Is the Government "Us"?
by Joseph Sobran
Patriotism is never more needful than when your country goes mad. And Osama bin Laden has certainly driven America mad. Every American flag or decal on every motor vehicle is a tribute to his power. No American president's appeal could have evoked such a response.
Supporting the United States government, though a psychologically understandable reaction to the 9/11 attack, is a misguided answer to our needs. The Wall Street Journal has just run a long essay arguing that our greatest wartime Presidents – Lincoln, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt – imposed sharp though temporary restrictions on freedom, and that similar sacrifices of liberty to security may be necessary now.
Of course it all depends on how you define "greatness." A strong argument can be made that Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt were our three most disastrous Presidents. All three of them helped destroy the original American system of limited, confederated government and built what the framers of the Constitution would call "consolidated" – or monolithic – government.
What may seem like temporary emergency measures in wartime often turn out to be not only permanent, but more decisive for our fate than the outcome of war itself. The real losers may be the citizens of the victorious state.
Your chance of being harmed by terrorists is remote. That you will be oppressed by your own government is a certainty. Are we really "citizens" anymore, in any serious sense? Or have we been reduced, as I believe, to mere infinitesimal units of a gigantic warfare-welfare empire, beyond our control and comprehension?
Let's face it. This isn't the America Norman Rockwell painted; he never heard of the Culture of Death. Every Trident submarine is capable of killing more people than Stalin did, and the grand totals in our abortion clinics are approaching Stalin's career record. Those are only the gory statistics; I say nothing here about the moral tone of American life.
We must ask ourselves, as patriots, just what we are supposed to be loyal to. In a conflict – not exactly a "war" – between a Godless, lawless, unconstitutional state, alias "America," and an alien band of superstitious fanatics, we owe our allegiance to the former, merely because it rules us?
As patriots, we love our country. As we should. We love our families, our neighbors, and those we recognize as our countrymen – all those with whom we share a broad set of customs, traditions, morals, and countless other subtle and implicit links that are difficult to spell out.
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