What makes a patriot?

Dave Ross Commentary – Listen: What makes a patriot?

Here it is July 4th, our great patriotic holiday. So how does a patriot behave. If patriotism is about love of country, it would have to mean — showing that love in concrete ways. Otherwise, it’s just talk.

It would be the investor who invests his money here, instead of hiding it in some offshore tax haven. It’s the person who not only tears up at America the Beautiful, but also tries to live his life in a way that doesn’t cause those purple mountain majesties to disappear behind a haze of vehicular exhaust.

A patriot believes in enforcing the constitution… by refusing to vote for politicians who show an inclination to betray it.

The Second Amendment has been enforced pretty effectively that way, at least in terms of protecting the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, and yet, lately we’ve been maintaining a pretty expensive standing army, which is what the Second Amendment was intended to prevent.

We stopped strictly enforcing the Fourth Amendment, on the grounds that search and seizure is OK in the name of national security, and have danced around the 8th amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment for the same reason. And we have no patience for the Constitutional hassle of Congress declaring war.

And now, we’re about to give up on the 14th Amendment — which Treasury Secretary Geithner recently quoted on CSPAN:

“Can I read you the 14th amendment? ‘The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension,’ this is the important thing, ‘shall not be questioned.'”

What would a patriot do?

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