Patriotism by Brad Edmonds

[Guest guest]

Patriotism

by Brad Edmonds

 

The term " patriot " gets bandied about a lot in the US at this time of year,

and it rankles me more every time I hear it used. Today's understanding of the

term amounts to moral and historical blasphemy. An examination of the word and

its history should shed some light on how our government has grown completely

out of control.

The American Heritage dictionary is for me the best source available. For

" patriot, " we are given, " one who loves, supports, and defends one's country. "

That's where the problem begins – people don't have a good enough understanding

of the term, " country. "

" Country " for American Heritage is, " a nation or state, " or alternately the

people or territory of a nation or state. A " state, " then, is " the supreme

public power within a sovereign political entity, " or " a body politic. " A

" nation " is " a relatively large group of people organized under a single,

usually independent government. "

" Government " is where the dictionaries finally fail. The standard definition

is, and here I'm combining a few given definitions, " the agency or apparatus

that controls and administrates public policy in a political unit. "

What standard definitions leave out is what separates government, as we

understand it, from other institutions. In short: A government is any entity

that claims a rightful monopoly to the use of violence in a given geographic

area. Only this separates government from any other agency – the claim to the

morally legitimate monopoly over violence over a given area.

Take away " morally legitimate " or " rightful " ; take away " monopoly " ; or take

away " given area, " and you have some other entity for which we already have

terminology. We have private security agencies; private military contractors;

private insurance, and the like.

Discussing functions of government is beside the point. Anything that even

minarchists claim as the rightful functions of government – defense,

infrastructure, enforcement of property rights and contracts – is more

efficiently, more effectively, and more justly handled by private firms who have

to compete with each other to gain and satisfy customers and stay in business.

What we have, then, for the true meaning of the word " patriot " as used today,

is " one who loves, supports, and defends one's government. " Clarifying a bit, we

have " one who loves, supports, and defends the right of one's own government to

use violence against those who disagree with, resist, or oppose it. " This is

what I consider moral and historical blasphemy.

Why " historical blasphemy " ? Because the people who give us the term,

" patriot, " the Patriots (capital P) of the American Revolution, were not loyal

to their government. They violently overthrew their government. This is the

definition of " treason, " and in fact Patriots were rightly (technically)

considered traitors by their American-born opponents, the Loyalists.

" Patriot " is a truncation of the term, " compatriot, " which is used most often

today to mean " colleague. " Our founding Patriots were loyal to their colleagues,

and even more so to their principles, but not to their government. Through

overuse of the term, " patriot, " we began to take it to mean one loyal to the US

government, then one loyal to his own government, whatever government that might

be.

Why " moral blasphemy " ? Because, first, it's a very different thing to be loyal

to principles and neighbors than to be loyal to one's government; and second,

there are and have been governments that deserve no loyalty at all – only active

resistance.

The Nazi Party, Mao's cultural revolutionaries, and Lenin's socialist purgers

would be examples of such governments. Of course, it is dramatizing to mention

governments who killed tens of millions of their own citizens in the context of

discussion of the US government – there's no comparison.

Remember, though, that under the US government, slavery was once encouraged

for the benefit of the economy. More recently, this government forcibly

relocated and interned over 100,000 Japanese Americans, most of whom were US

citizens, merely on the grounds that they were Japanese. Then, we vaporized

hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women, and children in their homes, and

irradiated their land, after their government surrendered, before finally

accepting their surrender in the face of their resolve.

Still more recently, we entered wars in Vietnam and Iraq, each with a

rationale based on faulty intelligence. Worse, in the face of the moral

principles of the founders, principles with which I agree, entry into those wars

would be illegitimate even if the intelligence were correct.

Today, the term " patriot " is reserved by the mainstream for those who support

our government unquestioningly in the face of major government actions that are

substantively morally debatable. Today, patriots are allowed to disagree with

certain government expenditures – social engineering, foreign aid – but not to

disagree when the government decides to kill foreigners by the thousands.

To the contrary, the term, " patriot " should be reserved for those who love,

support, and defend their colleagues, neighbors, families, and principles. This

was the understanding our founders had, and one we would benefit from reviving.

 

July 7, 2006

Brad Edmonds [send him mail], author of There’s a Government in Your Soup,

writes from Alabama.

2006 LewRockwell.com

 

http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds287.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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