politicalcivility.com Blog

With tomorrow being Independence Day, a “patriotic” post is in order. 

Today I read two OpEd pieces, one from John McCain and the other written by Barack Obama where each puts to paper his own definition of Patriotism.  I enjoyed reading both and appreciated the sentiments articulated on the whole and I recommend both as good food for thought.  I believe there is tremendous value to be reminded of the bigger picture now and then.  It is just human tendency to get so bogged down in arguing over the details that we sometimes forget we’re working on the same thing, a better America.

There is probably only one issue that I would say misses the mark with the two editorials and it comes from Mr. McCain.

“It [patriotism] is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.”

If McCain had stopped before the “before anything” comment I think his editorial would have been perfect.  But I think we enter dangerous territory when country/king/state comes before all else.  There is a great scene in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell and a English duke where they debated priority of allegiance: king or God first.  The duke remarked that in his day it was king first–God second, to which his colleague retorted that the war to end all wars [WW1] bitterly proved the duke’s point noting the consequence of misplaced allegiance priority.

I love my country, but not above all else.  I am sorry Mr. McCain, but my allegiance to my God and my family come before my allegiance to my country.  And to me this allows me to be more patriotic not less.

Enjoy the editorials and have a great Independence Day! It’s great to be an American.

I have been reading Joseph Story’s “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.”  I’m not a lawyer so at times it’s all I can do not to gloss over because of the writing style.  However, I have learned a tremendous amount about the intent of the framing and am slowly getting a better understanding of what constituted the proper role of government in the eyes of those who founded this great country.

Amidst all the legal detail, Story throws in the occasional gem of a quote and so I thought I’d share one of those gems I crossed over yesterday in Story’s comments on the “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” clause of the Preamble.

Speaking about our Founders, Story writes, “How much more do they deserve our reverence and praise, whose lives are devoted to the formation of institutions, which, when they and their children are mingled in the common dust, may continue to chersich the principles and the practice of liberty in perpetual freshness and vigour.”

While coming into work the other day I passed by a car with a bumper sticker that read: “Dissent is The Highest Form of Patriotism,” which is a quote from Howard Zinn.  While fundamentally I agree that the ability to take a stand in opposition to one in power takes courage and can demonstrate a real level of Patriotism, dissent alone does not make my top three list of highest forms of patriotism, especially in America.  This statement taken at face value, to me is one of the most selfish statements one could make. 

Here is how I would rank the top three acts of patriotism:

1. Life: This is the ultimate act of Patriotism–to give my life that others may be free: free to live and free to dissent.
2. Sacrife: The giving up of what I want now so that those of future generations may live better, safer lives.
3. Citizenship: paying the price to know and understand our history and government, participating in an educated manner in the electoral process, and then giving our time in community/civic service. 

To me all three of these trump “dissent” on the patriotism scale.  In the US, to dissent with a president, governor or senator takes little or no effort and has little or no personal cost. It wasn’t the founders dissent over the way Britain treated the colonists that earned them the honored badge of “Patriot.” It was that they were willing to sacrifice “their lives, fortunes and sacred honor” (which many of them did) in efforts to dissent.