Cape Neddick, Maine • To suggest on the Fourth of July that we need to consider the downsides of patriotism is to risk a heresy far more troublesome than challenging the merits of baseball, fireworks, hot dogs and beer.
Let's leave baseball unsullied. But we know that fireworks, misused, can be dangerous, and that excess when it comes to hot dogs and beer is a problem.
I am unabashed about the merits of American patriotism as the constructive alternative to divisive and aggressive forms of nationalism. All who love constitutional democracy and justice can claim there is something distinctive about our country’s patriotic feeling.