Thursday 28 April 2016

On patriotism and putting “country first”

 

I came across this quote on patriotism that seems relevant this afternoon.

He was by nature a gentleman … A refined humanity constitutes the character of a gentleman. He was the true friend of his country, as far as it is possible for a statesman to be so.  But his love of his country did not consist in his hatred of the rest of mankind. [Emphasis mine.]

No, this is not Fox News praising Donald Trump today for putting “America First” by means of trade bans and building border walls. This is William Hazlitt praising statesman Charles James Fox two centuries ago, a man with “an innate love of truth, of justice, of probity” said to have been “without one drop of gall in his constitution.”

It is not only the difference in time that constitutes the big difference.

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