Editor,
A letter in WORLD’s Independence Day issue was a classic example of anti-American hate speech encased in a long parade of nonsense. Andrew Torre characterized U.S. patriotism as a “vacuous myth,” “an infantile love” and “the last refuge of a scoundrel” as he “searched” for the true meaning of the word, “patriotism.” He correctly began with the root of the word, “patros” – “father.”
In response to Torre’s request for help, here goes – “patriotism” means holding the same beliefs of America’s founding “fathers.” Since the 2016 Independence Day was the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let’s look at the foundational beliefs that started History’s Great Nation. The four mentions of the God of the Bible in the Declaration are key to understanding the document. Significantly, they occur at the most important places in a piece of writing – at the beginning and end. Without these beliefs, the Declaration and the Revolution would not have had a leg to stand on.
The first sentence of America’s “birth certificate” invokes “Nature’s God” – i.e., God set all the laws that govern the physical and moral world. The second sentence – it’s most famous line – provides the warrant and authority for America’s Revolution. “We hold these truths to be self-evident {i.e. obvious}, that all Men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights … Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Declaration and the warrant for American freedom are “creationist.”
The Declaration concludes praying – “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world … And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence {God}…”
Americans who hold these media-denounced-beliefs are patriots. They share the same understanding of reality that America’s brilliant founders, and most Americans, held at the time they began the world changing revolution that jump-started modern politics. The American Revolution changed world governance from the ancient institution of “divine-right” monarchy to the “election” politics of the 21st century world.
Torre concludes his letter with that misunderstood quote from a friend of King George III and an enemy of America’s Revolution. Samuel Johnson wrote these words just after the battle of Lexington that was the first shot of the Revolution – “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” He was referring to America’s founders, who based the revolution on their God-and-country beliefs.
Torre ends his letter calling America’s founders “simpletons.”
Paul Dinger
Founding editor of the Boston Review of the arts and descendant of an American Revolution soldier who heard the Declaration of Independence read in Philadelphia