It is not through my own efforts of will, creativity, invention or industry that I was born here. This is true of all people who are not immigrants, as truly, only one who has risked pain, suffering, and life can count pride in such. Hence I have no pride in being an American, as there should be no pride in the color of one’s skin, gender, preference or any other accident of biology or birth.
Different dictionaries will define pride in slightly different ways, but each has at its core the same sense – a deep pleasure or satisfaction which comes from one’s own achievements or those with whom one is closely associated and can say one had a part or influence. My citizenship is no achievement, as it was for my grandmother, nor is the color of my skin. And any sense of pride in such matters is misguided, at best, used to bolster ego, or, at worst, a week device to create cohesion in a group which wishes to set itself apart from others, to divide, and all too often, for the purpose of establishing or continuing dominance and power, whether that power is imaginary or manifest.
Yet lack of pride does in no way decry, does not extirpate, a sense of duty, and that deep sense of duty is all the stronger for being born of love for the Land, and the principles for which it stands than if it was born from a false idea of pride or, in a sense, to expiate for that lack. A sense of duty to this Country, as evidenced in concern, compassion, for the welfare of the Land and the People, will do more for our common good than any concept of selfish pride, and pride is always, at its core, selfish. Duty in action is patriotism.
Thus, in that sense of duty, and the honor which grows from it, it is only right that we tell the truth where we see it. That we are loyal to our Country, but not to the transitory holders of power, as they are only the agents we set in place for the good of our Country, and their powers and authorities as we have granted, and are to be removed when it is clear the best interest of the Country is no longer served by their borrowed powers. That speaking the truth to those who hold power is a patriotic act, surpassed only by acting on those truths. And if acting on those truths can be done so within the confines of the law, that it be done so, as the law, in a free Country, is but a vehicle to codify, to ensure, equity and justice, but when acting within the confines of the law is contrary to justice, which is the higher law, to compassion, which is the higher law, that patriotism demands those laws be broken. Duty demands those laws be not obeyed. That it is better to suffer for justice and compassion and truth, for one’s Neighbours and Land, than to live falsely for pride.
If one can do this, then, at last, there will be something of which one can be truly, properly proud.
Adam Byrn Tritt 