Patriotism, Real and Imagined
Nonna Gorilovskaya writes in The Christian Science Monitor that she considers it her patriotic duty to defend the President when she is traveling abroad.
In my hometown of San Francisco, Bush supporters are called all sorts of names, and I rarely bother with defending them. When abroad, however, I feel a patriotic duty to try to explain the political views of those with whom I adamantly disagree.
I couldn’t disagree with her more. When I joined the Army, I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I did not swear an oath to defend the President’s reputation or policies. That is the job of the President. If his name is mud, the President has nobody to blame but himself. The President is not royalty. He is not our king. We do not serve him - he serves us.
Furthermore, I consider George W. Bush to be a criminal. He has violated the Constitution he swore an oath to uphold in more ways and on more occasions than I care to count. I hold Congress in almost the same contempt for not doing their duty and impeaching the criminal oathbreaker currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The true patriotic duty of all Americans is to defend the Constitution - the supreme law of our nation and its heart and soul - against all who would seek to undermine or destroy it. Presidents come and go and America survives. Sweep aside the Constitution, however, and America goes into the dustbin of history along with it.
We are a nation of laws, not men.