A 3700 mile drive gives a person a lot of time to think without much interruption. And that’s about the distance I drove from far upstate New York to my present landing in Sonoma County, California. Among all those thoughts came one that inspired this blog: the nature of American patriotism.

Patriotism is usually treated as something you have or you don’t. The past six years of radical rightwing rule has made patriotism a matter of constant concern by many. From the cynically misnamed “Patriot Act” to the ubiquitous flags and decals covering cars otherwise notable for their extreme consumption of gasoline thereby contributing to our national dependency on corrupt Middle Eastern governments, as a culture we seem to have OD’d on patriotism.

But I must disagree. There is not nearly enough.

There are two kinds of genuine American patriotism, and two false kinds. We have a great deal of the second and not nearly enough of the first.

Genuine American patriotism takes two forms. They are not mutually exclusive, but appeal to different dimensions of who we are as Americans.

Genuine Patriotism
The first is a deep love for the principles upon which this country was founded, principles enunciated so clearly in our Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The same values are also clearly implied in our Constitution’s preamble.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

These principles apply timelessly to all people, but are particularly associated with our own founding. They emphasize that all people are worthy of respect, equality under the law, and a voice in determining the laws and institutions under which they live. Of course cynics will argue, and argue truly, that all too often these principles were imperfectly observed, or even denied. But to take their greatest failing, the long persistence of American slavery after independence, they served as a standing reproach to those who practiced this evil on their fellow human beings. The reproach was so strong that ultimately the South repudiated the principles of 1776, explicitly founding their Confederacy not on freedom but on slavery.

These principles are important for another reason. They are in accord with the highest religious teachings of our species. As purely secular principles they do not reach so high, but are in basic harmony with principles of love and compassion. Indeed, the principles enunciated in our Declaration are probably the only principles by which men and women of different beliefs and practices can live together peacefully. Our good neighbors to the north, the Canadians, emphasize good government and public order rather than those of the Declaration, but they do so in ways in keeping with the Declaration’s assertion that all are worthy of respect.

The second form of American patriotism is rooted in our love of our community because it is OUR community. As Americans we share a common life often lost from sight until some disaster or aggression against some of us focuses us again on what we share in common as a political community. 9-11 was such an event, and even those of us teaching the attack on the far end of the country winced and felt some of the horror and pain as we watched those jets slam into the World Trade Center towers.

This kind of patriotism is in many ways similar to our love for our families. We may not agree with other family members, even over issues we hold dear. We certainly did not choose them. But we are still family, sharing a common bond and obligations of loyalty and regard. Our national holiday of Thanksgiving is a powerful affirmation of these ties, the only major holiday corporate America has yet to turn into a profit center. If at no other time, Democrats and Republicans, Pagans and Christians, gather together to celebrate both as members of a family and members of a nation. It is a standing rebuttal to those who argue patriotism of the heart necessarily needs enemies.

False Patriotism
Yet as bad money drives out good, two imposters have weakened the hold genuine patriotism has for many of us. Like tapeworms and other parasites, they masquerade as what they are not to take on a vitality they could never acquire on their own. And like other parasites they weaken their host. Too many of them can destroy it. And we suffer from a bad infestation of those who raise false patriotism above the real thing.

The first of these parasitical imposters is the “patriotism” of those Americans who exclude many of their fellow Americans from full membership in our country. It is exemplified in the Bush administrations seeking to eliminate attorneys from the Justice Dept. who did not share their politics in order to replace them with “good Americans.” It is the “patriotism” of the Pat Buchanans and Michelle Malkins, among others known and unknown, who exclude people they have never met and about whom they know nothing beyond their religion, ethnicity, or previous nationality. American patriotism for these people is not belief in our country’s founding principles, but rather belief in community homogeneity.

To return to my family analogy, it is as if membership in the family requires agreement among all, and those with different views are expelled. Attitudes like these shatter families and countries alike. Far from being evidence for either love of family or love of country, theconstitute narcissistic love of self expanded to include or reject all others based on such a narrow standard. Those who differ from my values or attitudes do not deserve fellowship with me. It narrows, embitters, and weakens a country because it reflects attitudes at odds with genuine love of country as well as human decency.

Bad as this third kind of “patriotism” is, it constitutes Enlightenment compared to the fourth. The most toxic of all, the fourth is simply love of power and domination over others tarted up in patriotic rhetoric. It is exemplified by Jonah Goldberg, editor of the “conservative” National Review Online (NRO) in his comment on April 23, 2002:

“I’ve long been an admirer of, if not a full-fledged subscriber to, what I call the “Ledeen Doctrine.” I’m not sure my friend Michael Ledeen will thank me for ascribing authorship to him and he may have only been semi-serious when he crafted it, but here is the bedrock tenet of the Ledeen Doctrine in more or less his own words: ‘Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.'”

This is the philosophy of the thug. The so-called “neo-conservatives” like Michael Ledeen, and the so-called “conservatives” like Goldberg who support them, exemplify this most subversive of patriotic poses. They glorify our country’s power while undermining the well-springs of that power. They are excitied by our capacity to impose our will and kill those who diagree. They argue the President is above the law, an American Caesar, and that the principles our country was founded on cannot withstand an attack by 19 Arab fanatics. “Everything has changed” they intone learnedly. Nor are they simply ideological hacks like Goldberg. They include some of our highest officials.

worst of all, these people use genuine patriotism to undermine itself, as when George Bush justified or attack on Iraq in the name of America’s democratic principles when the true reason was to seize control of oil regardless of the Iraqi people’s desires. The truth of his intentions came out when he stated we should plan to occupy Iraq for 50 years. Democratically speaking, a majority of Iraqis and a majority of Americans want us out.

Further, by claiming that patriotism is only genuine for those who support them, they split our nation, weakening it internally. They equate themselves with the country as a whole, the better to force their way on others.

Their true supporters can be found at the popular level when we encounter people like those proudly drive their high mileage SUVs, telling us with a mixture of belligerence and anger that they oppose fuel efficiency and prefer that Americans and Iraqis alike die in endless war so they do not have to sacrifice the sense of potency they obtain sitting over more horsepower than any one reasonably is likely to need. Not for is the smallest sacrifice to make American free from Middle Eastern and other despots. Nor do these “patriots” evidence much concern for our country’s founding principles when they cheer on those who trample them. These self-proclaimed “patriots” are the true base of the contemporary Republican Party.

This fourth kind of “patriotism” undermines first two and is ultimately unconcerned with the third. Those adhering to it are among our country’s most dangerous enemies. One of the saddest aspects of politics today is that so many well-meaning Americans still believe these people love their country.