Patriotism and self-interest

At the Republican national convention last week, Maverick GOP Senator John McCain was said to have delivered a highly “patriotic” speech. In this so-called “patriotic” speech, Mr. McCain told us something about his father.
“On an early December morning many years ago,” he said, “I watched my father leave for war.
He joined millions of Americans to fight a world war . . . They fought for love, for love of an idea–that America stood for something greater than the sum of our individual interests.”

Yet, in reality, from a distinctly American point of view, nothing could be more unpatriotic than preaching self-sacrificing collectivism over individual self-interest.
The American Revolution of 1776 itself was fought for individual rights, individual liberty, and, yes, even individual self-interest. After all, individual rights and individual liberty can hardly be separated from individual self-interest.

Individual men and women are free–individual men and women have rights–precisely because they have valid self-interests: such as to live unmolested and to determine the course of their own lives. America is a great country that should be loved precisely because it recognizes the primacy of the individual and allows him to pursue his own dreams.

The US Declaration of Independence makes this point rather explicitly: men have certain inalienable rights–rights that include “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness . . .”
How dare Mr. McCain rebuke self-interest in the name of traditional American patriotism?

Mr. McCain, for example, claims that “National pride will not endure the people’s contempt for government.” Yet, the American founding fathers themselves admonished us to be ever vigilant of increasing government encroachments and to be particularly wary of potential tyranny. Their very purpose, as demonstrated in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, was to limit the size and the scope of government, so that individual rights would be left un-trampled.

McCain further claims that “When we quit seeing ourselves as part of something greater than our self-interest, then civic love gives way to the temptations of selfishness, bigotry and hate.” Yet it is not in our self-interest to be filled with bigotry and hatred.

Unfortunately, Senator McCain has got it all wrong. He fails to fully grasp the significance of true American patriotism.
American patriotism is truly unique and unprecedented in world history. For it is the only form of patriotism that worships and celebrates the individual over the state.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Americans love the United States because it is the only country in the world that was founded upon the self-interests (rights and liberty) of the individual. Rational self-interest should therefore never be dismissed.
To dismiss it–as Mr. McCain has done–would be downright un-American.
God bless America.