4th of July 2018

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It's a bitter holiday, today.

It's America's great patriotic holiday.  I'm always skeptical of what commonly passes for "patriotism."  But this day is more bitter still.

Certainly there is such a thing as real patriotism: love for one's country.  Certainly God has created us capable of love, and commanded us to love.  In simple definition, God commands us to think the best of, desire the best for, and do the best for others, the same as we do for ourselves.  "Others" manifestly includes our countrymen, who are our nation: and, Jesus said, every person, of every other nation.

But we are temporally- and spatially-limited beings, and it's probably an in-born impulse to love first those closest to us, emotionally as well as physically.   Our family is usually both.  And we also usually find our first friends (with whom we are often bonded most closely throughout our lives) among those who live nearest to us.

There are many exceptions, of course.  We may have an unbreakable bond with family-members who live hundreds or thousands of miles from us.  And increasingly, in this digital world, we may form a strong friendship with people in other nations or continents, whom we've never physically met.  Even so, who we meet is (by definition) primarily a function of physical proximity; and those we meet are usually the people we come to know the best, and come to love.

Geography is not destiny: but it is a factor of destiny, as it is of love.  What happens to our neighborhood, or city, or state, to the nation and the world in which we live, happens to us.  The people are the place.  If they could, those who wish to destroy Aleppo would no doubt preserve its buildings and infrastructure.  Their horrific assault is on the people who are Aleppo.

As we do the family of which we find ourselves a part, we identify with the human geography into which we're born, and in which we live.  How could we not ?  The physical place we live, our family and our closest friends live.  We are, with them, in every real sense that "neighborhood," "city," or "state."  Our destiny and the destiny of all those we love is what happens to that place.  How can we not think the best of that place, desire the best for that place, and do the best for that place: how can we not love that place ?

I won't bother to contrast that genuine patriotism, "love of country," with the widespread false "patriotism" that pervades our society.  The latter is too familiar to need description, beyond saying its effects are always to harm a country, and ultimately destroy a country.

Should anyone need an example of false "patriotism," I can think of none in our recent national experience that has harmed our country more than Vietnam.  "Patriotism" is always used to sell war, and that was very much the case with Vietnam.  It was the standard "patriotic" argument of every war: if you love our country, you must love the war.

Never mind that Vietnam resulted in almost-unmitigated harm to America as a nation.  Death is always the major result of war, and hundreds of thousands of people died in Vietnam.  Presumably the fraction of those which were American deaths would not be considered good for America, even by "patriots" to whom only the American deaths matter.

Still worse was the harm done America's spirit.  Many citizens began, with Vietnam, to distrust and hate our government.  That mindset is still with us, and still working to destroy our country.

Hatred for authority, satan's own sin...which scripture condemns as "rebelliousness," and "lawlessness"...always destroys a people: as scripture likewise proclaims.  It gave rise in the 1960s to America's drug-culture, which is still doing us immense harm.

It is also the basis for the policy of "de-regulation," which began with the Reagan administration.  The President who characterized government as "the problem" of course rejected government's authority to regulate: even though scripture's mandate to human government was that it be "a minister of God" in punishing evil-doers (Romans 13:4).

Reagan's followers continue to this day "de-regulating" laws which formerly restrained powerful evil-doers (especially wealthy "business" evil-doers) from doing harm to America's people, environment, and economy.  The financial crisis of 2008 and the current destructive head of the Environmental Protection Agency* are examples of the harm we've suffered, and are still suffering, from the governmental lawlessness of "de-regulation."

The distinction between patriotism and "patriotism" is at root a moral one.  Patriotism desires and does what is good for our country: "patriotism" produces harm and destruction for our country.

It's an easy choice, for those who can...and will...discern between good and evil.  People who can't (even more, those who won't) are not patriots: are indeed incapable of patriotism.  But they can, and do, always avail themselves of the shallow "patriotism" by which the morally-blind, -foolish, and -deceived destroy themselves and their country.

America's tragedy is that so few...notably, even so few Christians...can (or will) discern between what is good for our country, and the harm done to America by deceivers whose lying "patriotic" slogan is that their evil will "Make America Great Again."

It's a bitter holiday.  Bitter that the "patriotism" most Americans celebrate today is the false one that does America deep and lasting harm, and leads America in evil ways.  Bitter to all who love America, seeing millions cheer that evil as America's "greatness"... knowing that God's sure promise is that He will destroy evil and evil-doers.

* Scott Pruitt, the corrupt and destructive head of the E.P.A., resigned July 5th 2018.