04 July 12
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the last two weeks, the Supreme Court has allowed police in Arizona to
demand proof of citizenship from people they stop on other grounds
(while throwing out the rest of Arizona’s immigration law), and has
allowed the federal government to require everyone buy health insurance
— even younger and healthier people — or pay a penalty.
What do these decisions — and the national
conversations they’ve engendered — have to do with patriotism? A
great deal. Because underlying them are two different versions of
American patriotism.
The Arizona law is aimed at securing the nation from
outsiders. The purpose of the heatlhcare law is to join together to
provide affordable health care for all.
The first version of patriotism is protecting America
from people beyond our borders who might otherwise overrun us —
whether immigrants coming here illegally or foreign powers
threatening us with aggression.
The second version of patriotism is joining together
for the common good. That might mean contributing to a bake sale to
raise money for a local school or volunteering in a homeless shelter.
It also means paying our fair share of taxes so our community or
nation has enough resources to meet all our needs, and preserving and
protecting our system of government.
This second meaning of patriotism recognizes our
responsibilities to one another as citizens of the same society. It
requires collaboration, teamwork, tolerance, and selflessness.
The Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but in
requiring younger and healthier people to buy insurance that will
help pay for the healthcare needs of older and sicker people, it
summons the second version of patriotism.
Too often these days we don’t recognize and don’t
practice this second version. We’re shouting at each other rather
than coming together — conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus
Republican, native-born versus foreign born, non-unionized versus
unionized, religious versus secular.
Our politics has grown nastier and meaner. Negative
advertising is filling the airwaves this election year. We’re
learning more about why we shouldn’t vote for someone than why we
should.
As I’ve said before, some elected officials have
substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above
loyalty to America. Just after the 2010 election, the Senate minority
leader was asked about his party’s highest priority for the next two
years. You might have expected him to say it was to get the economy
going and reduce unemployment, or control the budge deficit, or
achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. But he said the
highest priority would be to make sure the President did not get a
second term of office.
Our system of government is America’s most precious
and fragile possession, the means we have of joining together as a
nation for the common good. It requires not only our loyalty but
ongoing vigilance to keep it working well. Yet some of our elected
representatives act as if they don’t care what happens to it as long
as they achieve their partisan aims.
The filibuster used to be rarely used. But over the
last decade the threat of a filibuster has become standard operating
procedure, virtually shutting down the Senate for periods of time.
Meanwhile, some members of the House have been willing
to shut down the entire government in order to get their way. Last
summer they were even willing to risk the full faith and credit of
the United States in order to achieve their goals.
In 2010 the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to
unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our
democracy, on the bizarre theory that corporations are people under
the First Amendment. Congress won’t even pass legislation requiring
their names be disclosed.
Some members of Congress have signed a pledge — not of
allegiance to the United States but of allegiance to a man named
Grover Norquist, who has never been elected by anyone. Norquist’s
“no-tax” pledge is interpreted only by Norquist, who says closing a
tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes and therefore violates
the pledge.
True patriots don’t hate the government of the United
States. They’re proud of it.
Generations of Americans have risked
their lives to preserve and protect it. They may not like everything
it does, and they justifiably worry then special interests gain too
much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S.
government, not destroy it.
But these days some Americans loathe the government,
and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make
the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing
much of anything. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size
it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”
When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes,
some wealthy Americans claim “it’s my money.” They forget it’s their
nation, too. And unless they pay their fair share of taxes, American
can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means
paying for America.
So when you hear people talk about patriotism, be
warned. They may mean securing the nation’s borders, not securing our
society. Within those borders, each of us is on our own. These
people don’t want a government that actively works for all our
citizens.
Yet true patriotism isn’t mainly about excluding
outsiders seen as our common adversaries. It’s about coming together
for the common good.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of
Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the
ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has
written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The
Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
1 comment:
Coming together on whose terms?
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