"When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart."
           –Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1824

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
           –George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

         I'm sick and tired of the way the words "patriotism" and "patriotic" get misused, especially by conservative pundits and talk show hosts.  The fact that they speak louder and faster than anyone else doesn't make them any more patriotic, or correct, for that matter, than anybody else.  Just because someone dissents from current administration policy doesn't make him or her unpatriotic–that's idiotic.  These folks are confusing the word "patriotic" with a new word: "partyotic."  Partyotic is where you support everything your particular political party does, no matter whether it's legal or moral, or no matter how it actually effects the country as a whole or the rest of the world.  This is not actually "patriotic," because it puts party ahead of country.  It assumes that, if your party is in control, then what the leaders of your country are doing must be right.  No less than Teddy Roosevelt said, "To announce that there be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public." This particular behavior is not the exclusive property of either party, although I must say that conservative Republicans are by far the largest offenders.  Democrats, by their nature, tend to argue more with each other, and are less inclined to fall in lockstep with their party.  This, perversely, is one of the Republican Party's strengths.
          Patriotism is a love of one's country, and the principals that one's country stands for.  These principals aren't fluid, depending upon who happens to occupy the White House.  I've listened to Rush Limbaugh for many, many years, since he was a local guy on Sacramento radio.  In the eight years that Bill Clinton was president, I never heard him even one time say that Bill Clinton was right about anything.  These talk show hosts are also confusing "patriotism" with another word: jingoism.  Jingoism is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy."  This word was first used just before the turn of the 20th century to describe the young and virile United States flexing its muscles against the tottering Spanish regime.  In another piece of flexible history, the United States claimed that the Spanish, or an agent of theirs, blew up the battleship Maine as she docked in Havana, Cuba, in 1898.  A more recent examination of the facts has revealed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the explosion was caused by an accident in the ammunition magazine.  This didn't stop our excitable press from whipping up the nation in a jingoistic fury against the now-hated Spaniards, and, led by Mr. Jingo himself, Assistant Secretary of the Navy and soon-to-be President Teddy Roosevelt, we taught those nasty Spaniards a lesson and got ourselves a trio of fine colonies in the bargain, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.  Jingoism is what went on in our country during the run-up to the Iraqi War and its first two years.
          Jingoism was fabricating a hero named Jessica Lynch and filming a dramatic staged rescue presented in "night-vision" neo-realism.  Jingoism was making a sham out of a real hero's funeral.
          Pat Tillman was a professional football player who forsook guaranteed millions of dollars from the NFL to voluntarily enlist in the army.  He didn't take a desk job, either.  He went right into the heart of battle, doing a tour first in Iraq, and then moving on to Afghanistan in the spring of 2004.  He was tragically killed in Afghanistan in a friendly fire accident.  The administration, mired at the time in the Abu Ghraib scandal, saw a chance to divert attention away from that mess and onto a real hero in the person of Pat Tillman.  They held a huge, televised memorial service, which would have been fine, except for one thing.  The army neglected to tell Pat's parents, or anyone, for that matter, that Pat was killed by friendly fire until after the memorial service.  They made the troops that were with him swear to secrecy and they made up a story about how he was killed by enemy fire leading his men up a hill.  I guess they figured that the truth would've made Pat look like less of a hero, and they needed one badly at that moment.  "Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," said Mary Tillman, Pat's mother in her first lengthy interview since her son's death.  "The military let him down.  The administration let him down.  It was a sign of disrespect.  The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic.  The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
          It has also come to light that Pat Tillman was no fan of the Bush Administration, or the war in Iraq. The well-read athlete thought he had signed up to go after bin-Laden in Afghanistan and was quoted by several of his closest army buddies as believing that the Iraq war was illegal. His mother confirmed that Tillman had also made arrangements to meet one of his favorite authors, the left-wing MIT professor Noam Chomsky, when he came home. Noam Chomsky is viewed by many on the right as the antichrist; when Ann Coulter heard this about her 'masculine manly hero' Pat Tillman, she simply refused to believe it.
          If a person wasn't jingoistic about this administration's foreign policy in the wake of 9/11, then they were deemed to be unpatriotic.  This was hogwash then, and it remains hogwash today.  The people of this country, left and right, truly were patriotic in the days and weeks following the 9/11 tragedies.  President Bush had the broad support of all but the very outer fringe of the American people, and much of the world.  When it was determined that Osama bin-Laden was behind the attacks, and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan wouldn't turn him over to the Americans, a forceful and determined George Bush made the decision to go after bin-Laden in Afghanistan, toppling the Taliban in the process.  The overwhelming majority of people in this country, myself included, whether they differed on exactly how or to what extent it was done, were in agreement with this move.  Our country was attacked, and we had a legitimate right to go after the people who did it.  It was also legitimate to at least bring up the point that maybe we should at least look at what we might have done that would cause these fanatics to do something as horrible as this.  Anyone who had the nerve to do so was roundly shouted down, their patriotism severely questioned, and their political affiliation determined to be to the left of Stalin.
          Nonetheless, at this point, there was the real possibility that out of the ashes of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon would come a true coalition of concerned nations with the common goal of working together to solve the problem of international terrorism.  This was a new kind of enemy, slippery and elusive, and massive military force would not be as effective as shared intelligence, coordinated international police efforts, covert operations, and a global shutdown of the terrorist funding pipeline.
          Unfortunately, previous to 9/11, the United States had embarked on a unilateralist agenda marked by the repudiation or opting-out of several important, widely supported multilateral treaty frameworks, including the Kyoto Protocol, the ABM treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Ottawa convention banning the production, trade, and use of antipersonnel land mines, the Biological Weapons Convention, the refusal to attend the World Conference on Racism, and my personal favorite, non-participation in the International Criminal Court, a court that we were signatory to creating, in 1998.  And now the Bush administration needed the very international cooperation that it hitherto had worked so hard to throw in the trashcan.
          The real chasm between patriotic and partyotic, between patriotism and jingoism, came in the run-up to the 2nd Gulf War. President Bush's War on Terror now took him to Iraq.  To anyone who bothered to delve any further than the colored boxes on the front of USA Today, this was a curious choice.  Iraq's economy was in ruins, thanks to the decade long sanctions insisted on and imposed by the United States and Great Britain.  The pounding that it took in Gulf War I had reduced its army to a mere shell of its former self.  It's dictator, Saddam Hussein, was a classic bully–mean and cruel to his own people, but by his very cruelty had managed to keep the three distinct ethnic religious groups stuck together, not unlike Tito in Yugoslavia.  Hussein had become like one of the Banana Republic dictators of Latin America–a repressive killer of his own people, but nothing more than a nuisance to the countries around him.  The truth is, the Iraq of 2003 might have been able to beat Lebanon in a war, but that's about the only country in the area that couldn't have handled them one-on one.
          Being patriotic doesn't mean you have to fly a 15-foot flag off of your front porch, or stand at attention and dab a tear from your eye every time you hear Lee Greenwood sing, "I'm Proud To Be An American," or wear a flag lapel pin, or agree with your country's decision to go to war.  It doesn't even mean you have to support your country's policies once they are at war.  G.K. Chesterton said it best: " 'My country right or wrong' is like saying 'my mother drunk or sober.'” 
         "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. "          
             –Thomas Jefferson

          One of the great things about our country is that we are endowed with the right of dissent.  We are a nation founded upon dissent.  If our citizens hadn't rebelled against the authority of the British Crown, our history would obviously be very different.  When a government starts to make its citizens believe that to oppose its decisions is somehow unpatriotic then we've started down the road to repression.  We've been down that road in this country before, in times of war.
          In 1798, Congress passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts, which among other things gave the President (John Adams) the right to expel any foreigner he considered "dangerous."  Also, in clear violation of the First Amendment, it made any "False, scandalous, and malicious" writing against the government, Congress or the President a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment.  Most of those punished were Jeffersonian editors.
          During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed military tribunals to try civilians outside war zones.  While there was damage to civil liberties, Lincoln took great pains to mitigate the excessive actions of his subordinates.
          The most infamous example of the repression of free speech came during the administration of Woodrow Wilson during World War I.  People were arrested and given long jail sentences for even uttering any discouraging words about the war.  Citizens were encouraged to spy on their neighbors, and turn them in to the authorities if they heard anything unpatriotic, all in the name of morale.
          President Franklin Roosevelt made Freedom of Speech one of the Four Freedoms he promised the world after World War II, but the internment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during the war is one of the darker episodes pertaining to civil liberties in the history of our nation.
          Free speech and the right to dissent was probably the determining factor in the ending of the Vietnam War and the decision of Lyndon Johnson not to seek a second term as President.  The release of classified government documents called the Pentagon Papers and the Supreme Court's upholding of the legality of publishing them even though it was certain to affect the war effort was a major victory in history of American dissent.

          I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads "Peace Is Patriotic." A small statement, not too radical, harmless enough.  I can't tell you how many Christians have snickered at that bumper sticker, mainly in good fun, but with the attitude of "that's just Brent–the village lefty!"  I take that for the compliment that it wasn't intended to be.
          Part of my motive for writing this book is to try and find out why, for many Christians, "Peace Is Patriotic" is a funny, silly thing to put on a car.  We believe in the Prince of Peace, we try to emulate His ways in everything we do. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God."  I've had Christians say to me, "Well, yeah, but that's not what He meant."  What, then, exactly, did He mean?  It seems that many Christians have a New Testament-style view of their personal lives, but take an Old Testament view of our nation's place in the world.  I'm not sure that we're supposed to hop back and forth as it's convenient, depending on the circumstances.  Similarly, it seems to me that many Christians use Jesus when they want to talk about concepts of love, peace, forgiveness, tolerance, loving one's enemies, and inclusiveness; on the other hand, they invoke God when it comes to vengeance, war, violence, wrath, and, sadly, patriotism.  It just surprises me that so many Christians line up so solidly behind war.  Let me be clear, I'm not talking about supporting soldiers.  I'm talking about war itself. I hear so many Christians, as they're shaking their heads, say, "I don't like war. It's terrible, but it's the price we must pay for our freedom," or words to that effect.
          The Bush Administration has done a good job of embedding the concept in many Americans' heads that the War in Iraq is actually a war being fought for our freedom, or on alternate days, for the Iraqi people's freedom.  I might be more persuaded if they said that this was a war being fought to protect our freedom of movement, being addicted to gasoline like we are, or our freedom of trade, as we continually seek to remake the world in our economic image.  The last war we actually fought for our freedom was World War II.  And I hate to tell you this, but we are already more than paying our share.  The United States spent $466 billion dollars on military expenditures in 2004.  The rest of the world, combined, spent $500 billion.  We outspent the next closest nation, China, by over SEVEN-TO-ONE!  To be fair, as a percentage of our GDP (around 4%), the number becomes more digestible.  The U.S. has over 700 military bases in over 90 countries.  On the high seas, the United States possesses nine "supercarrier" battle groups.  The rest of the world has none.  In the air, we have three different kinds of stealth aircraft.  The rest of the world has none.  What, or who are we afraid of again?  We're afraid of appearing weak to other nations?  Even as we, on the one hand, are strongly discouraging any nation that doesn't already possess nuclear weapons not to even TRY and develop them, to the point of threatening economic sanctions or even military action, we, on the other hand, continue to develop and test ever more modern and powerful weapons of mass destruction. Why are we doing this? Is this our God-given right? Are we getting ready to take on the whole world? It puzzles me as a Christian what my reaction to this should be.  It makes me sad, but it doesn't make me proud.

This whole spiel is typical, Liberal, America-bashing. You really hate your country that much?

          I don't hate my country.  I truly love the United States of America.  It is our government, especially the last one, that I take strong issue with.  One of the many great things about this country is our right to find fault with our leaders, and say so if we choose.  This is a right that many of the peoples across the world still don't have.  Sure, I don't like what this administration has done in foreign policy, but what has been revealed to me through investigation and study is that this foreign policy is really just a continuum of eleven administrations since WWII, five Democratic and six Republican.  I want this policy to be known, because with knowledge comes the power to make intelligent, informed decisions, based on what is morally right.  We can't just blindly accept what our government tells us.  Our government should reflect the will of its people, but the problem with this is "the people" only get about half of the story at any given moment.

It says in the Bible that we should support our leaders, you know, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and "Submit to the governing authorities...etc." in Romans.

          I believe that we should follow the laws that our government has made, pay taxes when they are owed, and pray for the people who have the grave responsibility of making decisions that put lives at risk.  But I don't think this means blindly following our leaders like lemmings over a cliff.  I'm sure that the leaders of Nazi Germany would have liked the priests and pastors of the German churches to quote this scripture to their faithful, and I wonder what the church leadership's position should have been?  After all, many good people were not in a position to have access to the information that we know now or even that some of the people knew then.  Propaganda being what it was in Germany at the time, there was definitely only one side of the story being told.  So, many people either didn't want to believe the rumors, or buried their collective heads in the sand, not wanting, or more likely, too afraid to get involved.  The German people were by and large intelligent and industrious; their composers, philosophers and scientists rivaled any in the world.  The German people certainly thought of themselves as a Good People; this they transferred to the Nation as a whole.  I honestly don't know what Scripture has to say about following leaders like these, except that we should follow Jesus before we follow any man.
          There was dissent in Philadelphia during the writing of the Declaration of Independence and at the Constitutional Convention.  There was a great deal of dissent in the early years of our nation between the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, who favored States Rights.  Dissent has been part and parcel to the healthiness of this country since before its inception; it is one of the things that keep us from becoming an authoritarian dictatorship.  Dissent is not slander; dissent is not partisan attacks based on nothing more than party politics.  Dissent is intelligent disagreement with the current policy or policies of your government.
          On February 15th, 2003, just before the United States of America attacked the nation of Iraq, tens of millions of demonstrators in six hundred cities across the globe marched in opposition to this coming war.  George W. Bush's response to the largest demonstration of any kind in the history of the known world? "I don't listen to focus groups."