The Stars and Stripes

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." - Oscar Wilde

Has anyone stopped to ask, "Why is patriotism considered to be such a virtue in our culture?" It seems so utterly arbitrary to me. I would not go out and kill others and sacrifice my life for Marion County if it got into a squabble with Hamilton County. I would not kill Cub fans in the name of glorifying the Cardinals. What right does my nation have to my allegiance any more than my city or county or skin color or language or last name? We all define ourselves by particular social boundaries and then create civil religions in order to perpetuate those boundaries. Hence, we have pep rallies at our high schools. We have mascots for our sports teams. And we have the star spangled banner sung in our modern day worship centers (aka Lucas Oil Stadium). But I don't want to swear loyalty and a willingness to kill for my county or my state or my sports team or my skin color or my language or any other human boundary that we create between us. What if I'd been born in Mexico? Would I be an ardent, dyed-in-the-wool, willing-to-kill-others fanatic for Mexico? I hope not. That would be stupid.

I'd really rather swear my loyalty to humanity. Are you part of the species homo sapiens? Then I'm with you! It doesn't matter to me that you have squinty eyes or talk Swahili or use the yen to buy your groceries. It doesn't matter to me if you prefer communism or socialism or capitalism or anarchy or Obamaism. I just want to be part of your team. I want to join the pro-humanity party.

As I look around to various communities/nations/states/organizations/conglomorations of people with a common shaping identity, I can't find one that fits the bill just right. I want to be part of a nation that always loves the unlovable, that always invites and never excludes, that chooses harmony over war, that woos instead of coerces, that is filled with self-giving submission to one another, that embraces freedom and justice for ALL people, that doesn't need to compromise its standards in order to maintain power, that isn't ruled by an iron fist from above and is instead ruled through humility from below, that embraces Greg Coates for who he is and seeks to transform him into something far better than he could ever dream, and that is led by a benevolent monarch. Wow. If I could find such a country, I would pledge my allegiance to it and never pledge my allegiance to any other nation or institution or group.

And I did find it. And I'll never pledge allegiance to another again.