My country, right or wrong?

That’s what some people say, at least. They can see no wrong done by their country; anything their country does in its own interest is right because it is, after all, their country.

The phrase (if not the tribal sentiment) came from Stephen Decatur, who said, “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong.”

To which John Quincy Adams demurred, “I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.” And, later, GK Chesterton commented, “‘My Country, right or wrong’ is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.'”

It is natural, even healthy within limits, to root for the home team — the family, the club, the tribe, the state, the nation.  Group identity has its value.  But it has its blindnesses, as well, and it’s a very slippery slope from patriotism to jingoism, from “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, to thee I sing” to “My country, right or wrong.” Or, worse (and exemplified by the blathering of the Becks and the Hannities and the Limbaughs), “My country, right by definition.”

Which is a very round-about way to push folks to this post of DOF’s, “A Day in Patriotic Space“.  I do a lot of linky-love Unblogged Bits posts I could have mentioned it in, but I wanted to be sure that George’s post got sufficient billing, so that it didn’t get lost in the chatter.

It’s good stuff. Worth (as usual with George) reading.