Love of Country

What does it mean to love your country? The White House’s Domestic Policy Council issued a 162-page report on the Fourth of July, criticizing the National Museum of American History for supposedly failing to celebrate the nation’s history and heritage. It states, in part, that the history museum should have a warning label reading: “Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.”

Really? I guess that depends on what you mean by love. Does love mean uncritical adoration? In my view, that type of uncritical love is only appropriate for love of God. For the people and things that we love, there is always room for improvement.

Most of us love our spouses. But we may wish they did some things differently–that they ate better, exercised more, or stopped doing that thing that annoys us. Does that mean we don’t love them? Hardly!

We may love our home. But we may wish that it had been laid out differently when it was built, and had a better design. Or, we may wish that we had fixed the roof before it leaked. These are things that happened in the past, and we can’t turn back the clock. But acknowledging that we need a new roof, or that we might need to remodel and get a floor plan that works better for us, is smart, not a sign of a lack of love.

The same with the love of our country. We identify with our country. It is important to us. And important things are both cherished and scrutinized for flaws that can be fixed. Do we wish that certain historical wrongs were not committed? Sure. Do we look for ways to remedy those wrongs? Absolutely. That is not a lack of love; that’s normal, human caring.