"Poisoned Patriotism"

Read this great Newsweek piece by Christopher Dickey. He explores, via a book by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the way that patriotism has been hijacked by flag-wavers and jingoists. Picking up Schlesinger's book would probably be a great idea, too; "War and the American Presidency."

But a couple of quotes from the article really caught my eye. Some I had seen, others not. Check them out:

Most disturbing of all, I’ve come across a lot of men and women who’ve grown afraid of their fellow Americans. It’s as if their patriotism has been poisoned. They say they feel their flag has been appropriated by narrow-minded zealots. Their hopes are being crushed by cynical politicians. Their sons and daughters are being sent to die in wars that seem to have no end, and anyone who questions those politicians or those wars is being branded a traitor.

Christopher Dickey
From the Article

"You don't 'prevent' anything by war except peace."

President Harry S Truman

"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."

Carl Schurz
Nineteenth-century immigre

...the United States should stand for freedom and independence wherever her flag is unfurled, but "she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." By launching foreign wars of interest and intrigue, [he] predicted, the fundamental underpinnings of American policy would change "from liberty to force." America "might become the dictatress of the world: she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit." Foreign adventures and foreign threats are, as often as not, pretexts for curtailing the freedoms Americans believe they should be fighting for.

John Quincy Adams
1821