ON CO-OPTING THE LANGUAGE OF FOUNDING FATHERS & PATRIOTISM
{Originally published January 16, 2021}
This is a variation from business as usual, I’d be honored if you read the whole thing, start to finish. Some context: This represents many hours of work over the last week. It’s been through about five drafts, and several trusted reviewers. I’m doing my level-best to not give you a knee-jerk reaction to the results of the president’s words leading up to January 6th, and I’m in no danger of converting into a political writer — but seeing that this fell squarely into my lane (where history and study of human nature intersect), I could not in good conscience let it pass by.
On June 17, 1775, the peace of the Adams family farm was shaken by cannonfire. When Abigail climbed nearby Penn’s Hill she could see smoke rising from the Battle of Bunker Hill across the bay, only about 10 miles away from her home. The ongoing pounding and roar of cannonfire that reached the farm was “so distressing that we cannot eat, drink, or sleep.” The following year, Abigail's husband spent much of his time working towards independence for the colonies, and a declaration he affixed his name to — both actions carrying with them the heavy weight of treason against the crown, which could be punished by hanging, and a forfeiture of all property.
The causes listed in the Declaration for this kindling-rupture were stacked steep, over many years. Some (such as the struggle for representation, and local government having limited ways to resist the work of a royal governor) had been labored over for the better part of a century. Men could be transported overseas for trial — a 6-8 week journey on average — far, far away from a jury of their piers or offer of help from friends. For a time, soldiers were quartered in houses, making the danger to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness an in-the-next-room kind of danger. When the men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged to one another “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” it was not heightened language — it was the knowledge that the war would be in their very backyards, and that to hang as a traitor risked the destitution of their wives and children.
This is why it is completely inappropriate to invoke the language of patriotism and harken back to the founders, as many who attacked the Capitol last week did: The founders faced real, tangible, consistent danger to both their liberties and their lives. Their grievances had roots. The stakes — and the costs — of revolution were real.
Everyone — understandably — wants to be on the right side of revolution. But slapdash (or worse, manipulative) comparisons tend to make it easy to play the hero, while neglecting the simple but difficult work of being a good citizen. It can elevate a time or cause, lending it credit and nobility where it deserves none.
To see the founders in marble is to see their actions as inevitable — of course they did the right thing, it’s what the founders and all like them do — instead of what they were: Fallible men, muddling their way through history. When they got it right, we reap the benefits. When they were swayed by self-interest (see: changes on the Declaration’s original language on slavery), the consequences were devastating.
A key difference between 2021 and 1776 is bravado vs. bravery. When we swap courage for convenience, service for self-aggrandizement, simple truth for flashy words, we get bravado hiding behind a fig leaf of saving the country. Could it be that too many are willing to believe a man like the president of unrepentantly mean, dishonest, and self-fascinated character is suddenly telling the truth because he tickles the ears with exactly what they want to hear? Because he puts his cause in just the terms necessary, the other side is just bad enough that nearly anything can be justified? What incited violence last Wednesday is not even a lost cause, it’s a vanity project — puffed up, with little more than air on the inside accompanied by save-the-world rhetoric from a man who is unwilling to sacrifice his temporal comfort (much less his life) for his fellow man.
When the question of the Declaration was raised in the First Continental Congress, Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson said he feared moving forward in independence would be “to brave the storm in a skiff of paper”, and fought it fiercely. He absented himself from the vote on the question of independence to allow the motion to pass unanimously. Outflanked in Congress, Dickinson pivoted immediately to military service to ensure the success of these new independent colonies, and the safety of his neighbors in New Jersey. Unsure as he was, he stepped into his skiff of paper, and served. Bravado of the summer soldier and sunshine patriot knows nothing of trembling service like this. The cause was real. The stakes were high.
Friends, Joe Biden in office is not the end of our democracy. You don’t have to like him, you can disagree with every policy he stands for. No one is being threatened with death by hanging for their political speech or actions (not from the government, anyway). Biden-Harris have no plans to dissolve state legislatures and have everything run through Washington. Soldiers are not in our homes.
If you want to see revolution, love God, love your neighbor, and act like it. Act like it in your words, how and what you choose to share, and in your deeds, no matter how your neighbor is acting or what they believe. Fight the urge to see scorn as tough love, stubbornness as principle, mercy as weakness. How you practice is how you play.
So make your arguments. Craft them well, back them up with facts. I look forward to being won over by some of you in the coming years. Campaign hard, invest your money, your time, and your whole self for what you believe, knowing that a robust opposition will refine both you and your case. But do not wrap conspiracy and pride in the language of revolution, and be surprised when things go wrong.
