4th of July – The Carpetbagger Report

A couple of pieces on the holiday that I enjoyed:

You can be certain that on this, as on every July 4th, patriotic oratory will flow as well from liberals declaring their love of flag, country and the Declaration of Independence. Many will speak of how our constitutional republic is to be revered especially for its guarantees of liberty and justice for all and — hint, hint — limits on the powers of overreaching monarchs.

But the progressive and the reformer have a problem with what passes for unadulterated patriotism. By nature, the reformer is bound to insist that the country, however glorious, is not a perfect place, that it is capable of doing wrong as well as right. The nation that declared “all men are created equal” was, at the time those words were written, the home of an extensive system of slavery.

Most reformers guard their patriotic credentials by moving quickly to the next logical step: that the true genius of America has always been its capacity for self-correction. I’d assert that this is a better argument for patriotism than any effort to pretend that the Almighty has marked us as the world’s first flawless nation.

John Kerry:

I think patriotism starts with telling the truth. Truth is the American bottom line. I don’t think it’s an accident that among the first words of the first declaration of our national existence it is proclaimed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”.

Patriotism also means dissent — when it’s hardest. The bedrock of America’s greatest advances–the foundation of what we know today are defining values–was formed not by cheering on things as they were, but by taking them on and demanding change. […]

So, on this Fourth of July, the bottom line is that we will only be stronger if we reclaim America’s true character and strength — if we declare our independence from a politics that lets America down –if we truly commit ourselves to the big hearted patriotism determined “to ‘make it right’ and “keep it right” once again.

Happy 4th, everyone.

Another oldie but goodie from three years ago…

In 1816, Stephan Decatur proposed the ultimate toast to nationalism: “Our country, right or wrong!” American patriotism refutes this sentiment by emending it. Speaking against the extension of “Manifest Destiny” into the Philippines in 1899, Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri said, “Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.” What we need today are a few more patriots.

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Unlike American nationalism, American patriotism is unique. The United States of America is “the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed . . . set forth with almost dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence,” wrote a British observer, G.K. Chesterton, in 1922. Expanding the compass of natural law in the famous phrase “all men are created equal,” the founders extended the people’s inalienable rights from safety alone to liberty and equality. As summed up in the nation’s motto, E pluribus unum (“out of many, one”), this creed is universal, not parochial. It does not read, “All Americans are created equal.” To the extent that the United States betrays it own ideals, American patriotism holds the nation under judgment.

When established as national writ, “All men are created equal” excluded both women and slaves. The first feminist manifesto (written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848) invoked the Declaration of Independence. In condemning the curse of slavery, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln did the same. Expressing his dream, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. looked “forward to the day that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.” From the outset of our history, American patriots have challenged the nation to tune its actions to the key of its ideals. In his 1944 study of American racism, the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal described U.S. history as “the gradual realization of the American Creed.”

We flirt with forgetting two central aspects of our history. The United States is built on a foundation of belief, not on a foundation of skepticism. And it is by our actions, not our words, that this foundation of belief will be justified or betrayed. “An almost chosen people” (in Lincoln’s words), we demonstrate our greatness not by force of might or by virtue of our economic dominance, but through rigorous moral endeavor, ever striving to remake ourselves in the image of our ideals. When we have approached true greatness, we have been great not because we were strong but because we were good. Fidelity to our national creed remains challenging, but it invests our nation with spiritual purpose and — if we honor its precepts — a moral destiny.

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Iraq aside, not only does the impulse of American nationalism isolate the United States and turn others against us, it rescinds our nation’s greatest gift. As the world’s leaders struggle to act together — whether to slow global warming, ban land mines, combat racism, or create an International Criminal Court — the president of the United States is conspicuously absent. We have isolated ourselves from the very councils we are charged, by both power and principle, to lead. At a time when E pluribus unum — however idealistic, however difficult to accomplish — is becoming the world’s motto, the United States, whose founders gave this vision as a gift to the world, increasingly stands alone.

What a lost opportunity this represents. Recognizing their own tears in American eyes, people throughout the world expressed unprecedented sympathy for our nation in the wake of 9/11. President Jacques Chirac of France proclaimed, “We are all Americans now.” Today even America is divided against itself. To have squandered both the world’s affection and the united spirit of our citizenry in little more than a year represents a tragic triumph of American nationalism over American patriotism. We need a few more patriots.

http://www.uuworld.org/2003/01/commentary.html