www.dartemis.net
Rodney G. Graves
From the Archives

On Patriotism

There has been a lot of discussion, debate, and rhetoric of late concerning patriotism and the lack thereof.

Regrettably, we must start with a definition, as the abusers of the English Language have been busy attempting to treat patriot and jingoist as synonyms.

 pa·tri·ot·ism: Love of and devotion to one's country.

A simple definition, really.  Do we need to examine the definitions of “love” and “devotion” as well?  I would hope not…  Let us proceed with this as our working definition of patriotism.

We thus see that a patriot (one demonstrating patriotism) loves and is devoted to his or her county.  In my estimation, this extends to the point of sacrificing one’s own life and liberties in the interests, and protection, of one’s country.

Stephen Decatur once proposed the toast “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”  This is frequently seen in the somewhat corrupted form, "My Country, may she ever be right, but right or wrong, my country."  Some might claim (indeed some have)  that this is an oversimplification of a complex world.  They would clain, and indeed have claimed, that such un-questioning patriotism is more akin to jingoism.

This un-questioning patriotism is true to our definition in that it is an expression of love and devotion to one’s country.  Such unquestioning devotion can and has been used in the furtherance of causes both just and unjust, moral and immoral.  It is the abuse of this form of patriotism which Samuel Johnston characterized as “…the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Can one then love their country while recognizing that, as a human institution, our country can be wrong?  Certainly.  Would anyone who has seriously read from the history of these United States seriously claim that our history does not include incidents both wrong and egregiously wrong?  I certainly wouldn’t.  Let us then define the rational patriot as those who recognize these flaws and who love their country no less for them.

This rational patriotism was perhaps best related by Senator Carl Schurz as: “Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.”  The unstated underpinning here is that a patriot, while recognizing a wrong on the part of his beloved nation, works to convince his fellow citizens of that error and to correct it.

 And what do we make of the case of our Founding Fathers?  They were subjects of the Crown.  I would further argue that all were, in the earlier portions of their lives, patriots of United Kingdom.  Yet they found a new identity in a new nation and transferred their patriotism to that new entity.  They explicitly set out their reasons for doing so in the Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…

This was a sharp dividing line.  In issuing this Declaration the Founding Fathers renounced their former loyalties and patriotism.  In so doing they implicitly acknowledged that they were in rebellion against their former sovereign, and explicitly acknowledged that the price of failure was death: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

A fancy way of saying what Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have wryly observed: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

 When, then, does the recognition of wrongdoing depart from patriotism?

I would start by saying that an expression of loathing towards the United States of America, its government, or its people cannot be reconciled with love and devotion towards the nation.  Nor can one share a divided patriotism towards more than one nation.

Every man has a right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and to feel that it is absolutely his country and that he has in it every right possessed by anyone else. It is our duty to require the man of German blood who is an American citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany wholeheartedly and without on his part any mental reservation whatever. If he does this it becomes no less our duty to give him the full rights of an American, including our loyal respect and friendship without on our part any mental reservation whatever. The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint of American patriotism one is as important as the other.

Nor can a stated love and devotion to an ideal of what the United States could or should be count as patriotism.  One who would “…pledge allegiance to the America that can be.” has failed to love their country, warts and all.  This is not to say there is no room for improvement, nor that we should cease trying to make our union more perfect.  Rather, it is a nod to reality; Governments are creations of men, and are thus no more perfect than their creators.  Perfection, while a laudable goal, is a useless standard of comparison.

Finally, let us consider actions.

No matter how loud and repeated the protestations of patriotism may be, acting against the interests of the United States can NEVER be considered patriotic.  It was once well understood that politics stopped at America’s shores.  That whatever policy differences might rage domestically, a single voice was required in our dealings with the rest of the world.  To the extent this is no longer the case, we are indeed failing in both patriotism and common sense.