There's a thread on Patriotism over at Winds of Change that's generated some interest (if frustrating) discussion. The seed of the post is Jonah Goldberg's article on Patriotism in the LA Times, a ham-fisted false dilemma if there ever was one.

I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Any issue-framing that boils down to "There are two kinds of people..." is immediately suspect. This text is extra-special-silly, though. Even if one accepts that there is a fundamental split between two kinds of "patriots," his "change-for-change-sake" and "preserve America" labels are just a clumsy attempts at rehashing 1960s arguments about Those Darn Protesters.

Goldberg claims that America is "not merely an idea" -- this much is obvious. Ideas generally don't have their own currencies, borders, governments, and armies. The "Americanness" that he says must be preserved, though, is by definition an abstract ideal. At least, it must be -- if it simply represents the current state of things, Americanness changes every time there is a cultural shift. Was racial segregation one of those aspects of "Americanness" that true patriots sought to preserve? I'm willing to be Goldberg would say no, but his easy-peasy split between the 'changers' and the 'preservers' gives no tools for tackling the real argument: what American ideals are good and worth preserving, and which ones are ugly and in need of change?

That, to my eyes, is where the real arguments break out. Everyone who claims to be patriotic -- liberal, conservative, libertarian, leftist, white supremacist, Christian dominionist, etc. -- has a list of things they feel should change and a list of things they feel should be preserved. Taking this road, though, is harder. It requires thought, analysis of the differing claims and arguments, and decision-making. It requires forming one's own view of what about the current state of "Americanness" is good and what is not. Far easier to just side with "the patriots who want to preserve Americanness." Let them sort out what that means, I'll just keep waving my little flag. I got it at the gas station.

One of the comments, early in the Winds of Change thread, seems to capture everything that's utterly broken about discourse on the right these days. It's just the sort of thing I would've written in 1998 at the height of the Klinton Regime:

Patriotism and nationalism are both good in and of themselves. Because they expand the trust-obligation network to every citizen. Nationalism is not a bad thing, it is a good thing, like love or marriage of which it resembles. Japanese militarism and National Socialism or Italy's Mussolini are not examples of either patriotism or nationalism (despite what Leftist / Volk Marxists think). The latter are examples of racialism excluding large swaths of people from power and civic life. Well, like how Hollywood excludes anyone who is not an elitist.

Five sentences from "Nationalism Is Inherently Good" to "Hollywood Is Like Nazism," with a quick No True Scotsman detour. That takes practice.