June 14, 2010

Happy Flag Day!

Actually I love our flag but I'm philosophically not happy with having a "flag day." It came from a trend of the late 19th Century to turn Americans towards the false faith of nationalism. Back then men like Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt were busily trying to make Americans more like Prussians. Our true spirit would be much better expressed with a "Constitution Day."

Or in this, the words of Lincoln in his Eulogy on Henry Clay:

He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such, the advancement, prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human right and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that freemen could be prosperous.

Posted by John Weidner at June 14, 2010 10:00 AM
Weblog by John Weidner