A TEN COUNT INDICTMENT

By Edwin Cooney

I believe that the American people, this commentator included, deserve a ten count indictment for what the great patriot Thomas Paine might call  “being a summer patriot.” Remember, an indictment isn’t a declaration of guilt. It is merely a charge of misbehavior that, for the purpose of this column, subjects those charged (specifically “we the people”) with censure and an admonition to conscientiously clean up our collective acts.

 A patriot, from what I understand was Tom Paine’s perspective, constituted much more than loyalty on the field of battle. A patriot was someone who championed the principles of a cause, even when it was uncomfortable or inconvenient to do so. Thus, a “summer soldier” or a “summer patriot” would ultimately shrink away from the service of the cause.    

Before I proclaim the specifics of this indictment, there are several defenses that are unacceptable as responses to these indictments. They are as follows:

(1) the election, conduct, political acts or character of either Barack Hussein Obama or 
     Donald John Trump;

(2) the moral superiority of your political faith or doctrine;

(3) lack of knowledge about America’s social, political, or moral past deeds;

(4) the immorality of any secular or religious critics;

(5) your personal patriotism;

(6) the lack of patriotism on the part of political opponents:

(7) the excuse that “many Americans gave their lives to preserve our freedoms;”

(8) your belief that we’re a Christian nation.

Now that I’ve stripped you and me of all the defenses that come to mind as I write this, here is my ten count indictment:

Count #1: We’re guilty of full trust in our fearful beliefs while putting little trust in the beliefs and experiences of others. Even our attempts to objectively evaluate our domestic and international woes are severely muddied with the tendency to reinforce our pre-existing conclusions by finding comfort in the righteous wrath of highly paid talk show hosts and doctrinaire conservative or liberal commentators

Count #2: We cherry-pick the dos and don’ts of our religious beliefs especially when we’re angry, too often emphasizing punishment over grace that we’ve been taught is God’s most powerful gift.

Count #3: When assessing the priority of our domestic affairs, we primarily emphasize our legitimate right to review the action or inaction of our national leadership because we are “taxpayers” rather than because we are simply worthy of consideration. A “taxpayer,” because his or her power comes from his or her wallet, possesses the justifiable right to judge all expenditures of a free and independent people.

Count #4: Too often we deliberately and meanly belittle the experiences of social, racial, and other minorities because we are unwilling to treat all men and women equally (something which Abraham Lincoln believed was our obligation under the Declaration of Independence.) Lincoln always insisted that the core of our freedom lay in the Declaration of Independence more than in the Constitution. Furthermore, he believed that the people, not the states, created the national government. He pointed out on numerous occasions (and such political giants as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster also observed) that the state conventions that adopted the Constitution were conventions of the people rather than meetings of the elected state legislatures. Hence, whatever state law might say, how we view and treat one another is vitally important to our personal well-being. (I’ve always found comfort in the way FDR once put it: “I like to think of our country as one home in which the interests of each member are bound up with the happiness of all. We ought to know by now that the welfare of your family or mine cannot be bought at the sacrifice of our neighbor’s family; that our well-being depends, in the long run, upon the well-being of our neighbors.”)

Count #5: Our definition of what it means to be patriotic is too narrow. To be patriotic means loyalty to the physical safety of our land. It doesn’t require a free citizenry to accommodate the political policies of our government except perhaps during a time of war when our actual physical survival is at risk.

Count #6: We are too often swayed by opinion rather than thought or knowledge, as we assess both our national and international circumstances.

Count #7: We’re resentful of minorities who demand for themselves those lifelong privileges which we’re convinced we’ve earned just because we are Americans.

Count #8: We still insist that property rights are superior to human rights.

Count #9: We justify our fears more than we glorify our hopes for the future. An angry or outraged commentator is someone with the courage to speak his or her mind. An optimist is both absurdly naive and unrealistic.

Count #10: As President John F. Kennedy once observed in a speech at Yale, too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion over the discomfort of thought.

So you may well ask, why do I offer these rather pompous and fictional counts of indictment against a people during this time when we are defensive and feeling badly about ourselves and our national leadership?

The answer is simple: Tom Paine began one of his most inspiring pamphlets with these words: “These are the times that try men’s souls…” Thus, in this 2017 summer of discontent, it’s clear to me that our very patriotism requires us to take a penetrating view, not only of others, but particularly of ourselves.

Do you dare to take that path?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY