My Country, Right or Wrong
Aug. 7th, 2011 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
“Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”
--Stephen Decatur, US Navy Officer, c. 1816
He never quite said "My country, right or wrong," but I've heard the misquote far more often than the original.
I've heard self-appointed super-patriots use the misquote to say that you must blindly respect authority and support the actions of the government, right or wrong, good or evil. I have heard it used in a manner even worse, to say that anything the United States does is right, by definition, even if it's wrong; as in "If the United States does it, it isn't torture."
I have heard the misquote used sneeringly, by people who dismiss any respect for your own country as jingoism. I've heard the sneering reference more often than I've heard people seriously espouse the idea.
I take the misquote, or the quote itself, to mean that I can't abandon my country even when I know it's doing something wrong. That even when my country is in the wrong I owe it to us to do the best I can to make it a better place, and to direct it toward doing the right thing-- even though I feel powerless to help, I owe the country to at least TRY. And not threaten to abandon my country for some other, just because it does something I consider to be evil, or because somebody I don't like happens to win an election.
If you really love something, you try to take care of it, even if it hurts you.
It's hard to put up with the Greed and Stupidity sometimes, but I have to do it.
--Stephen Decatur, US Navy Officer, c. 1816
He never quite said "My country, right or wrong," but I've heard the misquote far more often than the original.
I've heard self-appointed super-patriots use the misquote to say that you must blindly respect authority and support the actions of the government, right or wrong, good or evil. I have heard it used in a manner even worse, to say that anything the United States does is right, by definition, even if it's wrong; as in "If the United States does it, it isn't torture."
I have heard the misquote used sneeringly, by people who dismiss any respect for your own country as jingoism. I've heard the sneering reference more often than I've heard people seriously espouse the idea.
I take the misquote, or the quote itself, to mean that I can't abandon my country even when I know it's doing something wrong. That even when my country is in the wrong I owe it to us to do the best I can to make it a better place, and to direct it toward doing the right thing-- even though I feel powerless to help, I owe the country to at least TRY. And not threaten to abandon my country for some other, just because it does something I consider to be evil, or because somebody I don't like happens to win an election.
If you really love something, you try to take care of it, even if it hurts you.
It's hard to put up with the Greed and Stupidity sometimes, but I have to do it.
