Peace is Unpatriotic

[Hogeye]

War is armed hostile conflict between states. Peace is absence of war. Patriotism is love or devotion to one's state. Now that we've defined terms, let's look at the situation.

The US state rulers want war, in the form of occupation of foreign territories. If you have love or devotion for your state, then you go along with your rulers and support the occupations. Cheer the war, dutifully pay taxes to fund the war, sacrifice your children to fight the war, and celebrate the slaughter of innocent people to win the war.

Those of us who want peace, and are not devoted to serving the state's rulers or bleeding for their ambitions, are decidedly unpatriotic. We think the State is wrong, we think the rulers are criminals, we loathe the state - the mass-murdering institution of war and plunder.

Thus, it worries me when self-labeled peaceniks try to position themselves as patriots. It's a clear case of *failure to understand the concept.* The state is the problem, not the solution. I understand why these misguided folks do it: "Patriotism" is a sugary feel-good word on TV and in newspapers, so why not try to hijack its meaning for the cause of peace? Why not associate "peace" with the nicey-nice word "patriotism." There are two things wrong with this. One: Peace is good in itself, for many reasons. There's no need to appeal to (and soil it with) patriotism. Second: The juxtaposition of "peace" and "patriotism" sends a conflicting message. War is the health of the state; Peace is the infirmity of the state. Peace is keeping the state so weak the rulers cannot engage in foreign aggression, maintain foreign bases, or poison and bomb foreign peoples.

Appealing to nationalism, jingoism, and patriotism undermines the most effective actions and strategies for stopping war. It is unpatriotic people, the tax-resisters and draft resisters, who limit the state's ability to wage war. It is the traitors who are the most effective peacemakers. It is the teenager who says "fuck you" to the state's military recruiters, who spits on the flag and laughs at the brain-dead big lies, who will win peace.

Patriotism is the root of all evil. It is the motive-power of war, the word that calls sheep to their slaughter, the depraved fiction that glosses over mass slaughter and torture. "Patriotism" is a slave mentality, the fatuity of human lemmings willing to immolate themselves at the whim of depraved masters.

A patriotic peacenik already has the poison of the next war coursing through his tainted blood. "Stop this war," he cries, while tilling the soil for the next war. "Stop the war but love Big Brother," he bleats, glorifying the creator of all past wars, and lauds the next barbarity in Iran, or Sudan, or Colombia. To these misguided state-duped patriots we say: You cannot love and worship the god of war, and truly oppose war. To oppose war you must oppose the institutions which create war. The state is evil - it is the root cause of war. Not just your state, but all states. It's the institution, stupid!

Rise up, anti-patriots! Be seditionist, traitorous, and true to humanity. Do the right thing - condemn your state. Love thy neighbor and hate thy state. Be peaceful, unpatriotic, and proud.

[Betsy]

I actually tend to agree. I think flags are stupid. After 9/11, I ran out and bought an American flag and hung it by my front door like a lot of people. Then I thought about it and realized how dumb that was. I took it down, rolled it up and put it in the garage, and when I moved I threw it away.

But it's not that I don't love my country and want the best for it. Certainly I do. I think the different countries should have their own cultures and traditions. But the flag thing and the patriot thing is just a way of separating us and saying we're the best (i.e., better than you)

[Hogeye]

One of my pet anti-Orwellian peeves is the equivocation of "state" (or "government") with "country." A state is an organization with a monopoly on force; a country is a geographical region. This distinction can be seen on the libertarian bumper sticker:

I love my country
I fear my government


BTW I made a video of my "editorial" which will be shown on CAT.

I have a chess tournament this weekend, so won't make it to the Freethinkers meeting, darnit. Hopefully I'll be able to catch the rest of the Dawkins flick sometime.