On Independence Day, I took my son to the first fireworks display he was old enough to appreciate. Our little town has a typical small town Fourth of July celebration. We have a stage with local dance troupes doing little recitals, and local country music bands (because I live in rural Arkansas, and ALL local bands are country bands), and the obligatory political stumping by local officials (always entertaining in a surreal kind of way). Because we are also a small town, we have free hot dogs, popcorn, sodas and ice cream, and we sit on the lawn of one of the local Baptist churches (separation of church and state is a bit blurry in these parts), and watch the fireworks to a selection of patriotic staples, Sousa marches and horrible country anthems (I say horrible, because I can never decide whether to cry or giggle).

It’s satisfying in a claustrophobic way that only small-town America can offer and I love it.

I found it is difficult to explain to a three-year-old what the fuss is all about, other than being for his own personal amusement. Everything, to his self-centered world, is for his entertainment. Wider awareness is something that is taught and developed. It’s hard to explain that it’s the birthday of the country, when his grasp of nationhood is a bit shaky and his own birthday so proximate.

So I started teaching him about his nation the same way I started learning about mine. I bought him a placemat.

For years as a child I ate my breakfast cereal on a laminated map of the United States. I learned the outline of each state, the state capitol and little trivia like the state motto and state bird. We sat over Harry’s breakfast of muffins and juice and I showed him where he lived, where he was born, where Mommy was born and where Daddy was born. We pointed to the states he visited “when he was little”, and we started those tiny little baby steps toward learning what it was to be an American.

It is a journey that will never be finished. With all the recent talk of what defines patriotism in our time, it’s hard to know what that means, but I know what being an American means to me.

It means that I love my country. And it means I have a duty to be difficult.

I have had the advantage to have traveled extensively across the US, and more importantly, outside of it. I went to school for a time in Europe, and I think it was during that time that I learned two things. First – that we do not have the corner on quality of life. Second, I learned how much I love America in spite of it.

I have also worked for and with the vast bureaucracy that is our federal government. I have an enormous amount of respect for the people that serve for the common good – both military and civilian. These are people who make a myriad of sacrifices for the American people, from the very small to that last full measure.

That high regard and respect is independent of whether or not I agree with the policies of any current administration.

Make no mistake. You CAN support our military without agreeing with the decisions that require their service.

Because sometimes that disagreement the essence of patriotism. Sometimes the deep love of country requires public dissent with your government. I do not want my elected officials to sleep well at night. I want them to ponder. I want them to debate. I want them to hear every bit of dialogue, internal or external, before the decisions they make waste one tax dollar or one human life. I do not want them to rest easy with their consciences. Like Shakespeare’s Henry V, I want them to pace the night, consider the power in their hands to consign their countrymen to war and destruction. I want them to remember:

“But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ‘We died at such a place’—some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it—who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

I thank God I live in a place where I have a voice in the selection of leaders who make these decisions.

I want them to hear me.

I want them to hear you.

Whether we agree or not.

This country was founded, not by people who walked lockstep behind public policy, but who entered into open debate and dissent with their rightful government. These are men (in the gender-neutral usage, with nods to Abigail Adams), who refused to believe that those who ruled were naturally imbued with higher wisdom or higher moral ground than the common man in the street. They were men that believed in the right to self-rule by the people, with all the messiness and argument and compromise that belief entailed.

These were men who believed that their duty to their country was to be difficult and inconvenient, and were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that all of their descendants had that right as well. I am a firm believer in the necessity for a Loyal Opposition as a crucial component of a free society and of right governance.

This I have learned from the history of my nation. For this, I love America.

I will teach my son to love his country.

And I will teach him to be difficult.

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.” ~Thomas Jefferson