Our Plastic Patriotism

From my archived blog (July 4, 2018) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

Today Americans will celebrate Independence Day. There will be fireworks, and cookouts, and hot dog eating contests. The Sci-Fi Channel will probably run their usual Twilight Zone marathon. The alleged “History” Channel will almost certainly waste air space with absurd shows like American Pickers.

There will be little mention anywhere about the War for Independence, our revolt against England. There’s a good reason for this; no politician, and no mainstream “journalist” wants to focus any attention on how this country was born. That’s the last thing a corrupt ruling elite wants to do; remind those they rule over that their ancestors violently overthrew a much less powerful tyranny.

In my upcoming book, Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963, I’ll examine some “hidden history” of our Founders and their revolution. Things like the shameful treatment of Thomas Paine, the forgotten Shays and Whiskey Rebellions, the human skeletons found in Benjamin Franklin’s home, and the ongoing disinformation campaign to transform the most enlightened man of his age, Thomas Jefferson, into a despicable “racist.”

I have remarked before on the curious phenomenon of Hollywood ignoring the Founding Fathers. Even during the Golden Age of Hollywood, not a single picture was made about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, John or Samuel Adams, or John Hancock. In fact, the film colony tended to mention the American Revolution itself only sparingly. Again, there was an obvious reason for that; those in charge don’t want to mention anything about the forcible removal of a previous, much less rotten bunch of rulers.

Instead, over the course of time, American “patriotism” has been converted into a ghoulish worship of state power, exemplified by the finger-pointing “Uncle Sam” figure. Modern Americans adore the flag, but not the Constitutional system of checks and balances. And certainly not the Bill of Rights. No one seems to like them.

This all happened gradually. The senseless War Between the States, known popularly as the Civil War by the northern victors, consolidated power in the central government, and permitted the first imperial presidency. Lincoln’s persistent unconstitutional actions, and the failure to recognize them as such, paved the way for the countless future transgressions against the Constitution, and the civil liberties of the people.

By the time World War I rolled around, “Uncle Sam” posters propped up everywhere. The growing power of the establishment press, combined with the blossoming film world, created lovable dough boys and whipped  up hatred against the dirty “Krauts,” the dreaded “Hun.” Opponents of the pointless conflict were thrown into prison, including the noted socialist Eugene Debs. This was not merely a renewal of John Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts, but overt approval of the precedent Lincoln set with his diabolical roundup and illegal imprisonment of his political opponents.

The word “patriot” originally meant a revolutionary, a colonist who supported the fight for independence from Great Britain. By now, it has become solidified in the public mind as someone who flies and salutes the flag proudly, supports our brave military and thanks the troops regularly for their “service.”

The original radical revolutionaries, the Sons of Liberty, would be aghast at mindless, modern American patriotism. The colonists wanted free and independent states, with a central government that had very limited power. No Founding Father outside of Alexander Hamilton- the central banking devotee who is so beloved now by our culture- would support our overreaching federal government, fueled by politically correct authoritarianism.

It’s an indictment of American gullibility that a play glorifying the only Founding Father who loved debt and the banking racket, Alexander Hamilton, has become a popular Broadway smash. Not only that, but he’s not a dead white male, like all the other Founders. He’s black and hip, and a talented rapper. It’s a certainty that virtually none of the almost exclusively white audiences for the play know the least bit about the real history of Hamilton, let alone the real history of our founding. I would venture that a good portion of them believe Hamilton really was black.

It was probably predictable that July 4th celebrations would revolve around fireworks, and flag worship, instead of liberty and unalienable rights. No one remembers the Declaration of Independence any more, and that’s a good thing for our leaders. Just reading about a formal protest against finely detailed acts of tyranny, might give even our comatose sheeple reason to pause. Instead, there are always choruses of “USA! USA!” to guide them in the proper direction.

The reality is, if Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and their brethren were alive today, they would not be Democrats or Republicans. They would be political “extremists” shunned by the mainstream establishment. They might even be smeared as “conspiracy theorists.” Few nations have ever had such a historical dichotomy; those who fought for our independence, and who were revered as heroes for most of this country’s history, are anathema to our present-day leaders. They are collectively Those Who Cannot be Mentioned.

Well, they can be mentioned negatively, of course. All except for the hip, black bankers’ favorite Hamilton are routinely denigrated as “racists.” They probably were all chauvinists as well, although there is little historical evidence of any feminists running amuck in the British colonies. Certainly no transgenders were around.

As I’ve noted before, most Americans are historically illiterate. And we are very, very close to having history itself declared “racist.” After all, virtually everything else is. Recently, some typical social justice warriors proclaimed that civility is a construct of “white supremacy.” We have already been advised that proper grammar is “racist.” But Americans, asleep and distracted as they are nowadays, seem perfectly content to accept that politeness and civility are in fact “racist.”

The Founding Fathers weren’t perfect. But they created a system of government that is as close to perfection as anything yet devised by human beings. The fact that corrupt forces have controlled this system for far too long doesn’t detract from the nature of the system itself. The Bill of Rights should be treasured by every American. Instead, I firmly believe that a national referendum on it would go down to defeat, especially if enough vacuous celebrities spoke out against it. Almost no one supports Patrick Henry’s timeless notion that “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to my dying day your right to say it.”

I’m sorry to rain on everyone’s Fourth of July parade. I just can’t be patriotic, when that term has been co-opted into being an unthinking supporter of the state. A state which is thoroughly and hopelessly corrupt. A real American patriot supports the ideals of human liberty and unalienable rights.