Patriotism beyond flags and fanfare

I am a patriot. 

I don’t wear my patri­o­tism on my sleeve nor exhib­it it via a flag pin on my lapel. 

I don’t sing The Star-Spangled Banner on those occa­sions when the song is lilt­ed by a crowd, but that’s because I couldn’t car­ry a tune in a buck­et and I much pre­fer hear­ing oth­ers sing it rather than adding my voice to it. 

I don’t fly the flag at my home, but I rev­el in see­ing it fly else­where, espe­cial­ly when the wind bil­lows it to its full glo­ry or when a mul­ti­tude of small flags adorn the graves of vet­er­ans in our ceme­tery or are pro­lif­i­cal­ly dis­played all along Main Street. 

I hope I am not one of those exposed by Samuel Johnson when he com­ment­ed that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” 

It has been on occasion. 

And I don’t con­sid­er myself in the class defined by Oscar Wilde when he sug­gest­ed that “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” 

It has been on occasion. 

Maybe I’m a patri­ot more in the genre defined by Mark Twain. I think he was very much more accu­rate in describ­ing it thus­ly: “Patriotism is sup­port­ing your coun­try all the time, and your gov­ern­ment when it deserves it.” 

I revere the American Flag because I believe that it rep­re­sents the great­ness that America has occa­sion­al­ly been and its endur­ing promise for the future. But I weep when I see it dis­played for nefar­i­ous pur­pos­es by ultra­na­tion­al­ists who believe that America is only for white Christians or when maraud­ers attack our seat of gov­ern­ment in sup­port of a sin­gle indi­vid­ual and his lie that fraud deprived him of office. 

I am repelled when I see the flag used for adver­tis­ing pur­pos­es, when worn as a gar­ment, and when writ­ten phras­es are placed on it, because those seem to be cater­ing to the antithe­sis of patri­ot­ic attitudes. 

The three col­ors of our flag remind me that the merg­ing of mul­ti­ple col­ors is nec­es­sary to accom­plish some­thing great. So should a suc­cess­ful nation be a merg­ing of colors. 

I nev­er for­get that the flag is just cloth while remem­ber­ing that that cloth, though often tat­tered, led this coun­try to right­eous vic­to­ries and draped the cas­kets of those who nev­er sur­vived those same victories. 

Patriotism doesn’t need to be shout­ed from the rooftops. I’m past the time when I was often on rooftops any­way, and I sel­dom raise my voice to a shout any longer. 

Patriotism is the qui­et every­day activ­i­ty of every indi­vid­ual, whether he or she is American or some oth­er nation­al­i­ty, because patri­o­tism isn’t con­fined by bor­ders. It’s obey­ing the laws, pay­ing one’s right­ful tax­es, aid­ing one’s neigh­bors when they need it, and cher­ish­ing one’s fam­i­ly. Patriotism believes that vot­ing is not just a priv­i­lege; it’s a neces­si­ty because it is the most basic activ­i­ty that an indi­vid­ual can under­take in sup­port of governance. 

Patriotism doesn’t need flour­ish and fan­fare, just a qui­et rev­er­ence for jus­tice and fair­ness and, when nec­es­sary, a voice raised against the sub­ju­ga­tion of those virtues.