Ashamed of the United States

By Naman Crowe
January 02, 2006
I’m ashamed of America.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t love my country. It’s because I love my country that I’m ashamed of her.

The thing that I was always the most proud of about America was the freedom she allowed her citizens to complain.

That particular freedom to complain has probably been the single most important freedom of all and our greatest strength as a nation.

America was born complaining. Her main complaint was that she wasn’t being treated right by her mother country.

Our ancestors didn’t like the idea that England paid no attention to their complaints; complaints such as being denied certain inalienable rights, the chief being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our ancestors didn’t go for the idea that England could tax them without their consent. They felt they had the right, as Englishmen, to have a say-so in such matters and to have representation in Parliament.

The King of England didn’t consider that to be in the best interests of England. To the King, it was a rebellious attitude from a bunch of ingrates who needed a swift kick in the pants.

So England gave the American colonists a swift kick in the pants. It was that swift kick in the pants that triggered the American Revolution that led to the birth of America as a free and independent nation.

Too many people have died for that greatest freedom of all, the freedom to complain, and when I see my country losing sight of that birthright and start making laws to limit and bind that freedom – which is the very heart of Democracy – I am ashamed.

The idea that the American people are prepared to make it a crime to burn the American flag is like a swift kick in the pants to anyone who truly loves the principle of liberty and that greatest of all freedoms, on which the principle of liberty rests, the freedom to complain.

If burning the American flag doesn’t signal a serious complaint, then the American flag doesn’t stand for anything. But the American flag does stand for something. It stands for the freedom to make serious complaints.

The American flag is just a piece of cloth. That piece of cloth is not an idol to be worshiped. One should not be forced to bow down to it or salute it. It has to be up to the people to bow down or salute as they choose.

If a person chooses not to bow down or salute, that is his right under the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights – including the right to burn it in public as a sign of his discontent.

America was born out of discontent. That’s why she chose as her first right, in the Bill of Rights, the freedom of speech.

That’s because without the freedom of speech there can be no freedom of thought and no freedom to complain.

If doesn’t make any difference that you don’t like that particular method of drawing attention to a complaint. It is your duty as an American to fight for that right to complain, even if the complainer chooses to burn the American flag as a part of his opening remarks.

I’ve heard this particular time in American history referred to as the “Dumbing Down of America,” and I can certainly understand where the writer was coming from that said that.

But it is a lot more complicated than just that and is much more serious and dangerous than our most enlightened commentators have been able to communicate to the great, grazing masses and their leaders.

What we’re talking about here is a present and imminent danger to the continued existence of American freedom as we’ve known it.

The American people are set to give “thumbs up” to a Constitutional Amendment that will limit our freedom to complain under the 1st Amendment.

Let me say that again, we’re fixing to cut ourselves off at the roots.

We’re fixing to separate ourselves from the very principle by which we were born as the most free nation ever devised by the mind of man.

We’re fixing to cut away the greatest principle that allowed our very birth – the freedom to complain and the right to try and make a better world.

Check this out, we’re not just talking about the Cable Guy and the NASCAR Rednecks that think he’s funny, we’re talking about the prime intellectuals of America, both Democrats and Republicans.

All these stupid idiots from all walks of life and with all kinds of educational training and ability, didn’t turn out to be what they are today overnight.

I think it is a little misleading to call this the “Dumbing Down of America.” To say that may not be the most helpful way to explain it to the children that will be reading this years from now.

I would like for the children to realize that this is real life we’re talking about and it didn’t just begin overnight. It has taken thousands of years for us to get to this place.

Dumbing Down of America, my foot. We’ve been in the Dumbing Down Age for centuries. It’s lucky we’re still living. And there is a lot more to this Dumbing Down Age than people living in it right now realize.

It’s too late to philosophize or wonder back through the beautiful gardens of our memories and our great hopes of even brighter days, the barbarian is at the gate and it’s show time!

And, of course, like the cartoon said, the barbarian is us.

So here I am again. The trouble maker. The rebel rouser. Still the same after all these years, saying to America that I have these complaints against you and will continue to be ashamed of you until you submit to my right of complaint under the Constitution and offer me answers to my questions.

If you make a law denying my right to complain and insist that I go to jail if my method of complaining includes the burning of the American flag, I make a pledge here and now to fight you and your like until I die.

And of course I will, I’ve been doing it all my life. But that’s not the point. The point is what in the hell does America mean in the world today and here at home? Where is the America of our birth? What is the truth that the American flag represents?

Forget about how much you hate Naman Crowe and his like, ask not what he can do for America but what you can do for it. Can you help shore up the belief of our forefathers, that all men are equal and have the right to complain?

Can you stand up in the face of the great, grazing masses and their leaders and declare that all free people have the right, and should have the right, to complain, even if that complaint includes disrespect for the literal cloth we call the American flag?

If you believe that the complaint cannot go that far without becoming illegal and therefore unworthy of being listened to, you must agree with the King of England, and insist that I be treated to a swift kick in the pants.

Just try it. Just because I’m a good-natured, easy-going guy doesn’t necessarily mean that I will throw up my hands and roll over. That was the mistake that England made with our forefathers.

Let that be a lesson to you and something to think very seriously about. My patience for moral idiots and fake patriots is right on the verge of running out.

If you don’t think I will fight for my country, just keep pushing. And I’m not talking about just myself, there are untold millions out there that feel the same way.

And there will always be a few of us willing to snap the American flag in your face and force you to resent it and reveal yourself for what you are – a person that has never really seen in his mind’s eye the full bloom and beauty of Democracy and has become sick with the belief that the literal cloth is more important than what it represents, which is the right to complain, even if it means burning the flag, peeing on it or throwing it in the garbage.

That is pretty much what America is doing as it goes about drumming up support for a Constitutional Amendment to amend the 1st Amendment and limit free speech, so as to make it a crime to burn the American flag – which is a right now under our Bill of Rights as an example and expression of free speech.

What next? Will they make it a crime to refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the flag? Is this where American Democracy is heading – under the leadership of both the Republicans and Democrats and with the consent of the governed - after all these hard-fought years attempting to achieve the dream of full-blown freedom?

If you are among those in favor of this proposed cap on freedom of speech by making flag burning a crime, you owe yourself some down time. Pay a visit to Independence Hall or visit your praying ground and have a little talk with the Lord about the meaning of freedom and the right to speak one’s mind in whatever way he chooses.

I may be ashamed of her, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. I will continue to fight for her survival until I’ve gone through the last breath in my body.

And I’ll haunt the flag wavers and fake patriots from my grave, if possible, if I die before finishing my task of speaking my complaints and urging my countrymen to pass it on – the baton of freedom – the right to freedom of speech and all the other inalienable rights protected beneath the swirls and folds of the American flag and all that it represents, which no match can ever burn and no law can prevent.


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