Stars and Stripes

I have just finished reading The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, an account of the creation of the renowned Oxford English Dictionary. The “Professor” was James Murray, the editor of the work, the “Madman,” Dr. William Chester Minor, an American army surgeon who killed a man in London and, having been found not guilty by reason of insanity, spent all save the last year of his life thereafter in mental asylums, but who contributed many citations to the project.

Reflecting on the book, I discovered that I had no real talent for fashioning dictionary definitions. Thus, I am at a complete loss to engage in a lengthy debate with those personages who are advocating that schools in the United States teach “Americanism” in a battle to combat the alleged nefarious instruction accompanying new looks at American history.

There are those who seemingly would put “Freedom” foremost in their definition of Americanism. On the one hand, the term has been appropriated by the worst reactionary politicians of the Republican Party (the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, for example). On the other hand, while the American national anthem boasts of the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” the anthem of our northern neighbors, who stuck with King George, asserts that they are “The True North, strong and free.” Since both North American countries claim the same thing, I dismiss “Freedom” (however interpreted) as a defining factor of Americanism.

What I have come up with as the essence of Americanism (my limited ability could take me only so far) is the concept of Government by Consent of the Governed, which means fair elections open to all citizens who are to be ruled by the elected. (Somehow, it seems that many of the advocates of “Freedom” are working to subvert this concept.) In a fair election one person’s vote counts as much as the next person’s. They are unintimidated by outside forces, and their vote is unimpeded by political contrivance. The vote count is supervised by impartial observers. The person with the most votes wins; the loser concedes, maybe to prevail the next time. For Americanism, there must be a next time.

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I once lost an election by one vote. It turned out, however, that two ballots had arrived in the mail after the set deadline. I was urged by someone who had a personal dislike of the other candidate to appeal, to try to make the late ballots be counted. I refused. The rules were the rules. And according to the rules, I lost. End of story.