Salute this Lt. Col.

Marine Lt. Col Stuart Scheller, whose video calling for senior leadership accountability for the withdrawal from Afghanistan went viral, has resigned his commission—effective September 11, 2021.

His reason: “Lack of trust and confidence in your ability to lead”. pic.twitter.com/80d9DEDnkK

— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) September 1, 2021

Good

As the 10th anniversary of the start of the Syrian war approaches, a Catholic archbishop in Damascus is appealing for refugees to return home. https://t.co/gZTnH7dagF

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) February 5, 2021

This Is CCP Statist Nationalism, not Patriotism

[Recap] Hong Kong gov’t tells schools to teach ‘law-abidingness,’ promote sense of national identityhttps://t.co/ND7N9W9hX4

— Hong Kong Free Press HKFP (@hkfp) December 4, 2020

An Imperial Mindset?

Building an Orthodox Parish by Archpriest Lawrence Farley (originally published at No Other Foundation)

Much of this is good. But I think the last direction is problematic:

Finally, the community must be eschatologically oriented. That is, they must regard themselves not primarily as citizens of this world or as Americans or Canadians or as citizens of any other country, but as citizens of the Kingdom. Patriotism is wonderful, but the good must not be allowed to become the enemy of the best, and the Church stands under the Cross, not under any national flag. To make the flag paramount is idolatry. Through his preaching the priest must encourage his flock to see themselves as sojourners in this age, with their eyes fixed on the horizon to behold the blessed hope of the Second Coming with the cry of “Maranatha!” in their hearts.

Living this out consistently will mean that the society around them will increasingly regard them as aliens, as unwelcome intruders, and as disturbers of the secular status quo. We all know where the front line of this battle is being drawn, and we must not flinch or compromise. Our Lord’s words to the apostles, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19) have lost none of their relevance. The priest must preach and the people must accept that to become an Orthodox Christian is to leave one moral universe and to enter a different one. And they must read the fine print before making this decision—that of inevitable conflict with the world and of possible persecution.

It is true that Christians primary focus is God; but to say they are "citizens" of the Kingdom in this case, as if their political citizenship is not a relevant moral concern, can be misleading. After all, being a member of the people of God, while it does entail "duties" to God and other Christians, also entails that one lives up to one's duties to one's neighbors who may not be Christian but nonetheless are members of the same political community. Christians don't enter a "different moral universe"; their moral universe has been clarified. I say that this may reflect an imperial mindset because it may be similar to the mindset of early Christians living in the Roman Empire. And it is probably even more reflective of how certain non-Western Apostolic Christians in the Anglosphere view things. Perhaps even some Russian Orthodox in Russia think in this way as well. But I think it is incorrect, though there is another error of identifying the state as one's political community, and this must be corrected as well.

This Is Civic Nationalism

in service of statism. It's not really patriotism.

It's 9/12.

Many reached out to us for a copy of Gen Erik Kurilla's speech at yesterday's 9/11 ceremony. We created this video for all.

The theme: 9/11 was important, but 9/12 was when we came together.

On this 9/12, can we remember what we’ve learned?https://t.co/lS2hQNO5Cc

— XVIII Airborne Corps (@18airbornecorps) September 12, 2020

What a Cuck.

Victim of the German guilt complex. The Japanese don't suffer from it.

“Germany’s past is a fractured past – with responsibility for the murdering of millions and the suffering of millions. That breaks our hearts. And that is why I say that this country can only be loved with a broken heart.” – Federal President Steinmeier in speech on #8May. pic.twitter.com/GE9wDECoSb

— Germany at NATO (@GermanyNATO) May 8, 2020

S. Trifkovic: Reflections on Victory in Europe, 75 Years Later

A Painting by Don Troiani

Can a Nation-State Be a Patria?

Tails Tucked

A bunch of Latin Catholic liberals are complaining about Cardinal Burke and how he is engaged in hate speech and not being a good witness to the Gospel. He may be mistaken or simplistic to apply the virtue of patriotism to the state, but his comments, as recorded here, are rather mild. These same Catholics would support stricter gun control laws.

If you do not have the role of defending the perimeter or show no interest or desire to do so, your opinion doesn't matter. If you choose to subject yourself and your loved ones to the power of others, you are free to do so and I won't prevent you from doing so or put my life on the line to save you, but if you think you have the right to take away what I need to exercise my God-given responsibility to defend myself, family, and community you are mistaken.

Catholic Herald: Cardinal Burke: Limiting Muslim immigration is patriotic by Robert Duncan
Crux

The Heart of James Douglas 'The Good' & Robert the Bruce

Patriotism

Catholic Tradition and the Patriotic Question by Jerry Salyer

Irina Ratushinskay

Pravoslavie: On Irina Ratushinskaya’s “Atypical Dissidence”, Faith, and Love for Her Country by Igor Gerashchenko

Irina Borisovna Ratushinskaya (born March 4, 1954), a poet, a former dissident and an Orthodox Christian, reposed in the Lord on July 5, 2017. Pravoslavie.ru talked with Irina’s husband Igor Gerashchenko, also a former dissident and a member of the Artists Trade Union of Russia.

Jerry Salyer on Anthony Esolen's New Book

CWR: Patriotism, Piety, and Anthony Esolen's Out of the Ashes by Jerry Salyer
Simply put, when it comes to the nature of patriotism, Professor Esolen and George W. Bush cannot both be right.

Compatible with a Old Right Perspective?

Commemorating Pearl Harbor, even though FDR was arguably responsible for provoking Japan, and though an attack was expected, insufficient warning was given to those under his command.



Edit.
The Case for Pearl Harbor Revisionism by Stephen J. Sniegoski

PJB: Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?

Japan's "Nobility of Failure" in 1941 by Eric Margolis

Libertarian But Not Wholly Liberal?

Do the authors accept there can be a common good distinct from the private goods of the members of a political community?

Doug Casey on Globalism and the Worldwide Populist Revolt by Nick Giambruno

Mankind has gone through three main stages of the political organization since Day One, say 200,000 years ago, when anatomically modern men appeared. We can call them Tribes, Kingdoms, and Nation-States.

In prehistoric times, the largest political/economic group was the tribe. Since men are social creatures, it was natural enough to be loyal to the tribe. It made sense. Almost everyone in the tribe was genetically related, and the group was essential for mutual survival in the wilderness. The local group was all that counted. “Others” from alien tribes, were not only in competition for scarce resources, but they might want to kill you for good measure. Tribalism is probably genetic—it’s a survival mechanism. Patriotism for your tribe also served a survival purpose, because you were always fighting with the neighboring tribes. You wanted your co-tribalists to be loyal and patriotic…

In the Kingdom phase, from around 3,000 B.C. to roughly the mid-1600s, the world’s cultures were organized under strong men, ranging from petty lords to kings and emperors. With kingdoms, loyalties weren’t so much to the “country”—a nebulous and arbitrary concept—but to the ruler. You were the subject of a king, first and foremost. Your linguistic, ethnic, religious, and other affiliations were secondary. Tribal leaders who were good warriors conquered neighboring tribes and set themselves up as kings.

Then came the nation-state, one of the mankind’s worst inventions.

Except Casey then says this:

Today’s prevailing norm is the nation-state, a group of people who tend to share a language, religion, and ethnicity. Like a gigantic tribe. The idea of the nation-state is especially effective when it’s organized as a “democracy,” where the average person is given the illusion he has some measure of control over where the leviathan is headed.

I think, however, that the nation-state is approaching its end game. What will replace it? I think Neal Stephenson was right in his superb novel The Diamond Age, where he put forward the idea of “phyles.” It no longer makes sense to be loyal to a group just because they have the same government ID that you do, or because they were born in the same bailiwick. I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the people living down the road in the trailer park, or in the barrio, or the ghetto, or the next town. As a matter of fact, they’re likely adversaries and liabilities. We’ve got little in common.

I feel more loyalty to people with whom I share values—and they could as easily be in France, or Burma, or the Congo as the U.S. Now, with the internet, modern telecommunications, and jet travel, we can find each other. Birds of a feather will wind up forming phyles, obviating the nation-state.

Loyalty is not a feeling -- it is an act of the will based on trust and experience with the other. Loyalty to strangers is just stupid. An illustration of a version of political science that has not been thought out carefully.

Clyde Wilson on the National Anthem, Sports Celebrities, and Patriotism

Allegiances by Clyde Wilson

Bruce Frohnen on Patriotism

“Patriotism and Its Limits,” By Bruce Frohnen

Usually I Don't Pay Attention to Noah Millman

This piece wasn't bad: A Class Is Not the Same As a Tribe

But "organizing" takes more than the sort of organizing you get in "community organizing" or whatever a liberal might think.

Related:
Patriotism Begins With Localism By Ian Marcus Corbin
The thinness of American identity has to stretch from Toby Keith to a bro on Beacon Hill.

CWR Blog: Is Patriotism a Virtue? by Jerry Salyer
The fact that so few public figures openly challenge the value of patriotism indicates not a genuine consensus in favor of patriotism, but only that few public figures have given much thought to what patriotism actually is.

Patriotism v. [Ethno]Nationalism

The Cheap Trick of Whiteness by Scott Richert