What is Patriotism?
Wait. Stop. Silence the sound of snare drums in your head. Put away the image of a bald eagle. Place to the side, for one just one moment, the American flag. This country was not founded to protect the bald eagle. It was not founded to defend the snare drum. And the American flag in its fully modern form has not been in existence for even half a century.
The snare drums, the bald eagle, the American flag are not what defines patriotism. They are symbols meant to allude to an abiding loyalty to something more fundamental than a drum, a bird or a piece of cloth. But loyalty to what?
Every President, every member of the United States Senate, every member of the House of Representatives takes a binding Oath of Office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Not to support and defend the people. All the people living in the United States of America are going to die sooner or later; there’s no defense against that. The United States of America is not defined by its particular people, since they come and go.
Not to support and defend the land lying within the borders of this country. The land itself has been here for billions of years, and will go on for billions of years more with or without the help of Presidents, Senators and Representatives. The United States of America has not been consistently defined by its borders; they have changed in the past and may change again in the future without changing the central character that defines America and American patriotism.
The Constitution of the United States. Every President, Senator, and Representative swears a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States is the test of patriotism. It defines America. It presents the central ideas of Americanism. Love of this nation, and patriotic defense of this nation, are built around the founding document of our constitution.
It is this aim — the support and defense of the United States Constitution — that Progressive Patriots is organized to pursue.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Greg Urban // Jun 12, 2008 at 11:35 am
A most complete, lucid, and sensible definition of Patriotism I have ever had the pleasure to see. Thank you for the clarity and perception you have and shared; (I wish there was a author listed).
The use of the word Patriot in that vile act is a real problem as I see it.
Those self serving professional political office grubbers like G.W. Bush and his minions like Dick, the back room, Cheney manipulator know how to lie. While appearing to serve the nation they manipulate and arrange to deceive the people for their own selfish goals. They call it spin.
Spin, in the classical sense, is the term used to describe the angular motion of the earth or a top or a vortex, as it forces matter to move around an axis. In the case of the earth or a top the object is provided angular momentum and due to the conservation of momentum it continues to rotate until another force degrades it. For a vortex, like a dust devil or whirlpool, the air or the water gains energy and forms a spinning mass. The creation of whirls are a natural process which occurs when there is a pressure or temperature difference in the fluid.
The swirl of a toilet flush is not a normal effect of water drop, it is instead an engineered effect. Toilet flush water
is purposely sent into the bowl at an angle so to cause the swirl and help move waste down the pipe. That way the waste can be quickly disposed of with little effort.
Political spin like the toilet flush is also engineered and is not a natural process. Naturally people want to know what is happening in the world around them and seek out news. They trust the news outlets. But todays warped political mentality seek to cloud truthful news with diversive half truths and implied false facts. This deflection of truth is not new, just given a new label, and given a larger importance in Bush’s administration. This current diversion is a product of a righteous attitude and ego maniacal conceit and self-vanity. It seeks to distract and divert people from the truth while turning attention and insinuate falsehoods instead.
The most egregious and damning twisting of truth is the case for war against Iraq. Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Bush used a “political propaganda campaign” to sell the Iraq war. The Bush administration “set up a massive political operation that was aimed at really continuing (his) governing (by) going out and shaping and manipulating the narrative in the media (to serve his own ends). That is not twisting the truth or spinning a tale, it is attacking the nation. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson exposed Bush’s lie that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium then Bush got back at him for telling the truth. He or his back room helper arranged the disclosure of his wife as a covert agent for the CIA. Bush came out vowing that he would find out who compromised our nations security, but then when Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted, Bush immediately commuted his sentence.
“This administration is corrupt to the core,” Wilson told NPR. “I would only hope that Americans now realize, with this subversion of our system of justice and the rule of law in this country, just exactly how corrupt they are. “”This was an act of betrayal of the national security of the country,” but they just kept spewing lies and deceit for their own good and to payback the campaign backers. The hijacking of truth and honesty by righteous egotists who profit from their elected position and allow thousands to be killed for the benefit of a corporate sector is a criminal act of the highest degree.
Camouflaging a data collection on American citizens and making the fact that data is being collected secret has nothing at all to do with Patriotism. Secrets are things like the identity of covert agents; however we know the value that bush places on that. Twisted secrets are what we are seeing now. Perverted secret collection on any and all people who may or may not have anything to do with overthrowing the corrupt regime. Making a list of “Enemies of the State” or “terrorist” or “political opponents” is the same thing when everything is secret. There is no way to know to what degree a brown shirted goose stepping politically appointed intelligence officer would go if his actions are secret. The only thing that is truly secret is that the originators of the Patriot Act are enemies of the people of a free nation. All the rest is a spin they put on that underlying fact in order to deflect discussion. That is why Bush is putting emphasis on the symbols of the nation like the flag and the eagle. He can not allow anyone challenge his Patriotism or he would be found very lacking.
In his own words “Stop throwing the constitution in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece of paper” So much for his oath “I do solemnly swear…to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic”. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper. Where is the Patriotism in that deceleration? In his act and effort and organization the only thing that is consistent is his arrogance disregard for all opinions not his own. The vortex that we find ourself in today of spiraling inflation, housing crisis, and collapsing manufacturing is no accident. It is a result of the Bush plan to pay back his friends and contributers. In his eight years he has done more to harm the nation then ever seen and he instilled a diversive practice of degrading and twisting words and icons of the nation. He has taken political haggling from a open debate to be a secret list and jail for anyone who disagrees with him.
lying is an ingrained entrenched philosophy of operation for politics in the capital. It is not the spin, it is the lies that they conceal which must be flushed from our culture and politics. God bless Barak Obama and I hope he is bringing a big plunger to the party.
2 Virginia Kreitling // Aug 6, 2008 at 9:53 am
America was founded as a nation of laws, not of men and the Constitution is the highest law of the country. I was priviledged to go through the books on the writing of our Constitution recommended on Senator Durbin’s website under the link “education” and I read all of them and really got a lesson in how our country works, or how it should work. The Constitution is the work of truly great men and it has provided the base on which all our other laws stand; it has proven to be a wise counseller to those who run our country and assume great power and it has protected us from corrupt officials who would turn our Republic into an oligarchy. Unfortunately, in recent years, we have allowed the Constitution to be violated by corrupt men who are only interested in their own advancement and power. If this is to be changed and America is to return to its rightful place has a world leader, we will have to work to see that our constitutional rights are respected by our government and that we once again become a country of laws, not of men.
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