A HIGHER PATRIOTISM

February is the birth month of four presidents of the United States of America. Two perennial days of patriotic remembrance, in February, had formerly been established, specifically, for two of our finest leaders, President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln. Fifty years ago, in 1971, those two days were consolidated into one ‘Presidents’ Day’ which now has morphed into just a three-day national weekend and sort of a mid-winter secular thanksgiving day with a slightly patriotic residual.    

President Ronald Reagan’s birthday also falls in February and can be rightly honored. February is also the birth month of perhaps our least-known and least effective president, William Henry Harrison, whose presidency ended on April 4, 1841, only 31 days after it had begun (he died of pneumonia). The record shows that he did not have or make his time in office productive or do anything noteworthy that would put him into the esteemed company of the other three presidents who the more patriotic among us honor this month.

As mentioned, usually and rightfully Americans have begun the new year for many decades in separate holidays which acknowledged and celebrated  our two finest presidents.  We now, in the interest of ‘political correctness’ (by liberal definition) and merchandising convenience, have combined these two birthdays into one ‘Presidents’ Day.’ We also have included on the calendar this month the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., not a president, but a good man who was highly influential in promoting in a peaceful way the legitimate goal of human rights for all Americans. We have to balance these things, you know.

Beyond these few exceptional individuals we also express, usually in greater measure, our patriotic sentiments each year on Independence Day (and in likewise manner combined with it the establishment and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, into what most Americans simply call ‘the 4^th of July’, none of which, incidentally, occurred precisely on 4 July). By further extension we tie in Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day to our remembrances of the events and groups of brave citizens who we honor with our patriotic [dictionary definition of ‘patriot’: “one who loves his country”] songs, gatherings, picnics, and related celebrations.

All of these acknowledgements respectfully tie in with the patriot’s gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans—many of which were paid for at great expense, in sacrifice, in blood, and even in death.

And so we see there is a traditional dimension of patriotism which is part of the American character tied up in red, white, and blue, in coming together of families and communities, in speeches and in stirring music. And these are good things.

But patriotism also has its higher and lower dimensions of expression.

As an example of the latter, there are those who drive around their communities in their pickup trucks with an American Flag and/or a ‘Trump for President’ flag flapping in the back, even after a new president has been sworn in, thinking, I guess, that they are doing something patriotic. Perhaps. Even more distorted, in my mind, are those who think that joining a white ‘supremist’ group,or participating and training in a para-military ‘army’ make them elite patriots. I differ with that thinking and suggest there are higher and more appropriate considerations for patriotic expression.

I take the patriotic hymn “America the Beautiful” as an example and as expressive of higher dimensions of patriotism we would do well to consider. Carefully read or listen to the lyrics.  I will treat a few of them in this essay.

The lyric phrase in that song that says, “the patriot dream that sees beyond the years,” was commented on by one of America’s finest patriots of the 20^th Century. Neal A. Maxwell, said of that song: “It reminds us of the special perspective that patriotism possesses. True patriotism takes the long view of this nation’s needs.” I have gained much from Mr. Maxwell’s astute observations of patriotism.

With few exceptions the political perspective of our leaders of recent times has been much foreshortened; it has been on attacking others who have not gone along with their political views or ambitions; it has been forgetting the lessons of our history as a nation and our involvement in well-intentioned, but in some cases misdirected wars to protect us from what was perceived as immanent danger or the erosions of our freedom under law. It has been stagnating partisanship instead of bipartisan efforts at E Pluribus Unum.

It has been on throwing out our traditional (conservative) moral standards and safeguards in favor of promoting directly or tacitly the agenda of the iconoclast, the lawbreakers, and the deviant minorities among us at the expense of the decent and the innocent and yet unborn—the most innocent being the aborted human beings who were deprived of all human rights—even the right of their own lives. Not only do ‘black lives matter,’ a true patriot believes ‘all lives matter.’ It has, as well, contributed greatly to the angst and depression and existentialism of those who are the younger generation who will have to pay the price of our prodigality.

Therefore, the farsightedness of our founding fathers, the bravery and heroism of those in uniform (true patriots, I believe will ‘Back the Blue’), the contributions of those who wrote the laws which were based upon Constitutional and religious standards and restraints have been diminished at the expense of those who have championed ‘toleration’ and ‘rights’(?), as they stridently demand, to do what used to be called “their own thing” regardless of how egregious that behavior might be, or collect unearned ‘government benefits’ at the expense of other people who are paying their bills. Giving all people a decent chance, or even a second chance is, of course, the right thing to do, but it should not give the able-bodied or able-minded a free ride throughout life. A self-labeled patriot, like all Americans, need to do all they can to further their own righteous agenda without treading on the rights of others which gives patriotism a bad name.

A higher patriotism is more, though, than paying taxes or simply abiding by the laws of the land, more than saluting the flag or voting or even saying with conviction the pledge of allegiance “to…the United States of America” rather than some foreign country. Of course it includes these things. Patriotism requires an educated public, and growing from it a public participation in productive endeavors that unite us rather than separate us from one another.

I also bring your attention to those words in “America the Beautiful” that urges us to “confirm thy soul in self-control.”  How self-controlled are our self-proclaimed gun-toting “patriots,” and more our non-patriots, who pull down statues, who taunt the police and loot and burn cites, who rewrite our history in their own agnostic image or who try to skew our political system to the historically failed or tyrannical systems of many countries in Europe or Asia or the Middle East?  Those who have a lack of self-control contribute to our nation’s devastating drug problem, growing crime, and in a large measure to our problem of homelessness by demanding entitlements to reclaim a life of bad decisions. A lack of self-control historically has brought upon those who do not have it severe external controls, or will to our society anarchy if it gets the upper hand.

The place to develop self-control is in healthy families, but families are failing because far too many parents have failed—failed to keep their marriage commitments “through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” Parents who have failed to nurture their children by being with them and teaching them and loving them, failed to understand that child-care, or schools, or television, or cell-phones, or even grandparents are no substitute for the sacrifice parents must make to show children they love them and expect good things of them. School teachers, entertainment ‘personalities,’ even police are no substitute for failure in the home.    

Other lyrics of that wonderfully patriotic hymn “America the Beautiful” include the phrase that America should be “crowned with brotherhood,” but we have increasing separatism in class structure, in race relations, in economic parity, in educational attainment, in those who feel left out of the American Dream. Fortunately we still have churches who welcome people of every circumstance into their fold to rekindle a hope of a hopeful future for all of God’s children, not just those who have been born into privilege or assumed an attitude of entitlement. If the parishioners implore God to “mend our every flaw” as the song implores, we must believe in the “mender.” We must build on a spiritual foundation and we must work; and we must do as Abraham Lincoln said in a tragic and different context but which express the same principles:

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here [Gettysburg, 1864] have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

A patriot does that. A true patriot must have a disciplined conscience and be obedient to that conscience and believe that virtue must reside in himself, not just in the leaders.

A higher patriotism requires that those who consider themselves to have responsibility to such a conscience understand, as stated by one of our founding fathers, our second president, John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The patriot must demonstrate that “moral and religious” in their interactions with all people. More legislation or executive orders or even further amendment to our divinely inspired Constitution will not “mend our every flaw,” which are many, unless we begin the task of mending ourselves, and our families, and our communities, and then trust in God to make up the difference as we continue to make our best efforts.

The strands of our moral fiber are more-and-more being stressed and frayed by those—and the number is increasing—who have no patriotic sentiments or moral foundation for their lives, and our nation will not long endure without it. We cannot endure as a nation, as a people, with God’s blessing upon us with hostility to or indifference to or ignorance of the inspired principles upon which this nation, “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” was founded.

 

I end on the sober note expressed by John Stuart Mill, not a founding father, or a conventionally religious man, but a wise man who, I think, God raised up to influence a back-sliding nation as America would be in the early years of the 21^st Century:

“A people may prefer free government but if from indolence or carelessness or cowardice or want of public spirit they are unequal to the exertion necessary for the preserving it; if they will not fight for it if it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if they by momentary discouragement or by temporary panic or by a fit of enthusiasm by an individual they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man or trust him with powers which will enable him to subvert their institutions; in all of these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty, and though it may be that for their own good they have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.”

President George Washington in his Farewell Address likewise counseled us thusly:

        “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man would claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, the firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician along with even the pious man ought to respect and cherish them.”

Let us resolve, therefore, and this year, to develop a higher patriotism, for we will need it in the perilous and portentous days that will surely confront us in the days ahead.

God bless America, and help us mend our every flaw.