Patriotism means more than love for your country. It means love for what makes your country your country. For Americans, that’s a long list. And many (certainly not all) of the things that make us Americans are captured in the foregoing passages. In some cases, in sharp relief. Other times, only in shadows. This collection is far from definitive, complete, exhaustive, or anything of the sort. At best, it’s introductory. But look at what we value, for what we hope, and these selections should seem familiar and close despite their temporal distance from us.
Familiarity and proximity, however, are not enough. There are the questions of obligation and action. What claims, if any, do these texts make on us? What should we do in response?
Each of us must sort out those answers, but it seems readily apparent to us that if we profess any genuine affection for what makes our country our country, then that must matter in more than sentiment. A gush of emotion or a finely turned thought are well and good, but they are insubstantial and frankly devalue the real flesh-and-blood sacrifices of those who have gone on before. To live Americanly in our communities, in our states, in our nation seems basic. To hold American leaders to account for these standards seems necessary. To hold ourselves accountable seems fundamental.
If these texts represent ideas and past actions that compose the American soul, then to disregard them is to reduce our country to a mere political mechanism, and America is so much more than that.