Beware blind patriotism

by Angela K. Durden

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Call me contrary (others have), but I've always refused to do what I am told when they say I must because they simply want me to. If they say I have to do it to prove I am a thing/category they hold important, then I double down on my stance — even if I agree with them. 

I do this because I believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as they were written and intended to be understood by the framers: As the right to stand up against and say no to anyone who requires me to agree with them because they are stronger than or threaten me with sanctions if I don't. How dare they?

That is the problem with blind patriotism. Blind patriotism believes that the act of obedience (or disobedience) itself is proof of intent. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

I am not an enemy of my country. But I am, more accurately, a citizen of God's Kingdom and it is to Him I owe my allegiance. So if a country requires me to go against God in order to prove I won't harm them, then the choice is clear: They can go to hell in a hand basket, but I will not do as they ask.

Some folks are reading this and they are saying, "Now, Angela, you are sounding like you don't stand for anything. You sound like you are against me, patriot that I am."

To that I say, "Heck, no. I support the founding documents of this country, and I am proud when my country helps the politically and religiously downtrodden."

My refusal to be told how I can prove that support is, in point of fact, a way to keep the Constitution and Bill of Rights safe and strong.

As a case in point, think Germany in the years between The Great War and World War Two. German citizens gave in to Hitler, believing his promises without examining the fine print of that agreement. We know how that turned out.

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust because of blind patriotism. But did you know there were 6.5 million non-Jews killed for other reasons? Yes, for instance —

Many, with no choice in the matter included other groups singled out by the Nazis such as homosexual men, including any in Hitler's armies. Dead or tortured. Then there was the physically and mentally disabled. And the national groups of Poles and other Slavic peoples, and members of political opposition groups. Like Jews, Roma Gypsies were arrested and killed because of their race. Black children were sterilized as a matter of course. Tortured in experiments or killed outright and nothing they could do about it.

But there were others who did have choices and they chose resistance to blind patriotism. The reasons varied, but they were:

Any non-Jew married to a Jew had to choose between divorce or death. Most chose death because they would not cave to being told they could not stay married to the one they loved and would not cave to blind patriotism.

French Resistance

How about all those courageous resisters of Hitler who operated underground in every European country and Germany? These resisters included children, teens, and adults, and male and female. If caught, they were imprisoned, tortured, and executed, yet they would not cave to blind patriotism.

Thousands of individual Catholic priests and Christian pastors, often going against their own church’s high leadership, refused to support Hitler and were imprisoned and tortured, some killed, for their troubles. Again, these would not cave to blind patriotism.

And then there was one group in particular, Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were the only group offered opportunity to sign a declaration of allegiance to Hitler that would grant them freedom and they could get their homes and jobs back. That declaration, however, included renouncing allegiance of God. They refused and upwards of 5000 were killed in the concentration camps. 200 Witness men were tried by the German War Court and executed for refusing to serve in Hitler’s armies. They would not cave to blind patriotism.

In September 1936, an international convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses was held in Switzerland. There a resolution condemning the entire Nazi regime was voted on and issued. The text of it, as well as other literature brought into Germany and distributed through underground means by them, indicted the Third Reich, and strongly denounced Hitler’s campaigns of persecution against German Jews, as well as Nazi "savagery" toward Communists, and the remilitarization of Germany, the Nazification of schools and universities, all Nazi propaganda, and the regime's overall assault on mainstream churches. Hitler swore to eradicate them from out of Germany. Hitler was unsuccessful.

All these groups above were good citizens of their countries and communities who paid their taxes, obeyed the laws, owned businesses, were dependable employees, supported their families and helped their friends. They may have differed in religious beliefs, but they would not be told to do or support what was harmful.

Because of them and their extensively documented resistance to the force that blind patriotism can wield, we who study history can stand firm against evil wherever it is found.

Beware the temporary pleasure that blind patriotism can bring because at its tail is a sting that brings dictators, and Socialism, Communism, and Fascism, and destroys the very freedom it says it loves.

Polish Resistance