The patriots are the bravest, and the rarest. The greater the patriotism, the fewer their numbers. The patriots are united in that out of all of its people- they love their nation most, and have always been the minority.
For a patriot: the nation they love is the greatest nation. Greater than any of the rest, maybe greater than all the rest together. There is no better place to be.
It is not contended that the role of greatest nation doesn’t come naturally, or by accident. Even the not-so-great nations were not established idly. To develop a nation demands continual, passionate investment. The greater the nation, the greater the cost, and to be the greatest demands the most.
Who will do it? The patriots do.
Every great nation is pillared by patriots. And as patriots more and more endure the struggle toward greatness, further swells their patriotism. The greater the patriot, the greater the investment. The greater the investment, the greater the patriot. But from here, the conduct and character of greater patriotism than this divides them all.
It is easy to be a patriot in a nation that loves you. A nation that rewards its patriots with security and sanctuary, fairness and respect, and which works to make all patriots as great as the nation: will swell with patriots of every kind.
And yet not all citizens will be patriots, even as easy patriotism as this.
It is much harder to love a nation that hates you. To believe in a nation that doesn’t believe in you. A nation against you, where you are the enemy, that doesn’t want you, that will fight to destroy you. Who will sacrifice for this nation? Who will face this nation and still say “This is the greatest nation, I would risk it all for you.”
This is the greatest patriot.
Not all patriots are citizens, the first patriots weren’t.
Look, the nation is exhausted. After the violence of war, continual social unrest, and every force dragging the nation they love away from the nation they it had always been to them… these things are taxing, and tiring, and real. When they fought for this nation, lost lives for this nation. Raised this nation, watched as it became new, a nation they made, a new greatest, greater than before. Overcoming depressions and disasters all real and all costly. They spent it for the nation. The patriots did anyway.
And now they’re tired. They just got here. The kids are out, they just retired, and finally have something. They’ve finally gotten somewhere. After a lifetime of work is it too much to ask to just enjoy the greatness of the nation into which you invested so much? Maybe you don’t even have anything yet. Maybe you didn’t get anything! I went through it all and I’m still struggling! In this nation oh so great where’s the greatness for me?
They worked before most of us were born, and they made the nation great for the patriots and ignorant alike. And as its greatness grew: so grew the scrutiny of the other nations, conscious of your growing greatness.
What is the truest patriot to make of these nations?
What should the patriot think of another people not from here? Struggling likewise, maybe more, to experience the greatest nation. Do these people not value the nation? Do they struggle, and sacrifice, and risk for it? Aren’t the greatest patriots made of this?
Or are they only lesser threats? Lesser nations not-the-greatest, other hives and other bees, with other honey not-as-good. They’ll want your greatness, they’ll work for it more than you want to work, for less of it than you want to earn. It will make your greatness less, soon they could have more of it than you! Don’t bring your struggles here and take my greatness away! Patriot your own nation, create your own greatness as I did! This greatness is mine!
I AM THE NATION. Says the least of all patriots. WHAT THREATENS MY GREATNESS THREATENS THE NATION. AS THE NATION IS GREAT DUE TO ME.
Is greatness like a resource? The more others have the less we have for ourselves? War persists to this end, within and without. Fear divides these lesser patriots, young from old, race from race, religion from religion, class from class. Each believing they are the nation, that they are the greatness, that no others are true patriots. The greater divided the nation’s patriots become the fewer patriots remain to shoulder it, protecting mostly only what they believe, as patriots, makes the nation great, and disregarding the rest.
But a nation is everything, it is a people, it is race, it is religion, culture, economy, the body of the nation remains aside the division of its mind. The nation remains greater than any of these people, or ideologies, or reasons, none of them alone are greater than the nation, and alone cannot make the nation great.
The greatest nation cannot spare patriots for idle differences. To be greatest demands them all. If a nation thinks it needs to horde its greatness, it is a sign it feels it can no longer produce greatness. A nation which can produce its own greatness is not afraid of refugees, foreign governments, and certainly not afraid of it’s fellow patriots. The greatest nation will realize it can create greatness for them all, and in doing so will create patriots of them all.
Vote against fear.
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17. I made an igneous fatuous, a kingdom. I called out to my people, saying: We must have a kingdom. I showed them no reason for it; but I bade them take up arms and follow me for patriotism’s sake. And yet what was patriotism? Behold, I made it as something greater than Thee and Thy commandment: THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
18. Yea, by the cunning of my words, I taught them my brother was my enemy; that to fall upon him and his people and destroy them was great patriotism.
20. Yea, I built colleges for training my young men in warfare. I drew a boundary hither and thither, saying: This is my kingdom! All others are my enemies!
22. And their judgment was turned away from peace; I made them think that righteousness was to stand up for me and my country, and to destroy my brother and his people.
23. They built me forts and castles and arsenals without number. I called unto my people, saying: Come, behold the glory of my defences which I built for you!
24. And they gave me money and garrisons, and ships of war, and torpedos, shouting: Hurrah for our kingdom! We have faith in these things, but not in Thee, our Creator!