“Our reliance is in our love for liberty.  Destroy this spirit and we have planted the seeds of despotism at our own doors.  Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty as we understand it.””The country with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it.  Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people?”There is none. “With malice toward none, with charity for all …. let us strive on to finish the work we are in:  to do that which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations.”(  A. Lincoln  1864, Adapted)READINGSOne of the fundamental fictions of politics is the fiction of a “people” – an aggregation of human beings distinguishable from other aggregations of human beings and therefore capable of being organized into a political unit; an “us” that can be identified as separate from “them”.  Unless you have created that fiction you cannot proceed to any of the other [patriotic] activities – such as drawing boundaries, fighting wars,and signing songs about the inherent superiority of your people.”Walter Truet Anderson in Reality Isn’t What it Used to Be, 1990 N.Y. Harper and RowBreathes there a man with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,’This is my own, my native land !’Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’dAs home his footsteps he hath turn’dFrom wandering on a foreign strand ?”If such there breathe, go mark him well.For him no Minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;Despite those titles, power, and pelf,The wretch, concentred all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renown,And, doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonor’d, and unsung.”Sir Walter Scott,  in LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 1805————————-“I heartily accept the motto, – “That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.  Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, – “That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kindw of government which they will have. …This American government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one , endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? …Governments show… how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose upon themselves …Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?  Why has every man a conscience then?  I think, we should be men first and subjects afterward.   It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.  The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right …A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates …  all marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, and, against their common sense and consciences …  They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. [But now] what are they?  Men …  or small movable forts … at the service of some unscrupulous man in power ?”Henry David Thoreau in CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, 1849Ever since the Methodist Church rashly gave me a “local preachers’ license” nearly fifty years ago,  I have been preaching that “nationalism is man’s most dangerous disease” .  I preach it still if by patriotism you mean the attitude that says “My Country is always right and if you don’t agree go elsewhere”,  or in the infamous bumper sticker,  “America:  Love it or Leave it”. That kind of  patriotism is human kinds most dangerous mental illness.And yet, and yet, I still choke up when I sing, America the Beautiful or hear that old  Kate Smith’s rendition of God Bless America  or when the flag comes down the street behind  brass band.  Should I  suppress  that patriotism?   I think not.  Patriotism need not be,  in Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase, “the last resort of scoundrels”.  Patriotism, the right kind of patriotism can be a an inducement to spiritual growth.Patriotism is, in part an emotion, love of all that is familiar.  It is the sum of  all the positive connotations of the word “home.”I am conflicted on Memorial day, because  I want  to express my very real love for this, my country, “the land where my fathers died – land of the Pilgrim’s pride”.  There are enough occasions for criticizing America.  There should be some days when I can sing praises for all that is good in America’s  present and past.  But too often, patriotic holidays,  which should be celebrations
of all that is admirable and distinctive in our history,  become  glorification of  those qualities which America shares with the empires and tyrannies of the past.  The symbols that made my heart swell as a boy are preempted by an establishment different only in degree from the British Empire from which my ancestors declared their independence 215 years ago. I can’t help but be patriotic in the sense that Walter Scott described patriotism  but I can and I will resist the enlistment of my love of homeland for any continuation of The American Empire.Be not deceived,  there are those in this country who long for a return of the the American Empire as passionately as some Russians long for a return of the Soviet Empire.   But the world is too fragile for empires.   We must resist the reactionaries who think those cold war days were “the good old days.”If America is to thrive in  the 21st century, we need a new vision of a healthy and safe patriotism.The first form of Patriotism, Nationalistic Patriotism is actually rare in America.  It’s the form of Patriotism that Dr. Johnson described before the American Revolution as “the last resort of scoundrels.”  We need to understand that the word Nation then referred  and still refers for most of the peoples of the world not to a State – that is to  a political entity – but to “a people”.  The English, the Scotts, the Welsh and the Irish were and are all  separate “Nations” within the  State currently called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The United States of America, when formed under the Articles of Confederation in 1777  several nations in some of the colonies – notably Pennsylvania  – mostly Germans but also many French Huguenots  who had sought religious freedom in the  former British colonies.  But in 1783 when Britain accepted the loss of her former colonies, most men  –  the women had no say then so I need not worry about my pronouns here – most men in each of those former colonies wanted his colony  to  become a Nation State.  That is a sovereign political entity composed primarily of people of the same Nation in most cases “free born Englishmen.”    The United States was originally a c…onfederation of  States and most of those states were more or less composed of one nation:  the British.  Citizenship was in the individual state, not in The United States and there movements in each of those states to deny citizenship to those not born there .   For a century orators spoke of these United States.  Not the United States.  We were not truly  “one Nation” until after after a bloody civil war.  Robert E. Lee went to war for his country – Virginia,  just as people in the former Yugoslavia recently went to war  for Serbia or Croatia.  The U.S.A. is not, today  “one-nation State” like Serbia  or Japan. Ours was  the first multi-national state.    Ours is the multinational state that succeededü  Yugoslavia was another attempt to create a multi-national state; an attempt that failed.  Nationalistic Patriotism can lead to “ethnic cleansing”.      We can see Nationalistic Patriotism at it’s purest in the former Yugoslavia.   However, I must point out that when we condemn the Serbs and the Croatians for what they did  to the Muslim Bosnians, we should remember the price our Euro-American ancestors imposed on Native Americans.  That’s the first kind, the most dangerous kind of patriotism.  The kind of patriotism we saw in the former Yugoslavia.  Hopefully that form of “patriotism”is dying in the United States.  I’ll do all  possible to insure it a good dea@th.Let’s look at a second kind of Patriotism.  Institutional patriotism.Perhaps we can understand  Institutional Patriotism best by remembering Henry David Thoreau.  Thoreau was one of the first to challenge Institutional Patriotism.  Remember, he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes that would have supported the war against Mexico.  Like many young men in the 1960’s he was accused of being “unpatriotic”  because the institution governing the land on which he resided had decided to declare war on a weak adversary. Thoreau and the war resistors of the 1960  practiced  civil disobedience despite the arguments of the Institutional Patriots.Institutional Patriots are not  Nationalistic Patriots.  They do not believe that their partic ular ethnic group should rule the land once ruled by their ancestors.é The people Thoreau  excoriated in his essay believed in “the rule of law”. They do today and when push comes to shove they will still sacrifice liberty for “law and order.”  Institutional Patriots are in a majority in America today. Institutional patriots say that while they may not personally agree with the actions taken by  “the government”  they will go along because they had the opportunity to express their opinions and have been shown to be in a minority.  Institutional Patriotism is  a more mature and healthier form of patriotism than Nationalistic Patriotism.  It is also a form of idolatry.  It is deification of the Majority.This reverence for the real or  supposed will of the majority may reflect an admirable humility.  One should not lightly  reject the clear will of the majority. However, to always cooperate with the  will of the majority,  as expressed through the electoral proceåss, is a projection of the concept of the “game” into an inappropriate  universe of discourse.The tradition of the “good looser” is too much honored in America.  “Give it your best shot”, we say, “but if you loose shake hands and go along, be a good sport.”  We tend to see political debate – even over whether or not to go to war – as some sort of a baseball game after which – win or loose – we can all go home, drink our beer – or wine- and watch television.War is not a game!  No important conflict is a game.  Thoreau didn’t see the invasion of Mexico or of the extension of slavery as a game.  He recognized there were religious issues involved, matters of ultimate concern.  Thoreau was not a team player.  He was a radical individualist.  He wrote:”I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person a≥nd property , from the government of Massachusetts and not wait until they constitute a majority of one…. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side … Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. . . .  It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”Thoreau’s loyalty was not to his particular nation – that is to  “his people” the descendants of the Pilgrims and the Puritans who shared his language, history and religion. Nor was Thoreau’s loyalty to the institutions and laws of the country of which he was citizen . Thoreau’s loyalty was to a set of ideals – the ideals set forth in the Declaratioñn of Independence. It was the kind of Patriotism Lincoln exemplified when he said, “Four Score and Seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated the the proposition that all men are created equal.”   If he were speaking today he would say.  “Ten score and twenty years ago,  our parents brought forth on this continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all persons are created equal.”   The important point is that Idealistic Patriotism sees America not as a “people” or as a form of government but a set of ideals.I consider this a third form of patriotism which I call IDEALISTIC PATRIOTISM.  I think it is in that sense that everyone in this room is a patriot.  It is those ideals that Lincoln so eloquently expressed that should  trigger the emotional response called Patriotism in me.  Foremost among  thosce ideals is the one that Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence:  the ideal that governments exist to insure human rights  and that when a government becomes destructive of human rights “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”The majority of Thoreau’s compatriots believed that  patriotism was loyalty to the Constitution.  Thoreau believed patriotism was loyalty to principles.  Like Jefferson Thoreau recognized the need for laws, for reasons of expediency  but also,  like  Jefferson, Thoreau saw nothing sacred in those arrangements. However, there is a subtle danger in this form of patriotism too.  It too can be perverted. American presidents have always justified their wars by claiming not only  that a war was necessary to preserve our national interests, not only that war was necessary to preserve our form of government but that war was necessary to protect or implement the very ideals and principles to which we, as a people, have, supposedly  been committed.  The call to war has always appealed to all three forms of patriotism.Every American war, it seems, is a crusade, a holy war. The Abolitionists took us into  war to “free the slaves.”   Wilson took us into war to “make the world safe for Democracy”.  Roosevelt took us into war to insure the five freedoms.  Truman took us into war to repel aggression in Korea.  Johnson took us into war to stop spread of  atheistic tyrannical Communism.  George Bush justified our attack on Iraq by portraying it a crusade for a “new world order”.  It now looks as though Clinton may have taken us into war in the former Yugoslavia to prevent  genocide.   Idealistic Patriotism can be seduced as easily as the other two kinds.