After reading Kino's diary on Lisa Schiffrin's latest comments on "Patriotism for Kids," I couldn't resist the temptation to drop Schiffrin an email. After all, I'm getting pretty tired of right-wing efforts to control what counts as patriotism in America, especially when the "My Country, Right or Wrong" attitude they promote has been so damaging to our interests at home and abroad these last eight years. I should have been grading my students' essays this afternoon, but instead I took a foray into the latest skirmish in the ongoing culture war. Follow me, if you will, below the fold.
Dear Ms. Schiffrin:
Reading your "Patriotism for Kids" posting at The Corner on National Review, I take issue with your assumption that people who criticize "their country's actions" are less patriotic than those who accept without complaint every action our government takes on our behalf. Since your comments show you unable to distinguish between patriotism and jingoism, I hope to explain your error by way of analogy.
As a parent, you do not accept actions your children commit that you deem "wrong"; unless you are an indulgent parent, you try to correct your children's choices so that they become better people. Some of that parental correction perhaps takes the form of spoken criticism: "You shouldn't do that, dear..." Regardless of how you parent your children, I hope you do not assume that other parents who use criticism to correct their children's actions love their children less than you do yours. You could cause a lot of arguments at the PTA by coming forward with the statement, "I love my children more than you do yours because I don't criticize what my children do."
Consider, then, what you have said about me and about others like me who have had occasion to say of our government's choices: "That shouldn't have been done; that action won't achieve anything good for our country." Why is my criticism, for example, of foreign policy decisions that support foreign dictators in obvious contravention of our nation's democratic ideals a sign for you of my lack of love for my country but your criticism and correction of your children's wrongful acts a sign of your great love for your children?
If the answer is this, "Well, I'm the parent, and I know better for my children just as our elected leaders and their consultants know better for our country," then you and I have another problem. American government is not a parental authority; you and I, as adults, do not need and would rightfully rebel against any government official's in loco parentis claims over our choices and actions in life. In fact, since our government is instituted by "we, the people" to promote our collective welfare, we are ourselves more like the parents of the government--actually, we are a vital part of the system's checks and balances--whose actions we are entitled to correct whenever we see they do not serve our interests. Our government oversight responsibilities as citizens do not end with the votes we cast every two or four years. We have rights of free speech and assembly that we can and should use to make politicians accountable to us whenever the need arises.
That accountability is the patriotic function of criticizing our country's actions. It is not a responsibility to be taken lightly or to be dismissed out of hand as anti-American. In fact, the argument might be made that those who fail to criticize government actions that contradict our national ideals are themselves failing in their patriotic duty. However, since you might feel insulted if I said that of your beliefs, I let that argument slide for now. Unlike you, I am not all that interested in dividing America into "good folks" and "bad folks." I hope that someday you come to see the stupidity and the futility of promoting such divisiveness.
Sincerely,
[vahana]