Justin - Patriotism

Thomas Jefferson Introducing the newest member ASDP

Welcome everyone to the annual gathering of the American Society of Deceased Patriots. Before we get started, can a waiter see to Mr. Henry?  We don’t need him interrupting the proceedings with one of his “Give me chardonnay or give me death,” speeches.  Seriously, Patrick, you’ve been dead for more than two hundred years; give it a rest.

Did everyone enjoy the musical number from Hamilton?  Alex, I didn’t know you could sing like that; and dance.  I haven’t enjoyed a musical this much since 1776, but that was mostly because of how they painted Adams.  “Sit down, John.”  Abe, did you like it?  He hasn’t seen the show yet; he’s still a little wary about going to the theatre.  What, too soon?  It’s been seven score and eleven years; that’s how you like to count it, right Abe?  Long enough.  Later on, for those interested, Abe, George, Teddy, and I will be doing a Rushmore up here by the stage if you want selfies.

One final note, the annual District haunting tour will be taking place as scheduled but, and this is for you Sons of Liberty boys, no native costumes. Seriously, Sam we’re better than that.  It’s culturally insensitive and it’s time to grow up. Come as you are.   

But let’s get down to why we are really here.  We are here to add a new member to our ranks; a man whose merits we have been debating for the last century and a half.  There has been much trepidation about calling him a patriot as some among us saw him rather as a rebel if not as a terrorist.  He sparked years of discussion, sometimes heated, about what it means to be an American patriot.  This society was founded on the idea that patriotism meant love for our country and an unyielding loyalty to her.  As debate progressed, we all agreed on the love for country, but many of us thought that unyielding loyalty sounded a bit to like the old Tories: loyal to the crown, blind to its faults.

What we finally came to was that a patriot should show a great love for his country, an unyielding loyalty to her core values, and a willingness to sacrifice of himself to make her better.  As for core values, we looked to those three unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Please, no applause; I wrote the document but I cannot take credit for the idea.  What we must realize is that these rights are interdependent. Pursuit of happiness must be supported by liberty and neither is possible without life, though I think we’re all doing okay for a bunch of stiffs.  Sometimes one must lay his life on the altar of liberty or risk his individual liberty in our pursuit of greater happiness.  Many here risked or lost their lives in the fight for our nation’s liberty and in the hope of a greater opportunity towards the pursuit of happiness for our progeny.  However, whereas we revolutionaries were fighting in hopes of securing our own liberty, our own happiness, this man did not fight for himself, but so that the liberty already secured for him, might be likewise secured for others. 

This man was by birth was afforded all of the rights of a citizen of the United States.  His father was a business owner; he was able to attend college; he eventually became a business owner himself.  He could have enjoyed the full fruits of the tree of liberty, but the pursuit of happiness was for him tainted by the liberty and happiness he saw withheld from his fellow man. He realized that his rights, no man’s rights hold full value while the government set to protect those rights, withholds them from men and women within its borders. So, setting aside his privilege, knowing that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, he laid down his life at that tree to fight against the great tyranny of slavery that many of us present, myself included, so ignorantly left as a growing cancer eating away at the promise of our beloved country. A cancer that, so many years later, our grandchildren’s grandchildren continue to work to heal the scars left by its removal.  He watered the tree of liberty with his blood so that his brother, that brother that we had left enslaved, could also partake of its precious fruit of freedom. This man did not remove the tumor of slavery on his own, but he did sway our country, nay, push it by violent force towards its removal.

So here I present to you our newest member; though his body “lies a-moldin’ in the grave, his truth is marching on.”  Let us hope that it continues to march on until it truly is self-evident in our beloved land that those who have come after us believe, truly believe that all men, all people, are created equal.  Ladies and Gentlemen, the newest member of the American Society of Deceased Patriots: John Brown.