But in the meantime, I can't resist a little blast on patriotism.  With the country getting ready to gear up for the Presidential election in the fall, we can look forward to endless buckets of sloppy guesses and accusations regarding the appropriate levels of country-love in the two candidates.  On Barack Obama's recent trip to Europe, we got a teaser for the general shape of things to come.  He stood before an enormous audience in Germany, and had to utter the supreme banality: "I also know how much I love America."  How many times will Obama have to say a version of this?  How many times will he have to affirm how much he loves his country?  He will be swimming against the master narrative: the doddering old war hero who is kinda crazy/senile but who obviously bleeds red, white, and blue -- vs. -- the possibly-Muslim, definitely not-white guy who is undeniably charismatic but might be harboring buried anti-American Malcolm X-like tendencies.  

This election should not be close.  McCain is far past his prime, and he has jettisoned every shred of maverick-ism he might have once had.  He's drunk the Kool-Aid of a transcendent War on Terror, and he's perfectly ready to spend another $3 trillion to "win the war," whatever that might mean.  He has no clue on the real condition of the floundering American family, insisting that more tax cuts for the rich are the way to go.  He is simply obsessed with being President, like that creepy uncle who talks about inappropriate topics for too long at the family party, far past the point of amusement.  He has become the penultimate flip-flopper, saying whatever it takes to whomever, to gain his coveted prize.  And I'm convinced that his "heroic" act of being held prisoner in Vietnam is actually a significant detriment to his judgment.  Such a long exposure to evil brutality cannot help but foster a dualistic worldview, which is clearly evident in his apocalyptic rhetoric on terrorism. The United States is sinking into a morass of debt, international ill-will, and spiritual hopelessness, and all McCain represents is more war and sops to the rich.  

By all measures, Obama should win going away.  Sure he's young.  Sure he's inexperienced.  Sure he's black.  But he is incredibly gifted, highly intelligent, and supremely charismatic.  Is there any doubt that he would surround himself with a powerful team of advisors, carefully weighing their judgments and then making well-reasoned decisions?  I myself don't have much confidence in his ability to actually change much, since he is bound to the moneyed elite, just as all national politicians are.   And the circumstances he will be facing, with peak oil and the impending collapse of the American Dream, cannot be fixed in four or maybe even forty years.  But I have no doubt that he will be a better President than McCain -- it's not even close.   

So if McCain manages to win, or even come within 6 points or so, barring any monumental Obama gaffe, we will be able to point to a few factors.  One is obviously racism.  No matter how you slice it, a lot of people will just not vote for a black guy.  But I actually don't think this will be a huge variable.  New voters and record African American turnout should dull many of the effects of overt racism.  There will certainly be the other, usual tendencies, like perennial anti-liberal voting and infuriating swing-voters who wait until the last possible minute to see what their guts tell them.

But what I really fear is that significant numbers of people will vote in this election on one issue: patriotism.  They will vote for McCain because they are certain that he loves America.  And Obama -- well, who can really tell where his loyalties are?  Everything else will get tossed out the window.  No matter what the facts are, no matter how badly Obama cleans McCain's clock in the debates (which he undoubtedly will); no matter how inept and confused McCain will seem as the campaign wears on; no matter how masterful Obama proves with word and policy nuance; no matter how obvious it becomes who would be a better President. Despite all of this, I can just see millions of people hitting that voting booth and thinking, "I'm voting for the guy who loves America."  With Bush, it was the beer-at-kitchen-table thing.  With McCain, it will be the tri-color blood thing.  

Which brings us to patriotism itself.  What is it?  Why is it necessary?  Who has it?  Who doesn't?  The mere fact that I'm asking these questions demonstrates that I must be a "left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographer," as Woody Allen might say (in fact, I am not Jewish).  That I have to ask what patriotism is shows that I must not have it.

But to really consider patriotism is to immediately see it's vacuousness.  It's fine to say, "I love America," but what are you really asserting?  The first thing to consider is that proclaiming love of country is not something you do with your friends while you're sitting around watching the game or fishing for largemouth bass.  I don't just turn to my wife one evening, and say, "you know, I really love America."  Instead, patriotism is almost always hurled as a negative accusation.  That is, you question an opponent or enemy's patriotism.  It is used as a cudgel, a rhetorical weapon to insult others and to augment the in-group's sense of pride and self-righteousness.  

Similarly, when you accuse an opponent of not loving or even hating America, you're really saying something personal or cultural, not political.  Conservatives don't question liberals' patriotism because of the latter's support of Medicare or Keynesian fiscal policy.  Questioning patriotism always takes a more personal touch, like the claim that an effete elite couldn't care less if the country was overrun with godless Chinese communists, as long that elite could keep their Volvos.  And speaking of God, religion is rolled up in here as well.  Calling someone anti-American is a way of saying that they are a dirty atheist or a life-hating abortionist.  

What we're really looking at, then, is patriotism as a short-hand way of uniting a tribe against a perceived enemy.  The United States is a huge entity, a sprawling half-continent with an enormous population of 280 million plus.  How do you unite such a huge conglomeration of people?  You can't really do it with religion, or ethnicity, or philosophical outlook.  But you can try to do it with patriotism.  The national mythology is imbued with quasi-divine status, to make up for its lack of real substance.  It is here that America's youth really proves a disadvantage.  Compared to Europe, China, India, and Africa, the United States is an extremely young entity.  Our inexperience should create humility and a willingness to learn from others.  But the sheer unruly size of our country necessitates that our national myth be that much more sacrilized and thus more unreal.  We have to pretend that our national story is divine, to marshall appropriate loyalty.

After all, what are people really worried about when they question another's patriotism?  Are they really worried that people want foreign soldiers to invade and occupy our land?  Are they really concerned that millions of American harbor a secret desire to overthrow the government and set up an American Socialist state?  Are they really worried that Americans will engage in massive destruction of symbolic federal sites, like the Oklahoma City bombing?  Of course not.  For most Americans, all they know is America.  It is our home.  We don't want to harm our home.  We don't like everything about it, and we certainly want it to get better.  But we don't want to see America suffer.

So patriotism is really a way to try and hold together a large group of people who cannot be held together by other means.  And when you challenge someone's love of America, you're almost certainly calling into question their willingness to go along with some particular policy that you want enacted.  When we liberals challenge the Iraq War as unjust, we're not saying that we hate America.  We're saying that the particular administration in power has made an incorrect decision, and should thus correct itself and do the right thing.  Conservatives respond with accusations of liberal anti-Americanism simply because we are not going along with their desired policies.  

Finally, can anyone really "love" an abstract entity like a country?  In my opinion, no.  I love my wife.  I love my family.  I love my friends.  I also love certain places, and for many folks the love of animals is very real.  Looking at the life of the mind, people can love art, literature, cinema, music, etc.  But the key thing in all of this is that love always attaches to tangible or sensate things.  When you get into larger spheres of abstraction, the love metaphor breaks down.  What does it mean to love truth, or justice, or equality?  How can someone love a political entity like Rhode Island, or Plymouth County?  Similarly, how can one actually "love" America?  At this level, patriotism is really just a rhetorical device, a shorthand for saying something about something else.  To love America is really to appreciate it's Constitution, or to be interested in its history, or to enjoy visiting different geographical destinations.  We all have tingly moments when we're hearing a powerfully patriotic speech, or a triumphant piece of music at a civic holiday gathering.  But is that goose-bumpy feeling really something different or more than the underlying ability of art to move people's feelings?  I don't think so.  

We strain mightily to forge patriotism into something divine, something transcendent.  And by doing so, we cripple our ability to be rational and level-headed about our own situation.  Is the Constitution a good document?  Sure.  But it's not divine or infallible.  Most democracies in the world have fairly new constitutions, because they scrapped obsolete ideas for the judgment of the living present.  Were the founding fathers great men?  Sure they were.  But were they saints?  Of course not, and I don't waste very much time worrying about what their original intent was.  What concerns me is what our current intent should be.  Is America a great country?  I don't much care.  My identity as a person is formed by much more intimate concerns: can I be a good husband, a good friend, a good son, and a good partner to my local environment?  The more distant a political entity gets from me, the less I trust it.  That should be everyone's mantra.  

The United States is just a political fiction, no more and no less.  We need to love those around us first, both human, animal, and vegetable (and chemical too, I guess).  Our loyalty to America goes only as far as any particular government in power at the time earns our trust.  The moment that our leaders betray our trust, we have every right to proclaim their deceit to the heavens and throw the scoundrels out on their asses.  Patriotism is more often than not just a thin veneer for the powerful, who would keep the powerless in their stalls.  And while zealots on both sides hurl accusations of anti-Americanism at each other, the actual country on the ground continues its dismal downward spiral into oblivion.