Super Dave
02-27-03, 12:56 PM
The fashionable assaults on patriotism, in the end, are failures of
character. They are made by privileged individuals who enjoy the full benefits offered by the country they deride and detest its opportunities,
its freedom, its riches but who lack the basic decency to pay their country the allegiance and respect that honor demands. Honor, of course, is often another object of their derision. For the rest of us, our own honor and our devotion to our nation's special virtues requires us to respect and defend their opportunity to be irresponsible and subversive of our safety. But nothing forbids us from pointing out the despicable nature of their behavior.
Professor Donald Kagan, Yale
character. They are made by privileged individuals who enjoy the full benefits offered by the country they deride and detest its opportunities,
its freedom, its riches but who lack the basic decency to pay their country the allegiance and respect that honor demands. Honor, of course, is often another object of their derision. For the rest of us, our own honor and our devotion to our nation's special virtues requires us to respect and defend their opportunity to be irresponsible and subversive of our safety. But nothing forbids us from pointing out the despicable nature of their behavior.
Professor Donald Kagan, Yale