Wise patriots would not be afraid to admit their country’s mistakes, and they would not make exceptionalist and paternalistic claims about national destiny and obligation.  God blesses all nations, not just ours.
 
True patriotism is not a narrow nationalism that goes its own way--“you are either with us or against us”--but one that embraces the UN charter, international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.
 
Some critics say that the virtue of patriotism is obsolete in our new world culture. They claim that the nation state is by its nature dysfunctional, just as destructive as the atomistic self of which the modern state is a projection.  Proclamations such as “Live Free Or Die” or “Don’t Tread On Me” give lie to the fundamental truth that human beings are social and relational.
 
When Martin Buber wrote that “there is no I taken in itself, but only the I of the primary word I-Thou,” he was rediscovering that Buddhists and Confucians already knew 2,500 years ago.  The diplomatic equivalent is of course that there is no nation “taken in itself.” The primary Confucian virtue ren--meaning humaneness or benevolence--is a character composed of the glyphs person and the number two.  Being truly human is “two peopleness.”
 
Some say that self-assertive nationalism is a product of patriarchy, and patriotism should be replaced by, as Elousie Bell calls it, “matriotism” whose loyalty would be to the largest community possible.  As Virginia Woolf declared:  “As a woman, I have no country.  As a woman, my country is the whole world.”  Bell and Native Americans propose that Mother Earth herself become the object of our devotion.  For Native Americans patriotism has meant the destruction of their lands, their languages, and their cultures.
 
Daoists celebrate the Dao as feminine and their fellow Confucians promote a universal fellowship of all nations, but the Confucian Mencius was also correct in saying that love is, first and foremost, local and personal.  It is only natural that we love those who are closest to us more than those far away.  Confucian love is a graded love that starts with the family and spreads in concentric circles to the nation and then to the biosphere around us.  Mencius joined Buddhists and Jains in acknowledging our moral obligations to animals.

Elouise Bell is wise to insist that her matriotism does not necessarily eliminate a personal love for country and for one’s own land.  Following Mencius, my love for Gaia is necessarily personal and local.  I’ve traveled extensively on four continents but there is nothing like the mountains, lakes, and rivers of the Pacific Northwest that I call my home.  The Palouse Hills surrounding Moscow have become an extension of my body.
 
The liberals that should take back their flag have a long distinguished tradition that goes back to the American and French revolutions.  Against the divine right of kings and caste society of classical conservatism, these “classical” liberals have always stood for liberty, equality, and community (French fraternite) for all.
 
The American Wiccan community propose that the French fraternite be translated as the virtue of cooperation. They quote the great classical liberal Ben Franklin: "If we don't hang together, we shall surely all hang separately." The Wiccans rightly emphasize that the origins of democratic and republican ideals are pagan not Christian.
 
Today’s libertarians put liberty first at the cost of both equality and community.  Conservatives and liberals embrace all three with an emphasis on community and traditional values for the former and equality for the latter.  Following the Danish example, we should all respect each other’s love for the classical liberal principles for which this nation stands “with freedom and justice for all.”
 
Nick Gier taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31 years.  For more on classical liberalism see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/liberalism.htm and www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/305/foundfathers.htm.