The Coonridge Digest: Celebrate our differences

Greetings from the Ridge.
Memorial Day is good. I’ve always enjoyed the relaxed but reverent atmosphere that surrounds our veterans as they march down the street to the cemetery to give a final salute to their fallen comrades. It’s a day for forgetting our differences and giving thanks for those who’ve fought and often died for the beliefs we hold in common. We know how to celebrate Memorial Day and most of us do it well. Watching families gather along the sidewalk as the vets parade by must certainly send a message to the little ones… something more tangible than their textbooks have given them.
But the Fourth of July – stirring, yes, but not quite the same.
On this hot summer holiday we celebrate a very specific group of men and women in our history. This is not the remembrance of VE Day or Pearl Harbor or the brave men and women who gave their lives in Vietmam and Korea. The Fourth of July commemorates a single group of patriots – those who came up with the idea of this new experiment in freedom.
What chills me is the fear that if they were alive today they might be regarded more traitor than patriot.
In 1776, loyalty to one’s country meant Great Britain to many Americans. The vision of a noble band of American patriots marching valiantly over the fallen forces of British General Howe, with Thomas Jefferson patriotically waving his Declaration of Independence in one hand, George Washington leading the charge on a white horse and Ben Franklin bringing up the kite’s tale in the rear is largely a product of Hollywood and not history. Although our founding fathers were influential and well-heeled, they were far from popular in many segments of our young nation and even among the Congress itself. In short, signing your name to the Declaration of Independence was an act of treason, not patriotism. Many wondered if they’d just signed their own death sentence. Patriots.
Yet we are so quick today to brand as treasonous any notion that conflicts with our own understanding, and as un-American any people, any language, any custom, and any belief that is not a mirror image of ours. Every traitor becomes the master once he gets the keys to the shed.
You’re anti-war? Then you must surely support our enemies. In favor of a saner immigration policy? You must surely be a traitor to American custom. Do you find fault with our leaders? Then this makes you an ally of the terrorist. If you demand more information from those who would send your son or daughter into a booby-trapped Mid-East city then you become a threat to national security.
Benjamin Franklin would blush at such narrow thinking, John Hancock would sigh at the mess this great experiment has become, and John Adams would have simply exploded in a fit of disgust and anger. 
Washington? I suppose he’d have gone back to farming, wondering how he had so completely misjudged the spirit of his fellow man.
Bud Michaels came home from college last year with a degree in business but no real job, and he took up residence again with his parents while he scouted the employment prospects. Such behavior is not frowned upon in Coonridge. In fact, we like to have the kids return to the nest now and again. But Bud Michaels took one step too far in the minds of some folks when he came back to roost – he brought his college ideas with him. On the first warm day this spring he planted himself on the corner of Main and Elm with a sign saying, “Stop the War!”
While most folks around here consider stopping the war a good idea, there was something about the sight of one of their own carrying on an actual protest that rubbed them the wrong way. The response was not warm. Until the following day when Bud’s father put on his American Legion cap and went out to stand beside his son. He said, “It don’t matter what my boy believes. I served in Korea so he could do this.” The honking and the jeers stopped, and somewhere the dirt atop Patrick Henry’s grave stopped rumbling.
Memorial Day commemorates what we have in common – our love of freedom, our willingness to sacrifice, and our appreciation for those who have given that sacrifice. The Fourth of July must remind us to celebrate our differences, even our disagreements.
As our bombs are bursting in air this weekend, let’s be mindful of those first American patriots, to whom the word “dissent” was holy, for which the concept of going against popular opinion was sacred. 
When our dissenters are ignored or even silenced, what has happened to the liberty we preach so loudly?
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.