And so we again (just a few days ago) have presidential candidates raising fears about each other’s patriotism to one degree or another. Minds me of something the eminent Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens had to say on the subject — just one of his many pointed commentaries on flag-waving:
We have thrown away the most valuable asset we have — the individual right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he by himself) believes them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
A thought for this July 4, perhaps. Patriotism is more than just “My country, right or wrong!”;* it is the ability to criticize the actions of your country, with the best of intentions, to correct what you perceive as gross defects in what its leaders are doing at that time. You do not discard your love of country, even in time of war, by criticizing it; rather, you show your love for country by wishing to make it known what you believe is a problem.
If we surrender that right — nay, that duty — then we are far from being patriots; we are, rather, mindless drones, surrendering to the whim of the tyrant.
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* A probable misquotation of the after-dinner toast offered by Stephen Decatur in the 1810s: “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” Decatur was merely saluting the United States, not proclaiming a jingoistic devotion to it.
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Twain quotation from Mark Twain’s Notebook, Chapter XXXV, in Hodge, David and Stacey Freeman, eds., Political tales and truth of Mark Twain (New York: 1992, MJF Books), p. 46.
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Peace be to you.
