What Is Required of Us To Be Loyal, Patriotic Americans?
Loyalty is a curious concept. I don’t mean loyalty to one’s family or friends or — to a more guarded extent in these economically indiscriminate days — to one’s employer. That sort of loyalty isn’t complicated. It’s trust and dependability. You’re either loyal or you’re not, no matter how much you may deceive yourself. But what about loyalty to one’s country? The answer only seems straight forward.
A letter from a friend in Hong Kong forced me to confront the issue the other day. “I remember when I went up to Beijing last year for the first time,” he wrote, “one of my Mainland friends joked that I’m ’stateless’ because I don’t fully identify with the U.S., Hong Kong, or China. Even though he was saying it in jest, I was struck by his words. Yes, I am ’stateless’ because I don’t feel 100 percent American, Hong Konger, or Mainlander. I’ll always take a piece of my New York upbringing with me wherever I go; you can’t just dismiss a quarter century of living there as if it never happened. If the U.S. and China ever get into a war (and that’s not farfetched), people like me will suffer. To whom am I supposed to declare my loyalty?”
I’ve thought about the question myself, being in an even more precarious situation than my friend from Hong Kong.
Should a devastating terrorist attack occur in the United States (a nuclear bomb, say, or a series of massive urban attacks day after day) it’s not at all far-fetched that the government will indiscriminately round up Arab Americans as security risks, whether they have citizenship or not (I have mine) — not because the government did so with Japanese-Americans during World War II, but because it already did so with thousands of loyal, law-abiding Arab-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. As with the internment of Japanese in World War II, few voices spoke up against the round-up of Arab-Americans.
It may have been the patriotic thing to do to keep quiet about it. It certainly wasn’t the loyal thing to do.
Those who spoke up, the American Civil Liberties Union and a ridiculously small number of newspapers and magazines among them, were the ones being loyal to the rights and principles the government was befouling, and that blind patriots were condoning.
John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General at the time, has looked like a hero on a couple of recent occasions as stories of him standing up to rank lawbreaking by the Bush administration have trickled out.
But let’s not forget the Ashcroft of December 2001 who framed dissent as disloyalty: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,” he told a Senate committee, “my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”
Evil isn’t only Arab terrorism. It’s also American repression, at home and abroad. To speak up against terrorism is the easy part. It requires no investment more than words, and for every American since 2001 it required fewer taxes, too. Military families who’ve paid the heaviest price aside, patriotism has never been so cheap, so self-deceiving and, in retrospect, so wasted, considering the consequences.
So my Hong Kong friend’s question is perhaps easier to answer than it seems if one is willing to look at it from a different angle than the merely political. I have not one iota of loyalty toward my native Lebanon now any more than I do toward Zambia. I still have a great love for Lebanon, and a greater love for the United States.
But all those things are irrelevant in time of war, when only immediate fears and anxieties dominate, as do ambient acts or talk of dehumanization. If you think I’m exaggerating, imagine the response to new attacks. What matters most at that point isn’t such things as loyalty to country, which I think is an artificial and stupid concept that does little more than pump up the herd in brawny words. What matters most, besides loyalty to one’s own, is being loyal to the moral, the civilized and the humane — to those ethical responsibilities that are so rapidly victimized and denigrated in war, under cover of flag-waving.
Patriotism in those cases becomes loyalty’s executioner. And it has. Five years after the early follies of 2001 at home and many more since at home and abroad, we’re a weaker nation, more divided, infinitely less respected than in 2001, infinitely less worthy of 1776. Memorial Day indeed — for what’s being lost, and for loyalties fearfully unspoken.
Tristam is a News-Journal editorial writer. Reach him at ptristam@att.net or through his personal Web site at www.pierretristam.com .
© 2007 The Daytona Beach News-Journal
Loyalty, just like respect, is a two-way street. When I have reason to give it, I do. When I have been given reason to withhold it, I do.
And there’s a big difference between being loyal to some nebulous idea of “country” and being loyal to the current occupants of the offices of that country.
See Alex Jones’ exposes on cops who are trained to consider people who mention their constitutional rights as terrorism suspects. “Loyalty” is just a rhetorical propaganda word now.
Stand up! - And be counted for what you believe is right
Sit Down! - in the street - any street, to create a disturbance
Fight! - Like Bahaudur Shah(look him up-a friend of Gandhi)
Fight! - Like Gandhi
Fight! - Like Dr. Martin Luther King
With intense nonviolent love
Patriotism may ultimately be indistinguishable from chauvenism or jingoism. There’s no problem championing universal ethics or values, but championing loose symbols, borders, economic cartels, etc. that “nations” actually are seems impossible to ultimately make good on.
What sort of statement of loyalty or patriotism is held up to the Fortune-500 company that lays off thousands of US workers, outsources abroard, etc? If everyone played “follow the leader” it wouldn’t lead to patriotism, loyalty, etc.
There is nothing “required.” Because you can’t enforce attitudes. Further, nationalism is always right wing. Nationalism is what the ignorant cruel masses shouted out for, claiming that “we all need to unite” in favor of war against Iraq; nationalism is what made americans totally without new york connections think that people dying there was somehow “more important” than foreigners being slaughtered.
http://www.dreamingearth.net
If you are an international (a person who has lived in more than one country for a significant part of your life) blind loyalty to one country is impossible. The concept, my country right or wrong, is hard to swallow. My country wrong I will try and change it. A true patriot lives the ideals and fights for those ideals. A true patriot educates himself to know the reality not the propoganda. A real patriot makes sacrifices to stand up to power. Meanwhile the rest watch American idol (or Star Ac or any other spin off in another country) and go shopping and think of their own personal comforts.
“The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, ‘My country, right or wrong!’
In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong! If right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!”
- U.S. Senator CARL SCHURZ (Missouri)
Remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872
Schurz expanded on this theme in a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899:
“I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves… too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’
They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country — when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”
(It is curious to note that there was an arch-conservative “Senator from Wisconson” in 1872, just as there was in 1952)
Pretty straightforward for me:
1. Compassion for all beings
2. Duty to all sentient beings
3. Courtesy to all moral beings
4. Loyalty to all moral beings that espouse one or more of my values
5. Patriotic to the moral values that people of my country ought to espouse
Patriotism is bogus. It’s a call for dissenters to stand with their countrymen for war, or be called anti-American. True patriotism is questioning your government when it does wrong, and getting rid of it when it fails to abide by your requests.
It seems fitting that an act that has shredded much of the Bill of Rights is called the “Patriot Act.” Fitting with the repressive fervor that war patriotism invariably excites. I’ve forgotten the name of the eighteenth century statesman who said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” but we certainly have plenty of scoundrels around in our government and press today competing to see who can be more patriotic.
Mark Twain said, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
His insight is so valid today as well.
Patriotism apparently means lying down and letting the government do whatever it wishes to you or your neighbors without question.
Patriotism is a total cultural construction of the nation state–earlier societies were based on kinship loyalties. Like other irrational ideas, patriotism is “felt” more than “thought,” which is why it can be so easily manipulated by government officials. Most Americans are indoctrinated with a romantic and wholly fictitious ideal of America and what it supposedly stands for. Multinational corporations suffer from no such illusions. When the leaders of a country betray the Constitution and deceive us into wars and genocide, it’s time to start thinking– patriotism in the face of this betrayal is idiocy.
The only “loyalty” Americans should have is to our Constitution, which is really just another way of repeating the main point above. “…to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.” In other words, if the house catches on fire, grab the Constitution and run, forget about the TV and pictures and, yes, if necessary, even the people. Sadly, the generation coming of age today have been brainwashed to believe the job of the President is to “pertek Merkins,” or “comfort Merkins” or “spread freed’m.” Never once have they heard the Pres say his job was to defend the Constitution. No, what they’ve heard, and continue to hear, is that there is some invisible clause in that little document that says Unitary Executive can do whatever the f**k he wants. Imagine, you’re, say, 12, 13, 14 in 2000. Six years of that bulls**t later, what would think the Constitution says?
I disagree there. The Constitution must be a living document, lest we descend to a necrocracy (government by the dead). We should embrace the Constitution only insofar as it as a codified, respected and direct representation of popular will & best thinking today. And if you think about it, this is more in the spirit of the Founding Fathers themselves — who built a document based on the best thinking of that day, not 200 years earlier. Hence, the Constitution should not be confused with religious dogma, carved in stone.
It’s one thing to argue that it should not be weakened. I agree there. But it can greatly be improved, as can our government in general, and if the Founders were alive today they’d obviously be calling for a revolution.
For instance “Freedom of speech” is all but a useless freedom if the average person is priced out of the airwaves, satellite time, network media, etc. entirely. Freedom to post a sheet of paper on a tree meant an awful lot 200 years ago. It means little today. We may not be censored by the government, but we are censored economically — and that’s far worse because you can petition government, vote, etc. None of that applies to the pricing-out of our freedoms.
Fedupwith politics: I agree, but one ominious change to the rubric is that this Prez and “decider” can “decide” if you’re a patriot, with him or against him, and now thanks to liberties being eroded, theoretically send you to an offshore prison for NOT being patriotic, i.e. an “enemy” of state. Once upon a time this conjecture would have been seen as dark fiction, but our times have indeed caught up with the paranoids!
“If you are an international (a person who has lived in more than one country for a significant part of your life) blind loyalty to one country is impossible. The concept, my country right or wrong, is hard to swallow. My country wrong I will try and change it. A true patriot lives the ideals and fights for those ideals. A true patriot educates himself to know the reality not the propoganda. A real patriot makes sacrifices to stand up to power. Meanwhile the rest watch American idol (or Star Ac or any other spin off in another country) and go shopping and think of their own personal comforts.”
I absolutely agree - I have spent many years living in Asia and find that the longer one lives abroad, the more universally accepting and truly patriotic one can become (if one wants). It is only by comparing and contrasting different countries versions of of ‘propoganda’, ‘patriotism’, ‘history’ etc that one can become intellectually enlightened and morally empowered.
Most Americans, like many citizens in their respective country, don’t care what goes on in the outside world as long as they have TV, a nice place to live, lots of material possessions, and good social standing.
Patriotism is the fundamentalist religion of America. You can be any religious or political persusasion, but you always have to be a patriot.Before any discussion or criticism of anything, one needs to declare “I am a Patriot” It goes along with “I support the troops”. Patriotism creates an us versres them mentality. Patriotism builds and develops xenophobia.
Why can’t I just be someone born here in the US and not be a patriot? Why during debate and discussion about what America is doing in the world do I always get “If your not a patriot why don’t you just leave?” This my home and anybody that wants to live here should be able to. I live here but I am also a citizen of the world. Patriotism clouds the fact that we are on this little ball of green brown and blue together we need to forget about the human made boundries that seperate us. But boundries keep the moneyed interests in control.
Here is a great litmus test for loyalty and patriotism: U.S. citizens should want a never-used part of OUR Constitution finally to be used according to the desires of the Framers who purposefully placed in Article V the option of a convention to make proposals for constitutional amendments. Their thinking was that eventually Americans could lose confidence in the federal government. Thus the Article V convention escape clause is sorely needed NOW. Learn more at www.foavc.org and become a member of Friends of the Article V Convention, a new national, nonpartisan group with the sole mission of compelling Congress to obey the Constitution and give us what we have a constitutional right to — especially since the one and only stated requirement in Article V that 2/3 of state legislatures ask for one has been satisfied, with over 500 state requests from all 50 states.
Loyalty and patriotism are words associated with belonging to a group. They pretend to express morality in that they preclude any real thought or measure of virtue. We all struggle with our own morality because none of us are perfect. Pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, greed and sloth are commonly accepted as bad traits to exhibit. The opposites of those I suppose would be humility, kindness, patience, abstinence, chastity, liberality and diligence. Since there are degrees of each in all of us, we have a need to excuse our less than absolute virtuosity by aligning with similiar people. Once we establish a name for that alignment we remove the need to consider these traits, or the truth, any further. We can be loyal to our religion, further removing the need for thought, by accepting some pre-determined set of limitations, or traditional forms of behavior. It becomes much easier to justify our own faults by proclaiming that we are Christians or Muslims or Bhuddists, or patriots or pro-life, liberal, heterosexual, anti-war, republican, what have you. We do this to avoid self scrutiny, or at least diminish it. Further, this labelling of ourselves allows us to accept that others have equally conflicting views or traits thus making our own imperfection more palatable. That the original article questions these words indicates the conflict going on inside. It’s not enough to declare one’s identity by saying he is loyal or patriotic. Nor is it all or nothing. Deep in our sub-conscious mind we understand the difference between right and wrong. When we percieve our group of allegiance or more often than not, the leaders of said group, to betray our own values, or the degree of which we maintain virtue, we question our own loyalty to that group. So call yourselves what you will, but the constant evaluation of what you believe and how you interact with others will always be at the core of the debate. Be loyal to the truth, and yourself. There is no real unconditional love. Question whether your country, or religion, or sorority has the same values as you. Better yet, openly discuss the lack of humilty involved in being nationalistic, or the lack of kindness, patience, and liberality exhibited by the murder and occupation of a foreign country. Screw the labels, we need to get some shit out in the open. But that would require temperance, self-control, honesty, etc… Easier said than done.
Isn’t “patriotism” the ability to question authority? The “founding fathers” (they didn’t allow founding mothers) questioned the authority of the King of England. My own Native American ancestors questioned the “White man’s authority”
and waged a successful war against them—–they came to us with treaties, which by international law standards is capitulation. Our mistake was to believe them, and allowing ourselves to be disarmed.
When someone questions another’s “patriotism” when they do not agree with them, they make the move to silence all questions of authority, which is not Democracy, and certainly not Patriotism.
Above all else, question authority.
Yellow Horse
There is a fundamental conflict between loyalty to one’s country and loyalty to the human race as a whole.
I am no authority on the topic, but it seems to me Jesus spoke only to the latter and was completely silent on the former. Though you wouldn’t know that from the way Christianity is preached nowadays.