I love America, and I greatly appreciate the dedication and sacrifice many of my family members and friends have rendered our country by serving in the military.
I am a patriotic American who proudly flies the American flag and stands for the Constitution of the United States.
It is this deep love for America, our flag and our founding charter that compels me to take issue with a video that recently has gone viral.
Lee Enochs
The footage shows an older man, an apparent Chicago Cubs fan, slapping a younger man in the head because the younger spectator refused to stand during the playing of the National Anthem.
While I take every opportunity to stand up and honor the flag of our fathers during every rendition of the National Anthem at public venues like Wrigley Field, I take severe umbrage with what this older man did.
It was entirely inappropriate for him to resort to violence in expressing his dissatisfaction over the younger man’s apparent lack of patriotism, as he defined it.
We must ask ourselves: What does it mean to be a patriot? True patriotism is not merely performing a gesture; it is a devotion to the ideals our nation was built upon. The First Amendment of the Constitution explicitly protects the right of every American to make a political statement.
“Forcing citizens into compliance through physical force is a direct assault on the very liberty our flag represents.”
While I do not know the motivation for the younger man’s decision to remain seated, I believe he has a constitutional right to sit in silence. Forcing citizens into compliance through physical force is a direct assault on the very liberty our flag represents.
Today, far too many people in our society are resorting to acts of wanton violence to handle their differences with others. The older man may have been driven by genuine patriotic sentiments, but it was simply wrong and woefully inappropriate for him to physically assault another human being over a dispute regarding an anthem.
Assaulting a fellow citizen is not an act of patriotism; it is a crime that undermines the rule of law. When we begin to justify physical violence in the name of “defending” our symbols, we abandon the fundamental values that truly make America exceptional.
As Americans, we will not always agree on every issue, and we will not always express our love for this country in the exact same way. But our response to disagreement never should be a physical blow.
If we truly love America and cherish our Constitution, we must learn to express our differences with respect, lest we destroy the fabric of the very society we seek to honor.
Lee Enochs is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Gateway Seminary and the University of North Texas. He also hosts a weekly radio station podcast for KNTU radio.