Arteejee Saturday Special: July 4th, 2020 or Calm Down Old Man!

A special weekend is upon us which calls for additional commentary on our society and culture at large.

Translation:  I’m as mad as hell and I can’t hold it in anymore.

Last night the President appeared at Mount Rushmore for a rally and fireworks display. As per the President’s and the South Dakota governor's guidelines, very few people wore masks and social distancing was not encouraged. 

The soon-to-be-appearing-on-Covid19-death-statistics-soon participants cheered on the President as he railed against the recent protestors who have sought to expand justice for all (and they do mean all).  The President has advocated a strong penalty of 10 years imprisonment for anyone who defaces or destroys a monument, believes that those on the left want to destroy our history, and generally ranted on against what he called a left-wing conspiracy and “cancel culture”.

Moooom!  The President is deflecting again!  Make him stop!

It was an event in which any other president in our history would have sought to soothe the country’s wounds, inspire us to forgive each other and…okay I’ll admit. I can’t finish this line of thought without keeping a straight face. Instead, we got an old guy rant seething that the kids in the neighborhood are coming on his lawn and knocking over his ornaments.

Okay, calm down old man.  No one wants to destroy our shared history.  Our heritage is what it is. 

We Americans have much to be proud of, but at the same time we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that we do not have any past sins that need to be corrected.  There is a lot that needs to be corrected and protestors over the years have been thoughtful enough to give us this message.  In the past, society has watched these protests on the evening newscasts, shook their heads, tisked-tisked the demonstrations as anti-social behavior, turned off the bad news and went about our business.

This series of actions never solved anything. The protests would invariably crop up again when the next societal outrage happened. Summer of 1968 anyone? 

This time it feels different.  The protests are not going away and the Establishment is feeling uncomfortable. 

First, we must recognize that the American history many of us learned in the nation’s public schools was not the complete and true history of our country.  True, it did have its share of important and significant dates which we needed to know for the final, but the listing of significant events seemed to only pertain to the white mainstream culture.  The lessons dwelt on the white race and maybe, once in a while, the lesson would acknowledge the contribution of other members of the melting pot. 

 

We need to consider other perspectives on the subject. History lessons were also woven with a strong thread of American citizenship and chauvinistic patriotism.  Significant events, yes good to know.  Memorizing The American Creed and being called upon to recite it as some sort of totalitarian loyalty oath?  Not so much history as a relic of Cold War paranoia.

There is nothing wrong with loving your country, but we don’t have to shut the other guy up if he/she has a point of view which opposes ours.  This has always been the lesson we needed to learn.  And as is apparent from last night’s campaign rally (for that’s what it was), we still need to learn this lesson.

So again, calm down old man!   Left leaning progressives and protestors on the street are not trying to defame your history. We are just footnoting the hell out of it and hopefully creating a new just society in the process.

(Thank you for reading and Happy Fourth of July to everyone.)