Am I A Patriot?

Am I A Patriot?  15 July 2024

Most of this was written before the awful assassination attempt this weekend, which makes this topic, though not necessarily this essay, all the more relevant, as our loyalties and our subsequent actions are magnified. We are all of us responsible for the health and demeanor of our democracy.

The 4th of July, of course, always raises this patriotic question for me. Am I a patriot?

I love the 4th of July in Montreat. I love its wholesome small town-ness. The firetruck, kids and dogs in the parade. People greeting friends like the opening airport scene in Love Actually. The hog-calling, hula hoop and greasy pole contests. The barn dance moved onto the tennis courts because of the crowds.

But I get bogged down with the flag raising because I associate the flag with the Pledge of Allegiance. I love our flag! I don’t love the pledge.

There’s the whole ‘under God’ thing which begs the Establishment Clause question, but God means different things to different people anyway, so I don’t sweat that. I’m troubled by pledging allegiance to a Republic that claims to have liberty and justice for all. The pledge is stated as allegiance to something that already exists. And that Republic does not exist, has never existed. It would be more honest to be like the citizens of Springfield in The Simpsons, whose sign read: with liberty and justice for most.

I do pledge allegiance to the promise of America, to the ideals of America, to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for each citizen, to a system of governance of checks and balances, to respect for institutions and those in positions of authority and to holding those leaders accountable to the people. I will continue to critique our system until each citizen can enjoy those rights. Is that good enough? That feels patriotic to me.

In Steven Van Zandt’s song I Am a Patriot he writes:

I am a patriot/And I love my county/ Because my country is all I know
I want to be with my family/ People who understand me/ I've got nowhere else to go

He lists all the things that he’s not: communist, capitalist, socialist, imperialist, democrat, republican and then sings: I only know one party and it’s freedom: I am a patriot.

So yes, I am a patriot. I am a non-partisan patriot.

Van Zandt’s lyrics are simple but important. His love of country stems from what he knows (and values) about his culture and his family. Those things shape our personality, our actions, our beliefs and yes, our loyalty.

In a recent episode of the podcast Wisdom from the Top, Guy Raz interviewed David Epstein about his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. It’s a fascinating listen, and I was especially intrigued when the discussion turned to behavioral traits. Epstein paraphrases a finding in the field of behavioral genetics to explain.

Every behavior has a genetic component, it’s just a question of how large it is. So, I would say from the standpoint of a something, a personality characteristic, like curiosity: genetics influences everything and determines basically nothing.

Genetics are important and influential but not deterministic. Which led me to ponder what other foundations do we sometimes, falsely, proclaim as deterministic when in reality they are merely influential?

Political and religious affiliations, certainly, try to exert a deterministic allegiance to the party/denominational platform. In the interest of simplifying complicated problems, we look to such stringent either/or formulations to provide stability. But the world is so very, very not black and white.

I live in a hyper patriotic culture, which generally has no room for nuance, and which increasingly veers toward nationalism. These are very different things.  As Sydney J. Harris wrote in 1982:

“Patriotism is proud of a country’s virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country’s virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, the greatest, but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.”

These days I hear too much about Making America Great, and too little about making America good.

In 1998, Bruce Bawer published the book, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity. The ensuing quarter century has only seen further widening and entrenchment. In similar fashion the political Right, with the blessing of many Christians, has stolen patriotism.

I believe that citizens have a right to own guns. And I believe that gun owners should have training and guns should be registered, and that there are obvious reasons (history of mental instability, domestic violence, criminal behavior) that some people should be denied weapons. What NRA score would I get?

I believe in reproductive freedom and women having access to legal abortion, and I also believe that the death penalty is barbaric and serves no deterrent value, and I aspire to pacifism. Am I pro-life?

I believe that America is a land of immigrants and that we should welcome people who want to come help build the American dream of equal opportunity for all. And I believe we should enforce the border, determine asylum cases much quicker, offer consistent rules for deportation and a clear pathway to citizenship. So, am I hard or soft on immigration?

The people who complete the rigorous process to become naturalized citizens (speaking, reading, writing and civics tests) are much more knowledgeable about the history, principles, and form of government of the United States than, say, most American high school graduates. I believe our schools should welcome all students and teach the truth, including and especially the shameful parts, about our founding and history. Denying it ensures that we repeat our failures.

I am humbled by the courage and selflessness of police officers and support them whole-heartedly; and, there is clear, long-documented evidence of abuse, racism and discrimination within police forces across every state.

I am not the only one floundering in this complex middle ground of common sense, decency, difficult trade-offs and varying visions for the American dream. A lot of you are here in the middle with me. We’re tired, exhausted really, of political parties, religious leaders, loud-mouth social media trolls, enemy governments, and fear-mongering media voices sowing discord by insisting that every issue has only two extreme sides when the vast majority of people can see that there are miles of middle ground separating those poles. The insistence of a false simplicity only serves to deepen our distrust of the very people proclaiming it.

I struggle with pledging allegiance to a flag that is standing for the Republic as a whole, because the whole is not a finished product.  If the pledge were to the ideals of America, to our work in progress and to what we strive to become, then maybe I could pledge allegiance to that flag. But maybe not.

Because here’s my real rub.

In good conscience, I can only pledge my allegiance (and really, it’s my backsliding loyalty, my always falling short fidelity, my trying to do the best I can self) to God. And I only dare that because I trust in God’s mercy and steadfast love. This is cringy earnestness, I know, and believe me I’d rather not be one to take everything so freaking seriously, but this is my truth.

Here’s how I think of it: I am an American Christian. My primary allegiance is to my faith, and my nationality is a descriptor to distinguish among other Christians around the world. Similarly, there are American Buddhists and American Jews and American Atheists. This is the nation of liberty and justice for all that our pledge seeks to confirm. This is why I don’t want government flags in religious buildings.

I’m not a Christian American. This would put the nation as my highest allegiance, and that too easily slides into Christian Nationalism—which seeks to establish America as a nation with a dominant Christian moral and cultural order. In religious terms, this is heresy. In political terms, this is anti-democratic. This is why I don’t want religious symbols in government buildings.

I’m a follower of Jesus first.

I’m a true believer and fierce supporter of the on-going and not yet fulfilled American experiment second. Far from being a country that needs to look back wistfully to some non-existent glory days, we must double-down our commitment to create the perfect union. 

I am a patriot.

"Sometimes being a good Christian meant being a bad Roman. So before you accuse people of being unpatriotic, ask yourself which empire they're actually serving." --Stephen Mattson