What Patriotism Requires

Government is set up--and here's what a Declaration of Independence is about--government is set up by the people in order to fulfill certain responsibilities: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. And according to the Declaration of Independence, when the government violates those responsibilities, then, and these are the words of the Declaration of Independence, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government.

In other words, the government is not holy; the government is not to be obeyed when the government is wrong. So to me patriotism in its best sense means thinking about the people in the country, the principles for which the country stands for, and it requires opposing the government when the government violates those principles.

So today, for instance, the highest act of patriotism, I suggest, would be opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Simply because everything about the war violates the fundamental principles of equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, not just for Americans, but for people in another part of the world. So, yes, patriotism today requires citizens to be active on many, many different fronts to oppose government policies on the war, government policies that have taken trillions of dollars from this country's treasury and used it for war and militarism. That's what patriotism would require today.

--Howard Zinn