America’s highest form of patriotism vs. The enemy’s highest form of patriotism (op-ed)

During the Bush administration the battle cry of anti-war demonstrators was: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

The quote was attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

In 2003 Senator Hillary Clinton riled up an audience with Jeffersonian fervor by shouting, “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic … We are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”

Now dissenters are riled up against the new administration that debated, disagreed, and destroyed Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations. There have been post-election demonstrations, inaugural protests, and outrage against executive orders, once again demonstrators are intoxicated with patriotism’s highest form.

But is dissent really the highest form of patriotism?

Dissent just means to disagree. Now, disagreeing for partisan reasons or personal dislike is the lowest form of dissent and has nothing to do with patriotism.

Patriotism is: Devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country.

Dissenters emphasize their love of country, but I’m going to emphasize defense. Thomas Jefferson understood defense. He created a gunboat navy. Jefferson also understood dissent, but Jefferson wouldn’t have understood this phrase attributed to him because he never said it.

During the Bush administration this phrase was popularized by historian Howard Zinn, one year before Hillary Clinton riled up her audience.

Zinn was asked to comment on his opposition to “The War on Terror” and how dissent came to be labeled as unpatriotic by the Bush administration. Zinn said, “While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles your country is supposed to stand, then certainly that right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we’re exercising that right to dissent, it’s a patriotic act.”

Zinn’s statement was a rebuttal to criticism aimed at silencing anti-war advocates and in that respect Zinn was right, but the quote in question was actually something Zinn overheard from his past anti-war activities.

Staff researchers at Monticello stated the quote entered popular culture during the Vietnam era when the Mayor of New York used it after Richard Nixon’s advisors called a peaceful protest unpatriotic.

Again the phrase was just a clever rebuttal against the moral authority of the administration, but before the Vietnam era the Truman administration had the heights of morality tested during World War II, when they encountered the enemy’s highest form of patriotism, which combined love of country and defense.

The Japanese Kamikaze pilots flew suicide missions into American naval vessels, they crashed their planes to sink American ships. 3,860 Kamikaze pilots died and 19% hit naval targets.

American military commanders never saw this type of combat.

This type of combat made President Truman realize American forces would be massacred if they invaded Japan, so President Truman dropped atomic bombs because the United States couldn’t match Japan’s highest form of patriotism. (Whether or not Truman failed the morality test no one can answer unless they too were responsible for the lives of sailors confronting Kamikazes.)

Now, if you’re the new Republican president, and you know the last Republican president was blindsided by modern Kamikazes within the first six months of his presidency due to the previous administration’s lack of priorities and that same Republican president was blamed because it happened on his watch, and you, as the new Republican president, had no faith in your predecessor’s national defense policies, and you don’t want to be blamed for the previous administration’s mistakes, what would you do?

Build a wall, review and strengthen entrance procedures into the United States, and defend yourself against America’s highest form of patriotism or concentrate on something less controversial and hope the enemy isn’t patriotic?

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 2/8/17