I’ve often said – and it’s only half a joke – that my first loyalty is to California; if that state were to secede, I would make my way there, and claim my citizenship in the new California Republic. I have no difficulty at all in understanding why Robert E. Lee, rather than accept command of the Army of the Potomac, resigned his commission in the United States Army and returned to Virginia.

But if that statement is half true, it is also half a joke. The fact is that I love the United States. I don’t merely like the place. It’s not just that I haven’t yet found a better place to live. I wouldn’t mind living in the Republic of Korea, for instance – my year there in 1979 taught me that the scenery is magnificent, the language is beautiful, and the people are marvelous. But I don’t love the ROK, not the way I love the United States.

I have three great loves in my life. First there’s God. I didn’t always know Him; I was an atheist from my teens on, with time out for a fling with religion (I want to emphasize that this was a matter of religion; I joined an organization, but never came to know God). I didn’t come to the Lord until 1983. But having met God in Christ, I love no one and nothing more than I love Him. Quite literally, everything in my life since January of 83 has centered around God; even parts of my life that were in place before then have come to center on God, and are better as a result.

Then there’s my wife. I met her in Korea – in fact, the only reason she’s an American citizen today is that she married me, came to this country, and just as soon as the law would let her passed the test and took the oath of naturalization. Under God, I love no one more than I love her. The one person I know I would die to save is my wife; I hope I would die to save my children or my granddaughter, but I know I’d do it to save my wife. Of course, I don’t have to do that; my business is to live for her, and I think that may be, in some ways, the harder task.

And finally there’s my country. I loved the United States before I loved God or my wife. I joined the Air Force in 1978, and though it’s true that part of the reason was that I needed a job right out of high school and the Air Force would give me four years guaranteed employment, it was more than that. Before I made the decision – before I signed the contract, and before I raised my right hand and swore the enlistment oath – I thought things through. Was I willing, if it came to it, to go out and fight, and perhaps die, for the United States? And though I’d grown up terrified that I’d wind up in Vietnam (as it turned out, I was too young), and though the thought of suffering wounds or death terrified me equally, I concluded that for my country, yes I would be willing. So I put on the blue suit (though I seldom wore it once I graduated from basic training; the uniform of the day was almost always fatigues), and learned to salute, to march, to operate a teletype machine…oh yes, and I learned to fire an M-16 rifle too.

Was I likely to need to fire an M-16? No – my job was teletype operations specialist (a job that computer technology has made obsolete), and by the time any enemy came close enough for me to have to shoot at, I would have relocated elsewhere. Even while serving with the 3^rd Combat Communications Group I knew that, if war came, the chances of me ever having to defend myself against enemy soldiers was essentially nil (however, during the Gulf War elements of the Third Herd did wind up in Riyadh, and were in the city when a Scud missile fell on an American barracks).

But the point wasn’t that the only time I ever fired that rifle was on the range. I didn’t have to take up a rifle and defend myself, but if I’d had to, I was willing. And I was willing because I considered my country to be worth that price. Indeed, though I am not Nathan Hale, and can’t approach his simple eloquence, I agree with his last words: "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."

I’m no lawyer. I’m no politician. I am the last person who would ever – had I been alive then – have wound up in the Continental Congress. But if I had been, I might have pushed John Hancock aside in order to be the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. I love my country. If it came to it, I would, as those men did, pledge my life, my fortune (though it’s mostly bills), and my sacred honor.

One thing I can’t understand is a traitor. If you think some other country is better, go and live there (though Ken Hamblin made a good point – just try to find a better country). If you don’t care for the United States, then just leave – and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. Back when it was on numerous bumpers, people used to mock it, but I found it a very accurate bumper sticker: America – love it or leave it. If you’re unhappy here, then do the simple and obvious thing – move out. People move out of houses and apartments all the time because they don’t like them; they move to another city or state because they don’t like the one they’re in – and if they don’t care for this country, then let them move across the national borders.

Why anyone would betray his country is beyond me. Benedict Arnold doesn’t just anger me, he baffles me. How anyone could fight, and fight well, for American independence, and then make plans to deliver the fort at West Point, New York into British hands just because he didn’t get the recognition he thought he deserved, is far beyond me. How could he love his country so little? How could his love be so shallow – if indeed it ever existed in the first place?

I don’t understand people like Benedict Arnold, or John Walker, or Alger Hiss – or our current president. I can’t understand them. I love my country. I would, if I had to, die to preserve this country and its Constitution. I swore an oath to that effect in 1978, but I swore it because the sentiment, if not the words, was already in my heart.

I love my country. And as far as I’m concerned, everyone who doesn’t ought to pack his suitcase and move out. It wouldn’t be any great loss.

There was some fuss during the 2008 campaign about Barack Obama not wearing a US flag lapel pin.  I never could see what a pin does or doesn’t prove – as far as I know Ronald Reagan didn’t wear one either, and no one questions his patriotism.  I’ve never even owned such a thing, which means that even when I wore a suit I didn’t wear a flag pin.

In fact, I’ve never been much of a flag-waver.  Even after the beginning of the War On Terror, in September of 2001, I’ve never thought that merely waving the flag around proved anything, or accomplished anything.  I don’t have anything against the flag – far from it – but I’ve found that a lot of people wave the flag as though that’s all they need to ever do.

So what exactly is patriotism?  I’ve already implied that it’s not flag-waving, and I want now to explicitly say so.  After the beside-the-point criticism, Obama began wearing a flag pin, but that certainly didn’t cause or reflect an alteration in his views.  It was merely a political move (and some people were so gullible that they swallowed it whole).  Waving the flag didn’t make Obama patriotic, nor did it prove him so (and his words and actions have consistently proved the opposite).

Yet that’s what people mostly look at, it seems.  They equate patriotism with flying the flag – whether just on July 4^th, or at other times.  They think that if someone talks about “this great nation” then he’s patriotic, and if he doesn’t, he isn’t.  But it’s easy to make gestures.  It’s easy to mouth words.  There’s an old science fiction story by John W. Campbell called “Who Goes There?”  The story later became the basis for a movie called The Thing.  In the story there’s an alien which, if it gets hold of a living creature, is able to ingest that creature and actually become that creature – dog, seagull, man…  It gets hold of one of the scientists stuck in Antarctica during the winter, and becomes him so successfully that, after the discovery that the “man” is really a monster, one of the truly human scientists speaks of it mouthing prayers to a God it hated.  It’s possible for human beings to be equally false – they can pretend they’re patriotic, when in fact they want to destroy the United States.

Patriotism isn’t what you do, or what you say.  It isn’t a matter of external actions, but internal commitment.  Though He wasn’t talking about this matter, Jesus said something that’s relevant here: “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” (Mark 7:20-23)  In other words, a man isn’t an adulterer because he commits adultery – he commits adultery because his heart is unfaithful.  He doesn’t become a liar by lying, but rather lies because he’s a liar.  It’s what we are inside that – sooner or later – expresses itself through our words and actions.

Thus, genuine patriotism isn’t just chanting “USA!” during the Olympics, or cheering when Toby Keith sings about putting a boot in Osama bin Laden’s nether parts (except Keith used a different term), or waving a United States flag around.  There’s nothing wrong with these things – but they are not themselves patriotism.  They don’t mean anything unless they spring from genuine patriotism.  And that is what’s inside.

Patriotism is loving your country.  It isn’t blind stupid adherence – true patriotism can never utter the words, “My country, right or wrong!”  When his country is wrong, a true patriot tries to return it to the proper path.  Nor is it adherence to the government.  Administrations come and go – I’ve lived through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush, and now I’m living through the Obama administration.  One of these presidents I loved, one I don’t really remember, one I don’t remember at all, some I tolerated, and some I loathed.  But my country isn’t any of these presidents – it’s the United States of America.

Patriotism isn’t refusing to criticize.  Though she didn’t realize it, Hillary Clinton was exactly right when she said that it’s not unpatriotic to criticize the government.  She of course was defending scurrilous and unwarranted personal attacks on George W. Bush, but what her actual words mean is true – dissent is a cherished American tradition, and a patriot can and ought to dissent when the country goes in directions that he sincerely believes are wrong (which means that we conservatives are, by Hillary Clinton’s own definition, patriotic when we criticize Barack Obama).

But patriotism is love.  The reason I show my love for my wife is that I really do love her.  The reason patriots show their love for their country is that they really do love it.  And that’s what sets patriots apart from those who just wave flags.  People like Barack Obama will wrap themselves in the American flag if that’s what it takes to get into positions of power – and then they’ll turn right around and burn that flag, figuratively if not literally, when they see an opportunity to express their true convictions.  But a genuine patriot, while not necessarily walking around painted red, white, and blue, loves his country, and will never do anything to hurt that country.

There have been plenty of Americans who had the chance to turn on the United States, and refused to do so.  They were patriots.  George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and many, many others stood by their country when it would have been much easier and safer to turn traitor.  And there’ve been Americans who, though they may have talked a good game, proved in the end that they didn’t love the United States – Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Alger Hiss…Bill Clinton, Barack Obama…

I’ll take, any day, someone who never shows or mentions the flag, but will fight for his country, over someone who makes a big deal out of the flag but has no more love for the United States than he does for Edinburgh’s Hibernian Football Club.  The former is a patriot.  The latter is merely a fake.