Johnny Cash famously wrote, “Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”  It was a love song to his then-wife, Vivian Liberto, but it is helpful when thinking about patriotism, too.  Patriotism is not just love of America.  It is love of my country.  And a proper sense of loving America comes from the same place that the British love Britain, and the Japanese love Japan, and Hungarians love Hungary.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we think all countries are equally good or have equal histories or have made equal contributions to humanity, any more than Johnny Cash thought all women were as good as his wife—quite the contrary.  But it does mean that if patriotism is a virtue for all people, we should expect that those who have not had the blessing of calling America their home, should nevertheless love their own country, too.  As C.S. Lewis said:

“Of course, patriotism of this kind…becomes militant only to protect what it loves. In any mind which has a pennyworth of imagination it produces a good attitude towards foreigners. How can I love my home without coming to realise that other men, no less rightly, love theirs?”

When we celebrate America’s 250th year, it is understandable that we take pride in all of her achievements—moral, political, economic, military, and the like.  Indeed, it is even understandable to believe that America is the greatest nation on earth.  But if that is the basis for our love for her, and not the simple fact that she is our own, then two things will happen—we will be unable to comprehend that a foreigner would ever love his own country (after all, ours is better, so he should love America instead), and we ourselves are at risk of losing our love of country whenever America ceases to be the best…which is precisely the time our patriotism is needed most.

We should celebrate the greatness of America, extoll her excellences, be proud of her achievements.  But our song to her should always be, “Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”

Have a wonderful day.