What Are You Willing To Die For?
Please do not mistake my patriotism for blindness.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, less than 40% of the population in the New Americas believed in waging a fight for independence.1
While we have long labeled that minority of people our Patriots and Revolutionaries, it should be noted that in 1775 they were called traitors, insurrectionists, and criminals.
Agreeing to sign the Declaration of Independence was a veritable death sentence—and the majority of other colonists said a sheepish “no thank you.” Fifty-five percent of our 18th century forbearers declared loyalty to the British Crown or chose to remain “neutral.”
And they had their reasons.
Some of our people were religious pacifists, desiring to avoid war at all costs (Hi, Quakers). Some were content to pay taxes to their beloved homeland—God save the King and all of that (Hi, New Yorkers). Some didn’t want to lose the businesses and the friend networks they had worked so hard to build (Hey there, comfy folks). Others among us just didn’t have the balls to throw tea overboard the corporate ships.
(Some things will never change)
I know we fancy ourselves to be standing on the right side of history all of the time, but mathematically, that's just not possible. The majority of our colonial families were not expressly in favor of our (now) tightly held American ideals of freedom.
Even some native tribes preferred Britain to the Patriot desire for Westward Expansion (hi, Cherokees and Shawnee)2, and some tribes thought the American Revolutionaries would protect their interests against enemy tribes.3
Honestly, we've always been a hot mess.
And what has changed?
I dare say that many of us still have no idea what we would be willing to die for if military forces marched down our neighborhood street this afternoon and demanded a stance at gunpoint.
If neutrality had prevailed, we would live in a world without a Constitution and Bill of Rights. If we go far enough down that road, there is no Ellis Island. No you and no me. Likely, no jazz music, no blues, no grunge.
A world without America has no modern baseball, no Superman ice cream, no Hidden Valley Ranch. No Colt revolver. No covered wagons. No Morse code. No Model-T by Ford Motor Company. No A-bomb. No Apple iPhone. No mass incarceration nor for-profit prisons.
My, my— that escalated quickly.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, some pretty smart people with more foresight and communal wisdom than we seem to possess wrote a profound document and then they did something—they actively put their necks on the line for concepts that they believed in. They could have stayed home and said nothing (or just kept bitching about it with friends online).
Were they perfect? No.
Are the documents perfect? Also, no.
But the people who created the United States did some incredibly difficult soul-searching and conversating and, well, fighting against what they would no longer tolerate from those who held power.
Observation and reason (Deism) was the religion of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and a host of other framers—but they errored massively in assuming that all future American generations would subscribe to reason.
If you have ever stopped long enough to listen to your contemporaries in a public place (or watched Reels or read a Twitter feed), you already know that we are much more prone to flailing about in emotional outbursts, knee-jerk intuition, or bad social habits during our twenty-first century conversations.
Reason has gone out the window here.
This week I sat in a café listening to a group of college-aged folk discuss matters of modern importance at the table next to me.
It took them 15 minutes to get through a rant about someone posting a “bad" picture of one of them on social media. As the topic moved onto internet gossip about a certain emaciated celebrity—complete with speculation about her sexuality, I felt my age. I sighed, audibly, turned up the white noise in my headphones, and pivoted my chair toward the window.
Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old at the signing of the Declaration. James Madison was 25. Thomas Jefferson was 33. So yeah—I give our colonial men and women all the honor a cynic can muster because wow, we're not exactly raising a generation of constitutional architects anymore.
For the record, I love my country.
I love enterprising spirits and sharing history with the rebel souls who refused to cue up and get in line to kiss Royal ass. And I believe that we still have a rallying spirit here. We still rail against tyranny with everything in us—even if we disagree about who the tyrants are. We still march and yell and refuse to go along with things that harm others, specifically, the “others” we care about.
And that’s about the best America has to offer.
But, friends—
No one should mistake patriotism for blindness.
When my oldest son went to prison, it fundamentally changed how I viewed my beautiful homeland.
It drove me to actually read the Bill of Rights as a citizen, not a homework assignment. I started hearing the Pledge of Allegiance differently—stopping silent at the “with liberty and justice for all" part.
Seeing my son in leg chains (for addiction) forced me to place the ideals of our founders under a proverbial microscope, to try and apply them through a new lens. I became suspicious of American history lessons and cautious about the un-tested opinions of my friends.
It altered how I vote, how I shop, how I view addiction. It definitely changed how I engage with mental health care systems and rendered me unwilling to call the police for anything less than a life or death emergency.
This season has propelled me to stop watching traditional news programming and late-night shows. I stopped liking certain loud-mouth celebrities, I stopped laughing at mindless comedians. I called my financial advisor and stopped investing my retirement the way I always had.
You see—my visits to see my son in prison forced me into rooms where Senators and House Reps sat listening to live testimony about his daily life. I learned how bureaucracy and union interests actually function in this country. I heard people in positions of power blatantly lie—under oath—with my own ears—about issues I knew intimately. If we were lucky, there were fifteen people at any given hearing.
The halls of public discourse are largely empty.
Yes, as a result of my son's lost freedoms—I wrote letters, made phone calls, launched FOIA requests. After years of observing first-hand, I have become an active, reason-loving American citizen.
My conclusion?
What we are doing with our prisons is not reasonable, my friends.
Awkward Side Note:
Did you know that American prison employees work feverishly to get an actively dying inmate off their property in order that he/she die shackled to a gurney in an ambulance or hospital? This is largely in order that the death is not recorded as in an “in-custody” death?
I could write sixteen pages about some of the hidden (and very American) abuses my family has personally experienced through my son’s incarceration journey.
In fact, I have, and you can find them in my archive.
I dare say that prior to experiencing our own life-changing-justice-related event, most of us still mirror the majority of colonial-thinking from 1775:
Status quo is good enough. Let’s not rock the boat. All politicians are corrupt—it’s all going to hell in a hand-basket, anyway. I’m moving to Great Britain. To Spain. To France.
If we aren’t busy escaping, we are too busy sitting in coffee shops talking about snaps on Instagram and speculating about a celebrity’s sexuality while reveling in the freedom and wealth required to buy a $7 coffee.
Either way, we are largely too preoccupied to engage in active political discourse in person at our Capitol and local Representatives’ offices—or even a local town hall meeting.
We are still waiting for someone else to dump the tea into the harbor. And while I would prefer to stick to telling my stories and writing a great book for publishing, it's past time to ask others to help disrupt the status quo. I often wonder what would happen if us moms of prisoners from every state banded together to write out our grievances and pen a Declaration.
I wonder what that war might look like—
“We, The Mothers and Daughters of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the Common Defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish this Updated Constitution for the United States of America.”
Perhaps the next revolution looks like Xena, Joan of Arc, Wonder Woman, Sarah Connor, and the Dora Milaje riding in on horseback. That is a Crossing of the Delaware that I would, without hesitation, jump into. And no, I'm not being cute.
I will die on these hills now.
It's no longer enough to type and talk about the horrible conditions of our government-run, tax-hoarding, violent and oppressive system of confinement. We have to fight it.
This month, I am working behind the scenes on a justice-minded Voter's Guide for Michiganders in advance of the upcoming elections here. If you have an absentee ballot, and can wait a few weeks—I urge you to consider this forth-coming information before casting your vote.
I already sent poignant questionnaires to every official gubernatorial candidate (including some who have recently dropped out). I plan to shift through and order each one's criminal justice, prison policy, and law enforcement experience including their voting records as objectively as possible, and offer that in a forthcoming newsletter to Black Sheep Mom readers.
Transparency: I do not yet know who I'm voting for, but I will by the time I hit publish—and I'll openly endorse a candidate at that time. Stay tuned!
*Perhaps you are willing to join the battle and create (or know of) a justice-minded voter’s guide for your state midterms. If so, let me know and I’ll link it with mine!
Anyway, Happy rebel-rousing, my brothers and sisters. I wish you a weekend full of thoughtful discourse (and, of course, some watermelon and noodle salad). 🇺🇸
Who's coming with me?
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/loyalist-vs-patriot
https://visit.archives.gov/whats-on/explore-exhibits/native-americans-american-revolution#main
Native Americans in The American Revolution (Ethan A. Schmidt); The Divided Ground (Alan Taylor); Facing East from Indian Country (Daniel K. Richter)
Fire.