> > >Perhaps we need a return to the original meaning in English of
>> "patriot"
>> >-- someone who attacks the government. Dr. Johnson (and I admire him
>> >greatly) is given too much credit for one of his famous assertions,
>> >"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." By patriot he
>> meant
>> >the Noam Chomskys of his day. His wisecrack improved in accuracy as
>> the
>> >language shifted beneath it.
>> >
>> >Carrol
>>
>> One model of patriotism would be Tom Paine, who made himself a
>> revolutionary patriot in England, America, and France -- in short in
>> _any_ nation. Patriotism in this sense and American exceptionalism
>> (which most think of as _the_ definition of patriotism in the USA
>> and
>> to which the belief that this is "the greatest country in the world"
>> boils down) are incompatible.
>
>And for his troubles, Paine had to flee England to avoid arrest and
>possible execution by Pitt's government, he was imprisoned
>in France by the Jacobins, because among other reasons
>he had been outspoken in opposing the execution of
>King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, then later when he
>returned to the US to spend his final years, he was denounced
>by the preachers as an infidel, and was abandoned by many
>of his old friends because he had become too "controversial."
Here's Mark Twain: "In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot" (Notebook, 1904). -- Yoshie
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