If you’ve been paying much attention to the news lately, you’ve obviously heard the term “loyalty” used a lot. The President uses it often and a lot of people believe he means it solely as it applies to him and that he’s not of the opinion that loyalty is a two-way street.
Anyhow, I decided to do a little extensive research on the subject and discovered that loyalty is apparently pretty important to the United States because May 1st has been designated as Loyalty Day by Congress.
Congress passed a resolution May 1, 1955 proclaiming that day as Loyalty Day. In 1958, Congress made it an annual “day.” The resolution set aside a special day (May 1) for “the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States of America and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom.” It called for the President to sign a proclamation each year calling for the display of the American flag and inviting observances at schools and “other suitable places.”
True to form, President Trump signed a proclamation this past May 1st. He described it as a day meant to express our country’s loyalty to individual liberties, to limited government and to the inherent dignity of every human being.”
The entire proclamation is just one short paragraph (you can look it up if you’re interested) and it’s not particularly politically laced like much of the information coming from the Oval Office. It does mention ISIS by name, and I thought that was a little strange, but I think the thought is pure.
I got to wondering how much do we really value loyalty today? Does it have the same meaning to us as honesty or integrity? It’s always been a little suspect to expect loyalty from our politicians, but lately I’ve noticed that athletes don’t seem to be particularly loyal to their team, their country, their fans and sometimes even to the rules of the game. And loyalty in the workplace certainly takes a different form than it did when I was among the working class.
General Colin Powell defined loyalty as: “Loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.” I guess that kind of sums up my idea of loyalty during my working years. Maybe it still does, but without a common “mission” that was always present in the work environment, I probably think of loyalty a little differently… I’ve kind of moved loyalty into my category of things that you can’t buy — it’s something that has to be earned.
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