Do you love America more than the Constitution? Or do you love America BECAUSE of the Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights?
Speaking for myself, it’s the latter. I love America because individual rights flourished here, both in principle and practice, for a very long time. America was, and always will be, the first country that explicitly based itself on the rights of the individual. This led to innovation, prosperity, meritocracy, a work ethic, the independent American spirit, the elimination of slavery (the first society in human history to fight a civil war over ending slavery), and all the rest we now take for granted as millions of us embrace the glowering despair of Communism, fascism and collectivism instead (thinking we’re being virtuous by doing so).
You don’t fight for freedom because it’s the American way. You fight for America because freedom is what it stands for — or at least did, at its peak. Where it goes from here is largely up to the good guys left in this society. And we are at a turning point, I promise you.
A nationalist loves his country because it’s his country. By that definition, nationalism is a terrible mistake. Nationalism leads to Nazi Germany. It puts the state — the collective — above the individual, and for that reason nationalism is the polar opposite of what made America great. What made America great was its emphasis on individual rights, including the right to free speech, the right to private property, the right to bear arms and — at the root of it all — the sovereignty of the individual over his own life. The end.
Two things sum up the spirit of America, to me. One, the phrase, “Don’t tread on me.” Two, the phrase, “My body — my mind — my choice.” If nationalism means upholding these two things in the spirit of our original Bill of Rights, then I’m all for it; though I wouldn’t call it nationalism. I’d simply call it freedom.
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