Patriotic Treason

True Patriots Can Not be Silenced…No Silence, No Fear

In this 250th-anniversary year, the FCC, through its “Pledge America Campaign,” is encouraging broadcasters to air more “patriotic, pro-America,” “positive,” “uplifting” non-critical programming celebrating our national story. On its face, it sounds harmless, even unifying. No one says criticism is forbidden in this campaign. Still, when a regulatory agency that controls broadcast licenses asks for “pro-American” and “uplifting” messaging, the subtext seems clear—celebrate, don’t scrutinize. But it raises an uncomfortable question: isn’t one of America’s greatest strengths the freedom to question our myths, challenge our institutions, and resist messaging that feels more like image management than truth-telling?

A healthy nation should not fear scrutiny; it should welcome it. We do not grow weaker by examining our history from multiple angles. We grow wiser. We stand taller when we are willing to look not only at the victors’ triumphs, but also at the suffering of the defeated, the excluded, and the conveniently forgotten.

Patriotism that cannot tolerate criticism is not confidence; it is insecurity dressed up as ceremony.

We should be honest about what troubles many Americans today. When institutions redact, conceal, and protect the powerful while exposing the vulnerable, we should call it what it is: a cover-up. When the history of slavery is sanitized, minimized, or rewritten, that is not a nation maturing—it is a nation lying to itself. And when a country suppresses the weak and demeans others for gain, it is not ascending. It is declining.

When citizens see voting access narrowed in some places, districts drawn to protect power rather than represent people, and public narratives shaped to flatter rather than inform, they do not feel united. They feel managed—manipulated. They begin to doubt the message’s legitimacy, no matter how many flags are wrapped around it.

Still, this is not a voice against patriotism. It is a voice for a broader form of it.

We should be proud that many people in this country still protest peacefully, speak openly, and challenge policies they believe are unjust. That tradition is not a flaw in America; it is one of the few things that has consistently made America worth admiring. Our best moments have not come from silence or obedience. They have come when ordinary people insisted that the country live up to its own promises and that power be held legally accountable.

That is not treason. That is citizenship. That is patriotism.

Treason is not dissent. Treason is the quiet surrender of conscience—the nodding along to cover-ups, cruelty, and convenient historical rewriting because it feels safer or easier. Patriotism is not taking your hat off on cue, reciting the Pledge by rote, or consuming approved “pro-American” programming and songs. Patriotism is telling the truth about who we are and who we have been. Real patriotism is hard. It asks us to love the country enough to tell it the truth.

And truth includes this: we have made mistakes, some of them grave. We are not diminished by admitting it. We are diminished by pretending otherwise. A nation grows stronger when it knows its history fully, speaks honestly about its failures, and chooses, again and again, to do better. We become stronger still when we can say, without fear or excuse, that we’ve been wrong, but we’ll be better.         NeverFearTheDream   simplebender.com

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Federal Communications Commission. “Chairman Carr Announces Pledge America Campaign.” Federal Communications Commission, 20 Feb. 2026, docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-418890A1.pdf

A form of this article was first published on 3/10/26 in the Bend Bulletin