrid event as evidence to my point.* Rather, people join the military for diverse reasons, whether it be money, boredom, despair, education, blood lust (yeah, it happens), and yes, certainly for patriotism. As a college student, I contemplated momentarily going into OCS in the days after September 11th. Then I got to thinking about what it really meant to be patriotic.
Part of my frustrations with Americans, and conservative Americans in particular, is the irony with which they live their lives. They are quick to call someone out when they perceive an unpatriotic thought, such as saying that military worship is wrong, but they work just as hard to prevent people from exercising the rights that the military is supposedly trying to protect. Why do we celebrate the people who died for our rights, but we ignore, or rather, denigrate, the people who live for them? What good is the freedom of speech if there is no one willing to speak?
I contend that the greatest patriots are not those who raise a weapon to defend their rights, but instead make the greatest effort to exercise their rights. I’d hate to think that all of the soldiers who’ve died over the years expired so that our rights could be curtailed by people espousing a certain political or religious philosophy. This is what happened on the day the 18th Amendment was passed. A right was stripped away from Americans. Sure, I wasn’t alive, and that right was restored long before my grandparents were old enough to drink, but the issue of abridged rights comes up again and again in our history. Sometimes we fix it through legislation, sometimes through amendment, sometimes through judicial interpretation, but not before an immense amount of pain and sacrifice on some hero’s part. Someone fought hard to give voting rights to women, but we don’t celebrate that person. Someone fought hard to give interracial couples the right to marry, but we don’t celebrate that person. Free speech is something we all want, until someone starts saying something we don’t like (and I’m not talking about incendiary hate speech here, I’m talking about artistic expression; the hate-mongers on a certain network are one wacko away from hate crime charges), but that person is doing right by all the people who died to give him the right to say that thing.
Repeal Day does just that. It recognizes that patriotism doesn’t just mean taking up arms for Uncle Sam. It lets us celebrate the actions of people who work to protect our rights from internal threats like the temperance lobby, and racism, bigotry, and other places that seem to creep up from time to time. It stands as a monument to people like Eminem who ‘…stand up for the right to say something you might not like…’ and to the women who fought for the right to vote as citizens, and to people who fight to keep the government out of our bedrooms. Perhaps it will one day stand as a monument for the day that equal protection was extended to marriage laws too.
I say, express your appreciation for the American Heroes who fight with their lives as much as you do for those heroes who gave them up too early. Celebrate Repeal Day (responsibly, please) as a way of saying thank you for the people who not only gave you back the right to drink, but for those who understand that true patriotism means actually exercising our rights. I’m an American, and I show that by doing those things that I have the right to do because I’m an American.
Caw!
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