Note April 19th is history in America for the response of the Minutemen in 1775 and for the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995
"I struggle with the concept of patriotism. I have never been a blind patriot, and could not argue in favor of the proposition "My country, right or wrong, still my country" unless I were simultaneously guaranteed the right to criticize, to offer the broader expression of Carl Shurz to the U. S. Senate in 1872:
The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, "My country, right or wrong." In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
The setting right might require of me my life and whatever meagre fortune I might possess. After all, we read at the end of our founding document, the Declaration, written more than a year after the events of April 19, 1775, these words:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Mutually - not dividing the people up into us against them
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor
Honor - a commitment beyond one's personal wealth, and more valuable than one's own life.
I listen to the rhetoric of secession. I hear the words of those who foment unrest over the airwaves. I perceive those politically who seek to divide us and pit us against one another. In none of that do I recognize those words of the Declaration: we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor"
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