Image by Lorie Shaull via Flickr
The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published May 1, 2017
June 27, 2022
For all the avowed patriots who demand my Pledge of Allegiance and salutes on Loyalty Day, Fourth of July, and other patriotic, militarized holidays, I fling this question to your hearts: how deep and far does your loyalty to your country run?
Image by rstrawser via Flickr
The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 20, 2019
If you really love your country, you would not be satisfied with platitudes and flag-waving, national anthems and military parades. A truly patriotic citizen does not sit idle as the land and waters of his country are polluted by extractive industries. A true patriot does not sneer and scorn her fellow citizens who live in poverty or are unhoused. A true patriot does not place higher loyalties with corporations than human beings. A true patriot sees no glory in war, nor security in spending more on military than on peace and justice for all of humankind.
Image by Lorie Shaull via Flickr
The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published May 1, 2017
July 1, 2018
For all the avowed patriots who demand my Pledge of Allegiance and salutes on Loyalty Day, Fourth of July, and other patriotic, militarized holidays, I fling this question to your hearts: how deep and far does your loyalty to your country run?
Image by UCFFool via Flickr
by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
Originally published August 31, 2016
May 2, 2017
The quality of loyalty has played an important but perplexing role in my life, both positive and negative, which for many years has prompted countless nocturnal ruminations about the reasons for my concern for what at first glance might be considered banal. Along the way I have experienced that loyalty is often confused with sense of duty to which, in my opinion, it should not be reduced. Instead, rather than a quality related chiefly to duty, obedience or obligation, I have come to relate loyalty more easily to love. Nonetheless, in my experience too much loyalty has been a curse, a cross to bear. As a result of my family background, religious and typical American South, as well as the ideological environment of the second half of the twentieth century in which I became closely involved, I have been infected with a powerful sense of loyalty. The quality of loyalty as I intend it includes—by some complex extension in my mind almost a perversion—discipline and severity and, above all, love. Thus, although at times a handicap and an impediment, loyalty remains ethically desirable.
Image by Lorie Shaull via Flickr
The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
May 1, 2017
For all the avowed patriots who demand my Pledge of Allegiance and salutes on Loyalty Day, Fourth of July, and other patriotic, militarized holidays, I fling this question to your hearts: how deep and far does your loyalty to your country run?
Image by UCFFool via Flickr
by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
August 31, 2016
The quality of loyalty has played an important but perplexing role in my life, both positive and negative, which for many years has prompted countless nocturnal ruminations about the reasons for my concern for what at first glance might be considered banal. Along the way I have experienced that loyalty is often confused with sense of duty to which, in my opinion, it should not be reduced. Instead, rather than a quality related chiefly to duty, obedience or obligation, I have come to relate loyalty more easily to love. Nonetheless, in my experience too much loyalty has been a curse, a cross to bear. As a result of my family background, religious and typical American South, as well as the ideological environment of the second half of the twentieth century in which I became closely involved, I have been infected with a powerful sense of loyalty. The quality of loyalty as I intend it includes—by some complex extension in my mind almost a perversion—discipline and severity and, above all, love. Thus, although at times a handicap and an impediment, loyalty remains ethically desirable.
by Ed Dunphy
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
August 2, 2011
Image by SS&SS via Flickr
Wikipedia defines Loyalty as faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause. Most of us will say that we are loyal Americans.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, on Loyalty:
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels — men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion .”
Dandelion Salad 