Patriotism should bring us together but not so close that we begin to look like sheep. One could detect the bleatings of the herd in a recent televised exchange between columnist Robert Novak and Congressman Joe Kennedy. Frustrated by the Congressman's failure to agree with him on a range of issues, Novak suddenly snapped, "Where's your American-flag lapel pin?" Never mind that young Kennedy has chosen to serve his nation on a full-time basis, he wasn't, in the conservative columnist's eyes, patriotically correct.
There are other signs of a confusion in some quarters between patriotism and conformity. During the gulf war, peace vigils were occasionally disrupted by frat-house zealots. According to a study done by a media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, television executives virtually excised antiwar voices from the air. Bumper stickers advised good citizens to SAVE A FLAG, BURN A PROTESTER. And the nastiness didn't end with the hostilities overseas. One of the official entertainers for the June victory parade in Washington was radio talk-show personality Blake Clark, whose theme is, "If you aren't homeless, if you aren't sick, if you have all your body parts, if ^ you have a job, then just shut up."
Well, whoa there, Mr. Clark! No one should have to prove love of country by wearing an American-flag patch stitched tightly across the mouth. Let's recall what distinguishes our country from your run-of-the-mill nation-state. We Americans have no history of dynasties or dictators, no tradition of scraping and bowing, cringing or marching in step. This is a nation founded in revolution, birthed by rebels and dissidents. They had a lot to say on many subjects, like God and country, duty and freedom -- and none of it was "shut up."
Consider Tom Paine, the immigrant artisan who became the ablest propagandist of the American Revolution. At first he could find no one in Philadelphia willing to print the pamphlet he called Common Sense. It was too fiery, he was told, too seditious, and at this point a more cautious man might have learned to seal his lips. But finally a fellow radical, notorious, among other things, for living openly "in sin," agreed to roll the presses. Common Sense was born, with its great news that Americans had it in their power to overthrow the "crowned ruffians," the "royal brute," and "begin the world over again."
Most of the revolutionaries were wealthier, more respectable types than Paine, including, shamefully, even slave owners like Tom Jefferson. But whatever their limitations, they were all proud sons of the Enlightenment. They believed fiercely in the power of individual reason as a guide to action, which is why so many of them defied majority opinion with their radical views on God. Any 1990s-style political handler could have advised them to go to church and mouth the prayers along with everyone else, but men like Paine, Ben Franklin and John Adams were deists, holding that God had created the universe and then departed from the scene. Jefferson won the presidency despite being baited as an atheist, and Ethan Allen authored a scathing attack on Christianity, titled Reason, the Only Oracle of Man.