We do so in part because we are in the
midst of war – more than one and a half million of our finest young men
and women have now fought in Iraq and Afghanistan; over 60,000 have
been wounded, and over 4,600 have been laid to rest. The costs of war
have been great, and the debate surrounding our mission in Iraq has
been fierce. It is natural, in light of such sacrifice by so many, to
think more deeply about the commitments that bind us to our nation, and
to each other.
We reflect on these questions as well because we
are in the midst of a presidential election, perhaps the most
consequential in generations; a contest that will determine the course
of this nation for years, perhaps decades, to come. Not only is it a
debate about big issues – health care, jobs, energy, education, and
retirement security – but it is also a debate about values. How do we
keep ourselves safe and secure while preserving our liberties? How do
we restore trust in a government that seems increasingly removed from
its people and dominated by special interests? How do we ensure that in
an increasingly global economy, the winners maintain allegiance to the
less fortunate? And how do we resolve our differences at a time of
increasing diversity?
Finally, it is worth considering the
meaning of patriotism because the question of who is – or is not – a
patriot all too often poisons our political debates, in ways that
divide us rather than bringing us together. I have come to know this
from my own experience on the campaign trail. Throughout my life, I
have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given.
It was how I was raised; it is what propelled me into public service;
it is why I am running for President. And yet, at certain times over
the last sixteen months, I have found, for the first time, my
patriotism challenged – at times as a result of my own carelessness,
more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points
and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.
So let me
say at this at outset of my remarks. I will never question the
patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by
when I hear others question mine.
My concerns here aren’t simply
personal, however. After all, throughout our history, men and women of
far greater stature and significance than me have had their patriotism
questioned in the midst of momentous debates. Thomas Jefferson was
accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The
anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots
with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule. Likewise, even
our wisest Presidents have sought to justify questionable policies on
the basis of patriotism. Adams’ Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln’s
suspension of habeas corpus, Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese
Americans – all were defended as expressions of patriotism, and those
who disagreed with their policies were sometimes labeled as unpatriotic.
In
other words, the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political
shield is as old as the Republic. Still, what is striking about today’s
patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the
culture wars of the 1960s – in arguments that go back forty years or
more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to
the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who
questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.
Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the
Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government
policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very
idea, of America itself – by burning flags; by blaming America for all
that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing
to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that
remains a national shame to this day
.
Most Americans never
bought into these simplistic world-views – these caricatures of left
and right. Most Americans understood that dissent does not make one
unpatriotic, and that there is nothing smart or sophisticated about a
cynical disregard for America’s traditions and institutions. And yet
the anger and turmoil of that period never entirely drained away. All
too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare
arguments – a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war
in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by
some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to
move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.
Given the enormous
challenges that lie before us, we can no longer afford these sorts of
divisions. None of us expect that arguments about patriotism will, or
should, vanish entirely; after all, when we argue about patriotism, we
are arguing about who we are as a country, and more importantly, who we
should be. But surely we can agree that no party or political
philosophy has a monopoly on patriotism. And surely we can arrive at a
definition of patriotism that, however rough and imperfect, captures
the best of America’s common spirit.
What would such a
definition look like? For me, as for most Americans, patriotism starts
as a gut instinct, a loyalty and love for country rooted in my earliest
memories. I’m not just talking about the recitations of the Pledge of
Allegiance or the Thanksgiving pageants at school or the fireworks on
the Fourth of July, as wonderful as those things may be. Rather, I’m
referring to the way the American ideal wove its way throughout the
lessons my family taught me as a child.
One of my earliest
memories is of sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders and watching the
astronauts come to shore in Hawaii. I remember the cheers and small
flags that people waved, and my grandfather explaining how we Americans
could do anything we set our minds to do. That’s my idea of America.
I
remember listening to my grandmother telling stories about her work on
a bomber assembly-line during World War II. I remember my grandfather
handing me his dog-tags from his time in Patton’s Army, and
understanding that his defense of this country marked one of his
greatest sources of pride. That’s my idea of America.
I
remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, listening
to my mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of
Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.” I remember her explaining how this declaration applied
to every American, black and white and brown alike; how those words,
and words of the United States Constitution, protected us from the
injustices that we witnessed other people suffering during those years
abroad. That’s my idea of America.
As I got older, that gut
instinct – that America is the greatest country on earth – would
survive my growing awareness of our nation’s imperfections: it’s
ongoing racial strife; the perversion of our political system laid bare
during the Watergate hearings; the wrenching poverty of the Mississippi
Delta and the hills of Appalachia. Not only because, in my mind, the
joys of American life and culture, its vitality, its variety and its
freedom, always outweighed its imperfections, but because I learned
that what makes America great has never been its perfection but the
belief that it can be made better. I came to understand that our
revolution was waged for the sake of that belief – that we could be
governed by laws, not men; that we could be equal in the eyes of those
laws; that we could be free to say what we want and assemble with
whomever we want and worship as we please; that we could have the right
to pursue our individual dreams but the obligation to help our fellow
citizens pursue theirs.
For a young man of mixed race, without
firm anchor in any particular community, without even a father’s
steadying hand, it is this essential American idea – that we are not
constrained by the accident of birth but can make of our lives what we
will – that has defined my life, just as it has defined the life of so
many other Americans.
That is why, for me, patriotism is always
more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people.
Instead, it is also loyalty to America’s ideals – ideals for which
anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of
devotion. I believe it is this loyalty that allows a country teeming
with different races and ethnicities, religions and customs, to come
together as one. It is the application of these ideals that separate us
from Zimbabwe, where the opposition party and their supporters have
been silently hunted, tortured or killed; or Burma, where tens of
thousands continue to struggle for basic food and shelter in the wake
of a monstrous storm because a military junta fears opening up the
country to outsiders; or Iraq, where despite the heroic efforts of our
military, and the courage of many ordinary Iraqis, even limited
cooperation between various factions remains far too elusive.
I
believe those who attack America’s flaws without acknowledging the
singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire
a better world, do not truly understand America.
Of course,
precisely because America isn’t perfect, precisely because our ideals
constantly demand more from us, patriotism can never be defined as
loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy. As Mark
Twain, that greatest of American satirists and proud son of Missouri,
once wrote, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and
your government when it deserves it.” We may hope that our leaders and
our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our
history when that’s occurred. But when our laws, our leaders or our
government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of
ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expression of
patriotism.
The young preacher from Georgia, Martin Luther King,
Jr., who led a movement to help America confront our tragic history of
racial injustice and live up to the meaning of our creed – he was a
patriot. The young soldier who first spoke about the prisoner abuse at
Abu Ghraib – he is a patriot. Recognizing a wrong being committed in
this country’s name; insisting that we deliver on the promise of our
Constitution – these are the acts of patriots, men and women who are
defending that which is best in America. And we should never forget
that – especially when we disagree with them; especially when they make
us uncomfortable with their words.
Beyond a loyalty to America’s
ideals, beyond a willingness to dissent on behalf of those ideals, I
also believe that patriotism must, if it is to mean anything, involve
the willingness to sacrifice – to give up something we value on behalf
of a larger cause. For those who have fought under the flag of this
nation – for the young veterans I meet when I visit Walter Reed; for
those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to
our country – no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let
me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially
for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on
both sides.
We must always express our profound gratitude for the
service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Indeed, one of the
good things to emerge from the current conflict in Iraq has been the
widespread recognition that whether you support this war or oppose it,
the sacrifice of our troops is always worthy of honor.
For the
rest of us – for those of us not in uniform or without loved ones in
the military – the call to sacrifice for the country’s greater good
remains an imperative of citizenship. Sadly, in recent years, in the
midst of war on two fronts, this call to service never came. After
9/11, we were asked to shop. The wealthiest among us saw their tax
obligations decline, even as the costs of war continued to mount.
Rather than work together to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and
thereby lessen our vulnerability to a volatile region, our energy
policy remained unchanged, and our oil dependence only grew.
In
spite of this absence of leadership from Washington, I have seen a new
generation of Americans begin to take up the call. I meet them
everywhere I go, young people involved in the project of American
renewal; not only those who have signed up to fight for our country in
distant lands, but those who are fighting for a better America here at
home, by teaching in underserved schools, or caring for the sick in
understaffed hospitals, or promoting more sustainable energy policies
in their local communities.
I believe one of the tasks of the
next Administration is to ensure that this movement towards service
grows and sustains itself in the years to come. We should expand
AmeriCorps and grow the Peace Corps. We should encourage national
service by making it part of the requirement for a new college
assistance program, even as we strengthen the benefits for those whose
sense of duty has already led them to serve in our military.
We
must remember, though, that true patriotism cannot be forced or
legislated with a mere set of government programs. Instead, it must
reside in the hearts of our people, and cultivated in the heart of our
culture, and nurtured in the hearts of our children.
As we begin
our fourth century as a nation, it is easy to take the extraordinary
nature of America for granted. But it is our responsibility as
Americans and as parents to instill that history in our children, both
at home and at school. The loss of quality civic education from so many
of our classrooms has left too many young Americans without the most
basic knowledge of who our forefathers are, or what they did, or the
significance of the founding documents that bear their names. Too many
children are ignorant of the sheer effort, the risks and sacrifices
made by previous generations, to ensure that this country survived war
and depression; through the great struggles for civil, and social, and
worker’s rights.
It is up to us, then, to teach them. It is up
to us to teach them that even though we have faced great challenges and
made our share of mistakes, we have always been able to come together
and make this nation stronger, and more prosperous, and more united,
and more just. It is up to us to teach them that America has been a
force for good in the world, and that other nations and other people
have looked to us as the last, best hope of Earth. It is up to us to
teach them that it is good to give back to one’s community; that it is
honorable to serve in the military; that it is vital to participate in
our democracy and make our voices heard.
And it is up to us to
teach our children a lesson that those of us in politics too often
forget: that patriotism involves not only defending this country
against external threat, but also working constantly to make America a
better place for future generations.
When we pile up mountains
of debt for the next generation to absorb, or put off changes to our
energy policies, knowing full well the potential consequences of
inaction, we are placing our short-term interests ahead of the nation’s
long-term well-being. When we fail to educate effectively millions of
our children so that they might compete in a global economy, or we fail
to invest in the basic scientific research that has driven innovation
in this country, we risk leaving behind an America that has fallen in
the ranks of the world. Just as patriotism involves each of us making a
commitment to this nation that extends beyond our own immediate
self-interest, so must that commitment extends beyond our own time here
on earth.
Our greatest leaders have always understood this.
They’ve defined patriotism with an eye toward posterity. George
Washington is rightly revered for his leadership of the Continental
Army, but one of his greatest acts of patriotism was his insistence on
stepping down after two terms, thereby setting a pattern for those that
would follow, reminding future presidents that this is a government of
and by and for the people.
Abraham Lincoln did not simply win a
war or hold the Union together. In his unwillingness to demonize those
against whom he fought; in his refusal to succumb to either the hatred
or self-righteousness that war can unleash; in his ultimate insistence
that in the aftermath of war the nation would no longer remain half
slave and half free; and his trust in the better angels of our nature –
he displayed the wisdom and courage that sets a standard for patriotism.
And
it was the most famous son of Independence, Harry S Truman, who sat in
the White House during his final days in office and said in his
Farewell Address: “When Franklin Roosevelt died, I felt there must be a
million men better qualified than I, to take up the Presidential
task…But through all of it, through all the years I have worked here in
this room, I have been well aware than I did not really work alone –
that you were working with me. No President could ever hope to lead our
country, or to sustain the burdens of this office, save the people
helped with their support.”
In the end, it may be this quality
that best describes patriotism in my mind – not just a love of America
in the abstract, but a very particular love for, and faith in, the
American people. That is why our heart swells with pride at the sight
of our flag; why we shed a tear as the lonely notes of Taps sound. For
we know that the greatness of this country – its victories in war, its
enormous wealth, its scientific and cultural achievements – all result
from the energy and imagination of the American people; their toil,
drive, struggle, restlessness, humor and quiet heroism.
That is
the liberty we defend – the liberty of each of us to pursue our own
dreams. That is the equality we seek – not an equality of results, but
the chance of every single one of us to make it if we try. That is the
community we strive to build – one in which we trust in this sometimes
messy democracy of ours, one in which we continue to insist that there
is nothing we cannot do when we put our mind to it, one in which we see
ourselves as part of a larger story, our own fates wrapped up in the
fates of those who share allegiance to America’s happy and singular
creed.
Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
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