It’s easy to understand loving something or, of course someone, but in this case, we are talking about loving your country, your home on this planet. But love of country can mean different things to different people. Do you love your country as it is, flaws and all? Do you love your country as it exists in your own mind? Do you try to view your nation as a set of beliefs and ideals that makes it stand out among other nations? Do you love the history of your nation, its story, its origins? Do you love your country unconditionally? Do you love your country but feel it needs to be reassessed on occasion and brought up to snuff?
Governments are not really flawed. It is people who have the flaws that get reflected in how we govern. We hope that governments like ours, governed by more than one person, by a majority that must hammer out agreements, will benefit because the group will filter out some of our flaws. Our government is organized around a document, the US Constitution, and around a body of law that has grown up around it. It relies on checks and balances to protect us from our bad bits. Since our forefathers resided in a different era, we take exception with some of their notions, such as their elitism, their lack of faith in a popular vote, their tolerance or embrace of slavery. Some feel we have strayed from our forefathers’ intentions, e.g., the federal government has stolen power from the individual states. Some of these same Americans even feel that elitism is an important aspect of our nation and that those who have been most successful should have greater influence than those who have “failed to thrive.”
Our Constitution was left somewhat open-ended, purposely lacking in detail about how the various articles and amendments should be interpreted, perhaps to give some scope to future Americans in making laws that would suit the times. But this very nonspecific quality has left our Constitution open to creating factions, factions that subscribe to differing interpretations of our documents. Some try to even say that they can “channel” the forefathers and that they, therefore, understand perfectly what our founders intended, what they meant. We have fleshed out the Constitution with the body of laws made in our legislature and tested in our courts, ultimately in our Supreme Court. But just because a law passed all of the tests we rely on, still does not mean that everyone agrees with the law. Our laws can also be overturned, not easily, but it can be done.
The danger of the kind of abstract language employed by our forefathers is that someone can see through it, can invent loopholes, can use the lack of absolute specificity for his or her own ends. A group of Americans can band together and decide that our forefathers’ words had a certain meaning and then they can try to bend the philosophical curve in the direction they wish it to take. By deciding to take this path they disempower our documents, either temporarily or permanently, by proving that they can be used to further one set of behaviors over another or indeed any set of behaviors you wish to exhibit. This undermines the very idea of constitutionality. Anything can be justified if you can twist logic to your advantage. This is what it means to “love your country to death”.
In 2013 it became clear that the actions of the Republican Party had more cohesion than was usual. Obstruction in Congress dominated our national politics, and the obstruction was coordinated. Republicans controlled the House and Democrats controlled the Senate. But by using the 60+ filibuster in the Senate and the Hastert Rule in the House, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were able to bring legislation to a virtual standstill. The 113 th Congress was one of the least productive ever. Republicans began to use “talking points.” In the media they all seemed to be on the same page – small government (states’ rights), privatize everything (no social safety net), end Roe v Wade, keep DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), secure the border, no tax increases, end the deficit, balance the budget). It was uncanny to think that all these politicians would be on the same page spontaneously. Clearly some kind of massive collusion seemed to be going on behind the scenes. It became clear that there were strong connections among a network of conservative organizations and that the number of these organizations was growing.
But why did the Republicans decide to forgo regular order and mount what resembled a political coup? The Tea Party’s radical nature emerged as a part of it. Ted Cruz and his pals like Mike Lee and Michele Bachmann became what Alex Wagner, who had a news hour on MSNBC, called the “raucous caucus.” They were rude and they took every opportunity to insult Democrats. They would not raise the debt ceiling; they would not pass a continuing resolution; they shut down the government.
Despite their almost guerilla tactics they lost a few battles. The Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and allowed same-sex marriage. But they won when the Voting Rights Act was gutted and preclearance-Jim Crow states were allowed to make any laws regarding elections that they wished, even knowing they would be challenged in the courts. The GOP blocked Obama’s nominations to the federal courts until Harry Reid decided to use the “nuclear option” to end the 60+ filibuster. It appeared that Congress was at war, with itself.
2013 was the year the Tsarnaev brothers built bombs to kill runners in the Boston Marathon, the year that Obama got lambasted for ignoring his own “red line” in Syria, the year Edward Snowden showed Americans how extensively our government was “spying” on its own people, and Wendy Davis filibustered “old style” (but in pink gym shoes) on the floor of the Texas legislature to try to kill a bill that challenged women’s rights. It was the one-year anniversary of the strange events that ended in the death of Trayvon Martin. The battle between the austerity faction and the stimulus faction was still raging, and it was clear that Obama’s agenda beyond the ACA did not have a chance of being enacted, although the ACA and same-sex marriage wins were big wins. America was not at its best in 2013. In fact, it was a “hot mess”, but we held out hope for 2014. (Visit my author website at https://nlbrisson.com.)
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