Patriotism Through the Ages

Figuring out patriotism is first off a no-brainer. It is clearly and simply the willingness to sacrifice our private interests for the common good of our country. But then things get a little sticky. The principles that guide us as individual citizens and as a nation, not flags and fireworks, are the real signs of our patriotism. The problem is that these principles have overtime changed for better and for worse.

Americans believe that we are an exceptional country on a unique trajectory through history, a shining democracy of liberty and union blazing through the sky of time. Or at least we did; now there are doubts. That is what 85 percent of the people are talking about when they say we are going in the wrong direction. We see confusion about this experiment that we love and that we are patriotic and proud of.

If we want to go back to the original intent, there is no better source than George Washington's farewell address. President Washington used the word patriotism to mean "love of liberty" and "an indissoluble community of interest as one nation." What distinguished the patriot, he said, was love of liberty and love of the Union -- "joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings and successes."

Further along, Abraham Lincoln noted that we were "conceived in liberty" but we were also "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Because of the times in which he lived, Lincoln continued the devotion to the union but he shifted the emphasis from liberty to equality. After our great Civil War, the test of the patriot was his devotion to equality. That worthy emphasis held until World War I and President Woodrow Wilson.

With Wilson and World War I, loyalty or at least their definition of loyalty became the test of the "true" patriot.

President Wilson, in his speech to Congress requesting a declaration of war against Germany, made it clear that he doubted the loyalty of Americans of German descent. He noted a "poison of disloyalty among hyphenated Americans."

To enforce the loyalty test, the Congress passed and the Supreme Court of that time validated the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer imprisoned thousands in concentration camps on Long Island and held them much as prisoners are held today in the Guantánamo prison. Loyalty became the watchword of patriotism during the WWI and ever thereafter.

Love of liberty and the union were subordinated to suspicions of disloyalty.

Ever since then we have confused patriotism with loyalty and we have conflated loyalty with race, with anti-communism, and with support for the military. American citizens of Japanese descent, and potentially those of German descent, were interned on suspicion of disloyalty. Senator Joseph McCarthy impugned the loyalty of military officers and State Department officials. People had to prove they were not disloyal.

More importantly, loyalty was defined as an unquestioning support of the most recent military adventure that an administration took us into on the basis of mostly fabricated events. Anyone who pointed out that the Gulf of Tonkin and weapons of mass distraction were fabrications was branded as disloyal. Now, Muslims and Arab-Americans are the hyphenated Americans who have to prove they are not disloyal.

This conflation of loyalty and support for armed conflict pushed the idea of loyalty even further. Now loyalty is defined as support for our military.

When the essence of your country is defined in terms of the military, we arrive at what is called militarism or what General George Washington in his farewell address referred to as "those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

All the military appropriation bills are passed. We all support the troops, no matter what

they are doing. Nothing is too good for our soldiers in the field. And that's the way it should be.

But such supporting of the troops is the expression of loyalty only when it costs us something. Flags, fireworks and bumper stickers are pathetic expressions of loyalty. Now, 85 percent of Americans want the patriotism defined by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln – the sacrifices necessary to maintain liberty, the union and equality.

Yet, we are asked to sacrifice nothing of our individual interests for the common good. We are not paying for this war. Instead we are accepting our tax cuts and stimulus checks. Our children are learning a strange lesson when they see us defining our patriotism in terms of what they will have to pay.

No politician dares to demand real sacrifice, real loyalty, real patriotism from us as a people. A statesman who did so would never be elected.