I think it was Ambrose Bierce (though it might have been Gustav Flaubert), who defined patriotism as “the belief that one’s own country is best because one was born in it.” It’s as good a definition as I’ve been able to come up with. While I am not so humble as to not believe that most places aren’t improved by my presence, I don’t necessarily think that any one place, including a state, is necessarily better than any other place because it happens to be where I am.  I’ve long been skeptical of the idea that I automatically owe the state any particular loyalty, our acquaintance being largely based on cosmic chance.

            I’ve always rather taken to heart Robert Heinlein’s quip that “no state has any business putting its own survival ahead of my own” (or words to that effect), and think about them when I look around the world and see most states doing exactly that. In Russia, North Korea, China, and who knows how many other places, the state largely sees the citizens as the property of the state, as embodied (coincidentally enough) by whoever’s running it at the time.

            Whoever coined the adage that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel must surely have had in mind whichever scoundrel first declared “my country, right or wrong”, which so happens to be Yuval Noah Harari’s very definition of fascism: the idea that loyalty to the state should represent the entirety of morality. One owes everything to the state, and has no inherent loyalty to any human being, especially if they were born on the other side of the line in the sand. How may atrocities have been committed over the years under the aegis of this noxious principle? I think about that a lot. I remember thinking about a lot during the invasion of Iraq (“Gulph War II” I tend to call it), when “support our troops” was code for “never-ever question Government foreign policy”.

            Having said all that, it is possible for the state to earn some amount of loyalty, by being better than whatever else is on offer. Canada, for all its faults, continuously tops lists of most livable countries. There is a remarkable amount of bullshit we don’t have to put up with that others do. A lot of people come from elsewhere to make their homes here. My own grandparents thought this place a vast improvement over nazi-occupied Poland; a veritable oasis in fact, after watching relatives executed in the streets, and faking death to escape the SS. For them and others like them, Canada had earned their loyalty.  I think providing safe-haven to people is a much worthier goal and loftier ideal than whatever it is those who would keep them out claim to aspire to.

            Not having fled nazi-occupied Poland (or Stalinist ruled Poland for that matter) myself, I will have to defer to their judgement. I will confess to a rather deep gratitude to have Come to Be here rather than there. Besides this, my affection stems from sources rather more mundane: when I hike the Bruce Trail in the fall or look out across the Niagara Escarpment, or scale the moss-covered rocks of the Canadian Shield. This, I realize, is affection for a place rather than a State, but I find places altogether more worthy of affection than States. No politician provided those and no national stereotype accounts for it. There is no pride there, as neither I nor anyone else can take any credit for it. Only gratitude.

            (That the current Captains of the Ship of State, Doug Ford and Mark Carney, are more than willing to bulldoze such places further demonstrates the gulf between State and Place – the State can claim very little affection from me if it fails to protect the Place.)

            When I wander these Places, and consider that I am there rather than some GUlag, that my Gran’s final hospital stay will not bankrupt the family, and that my nephews will probably not be shot in their elementary schools; when I listen to loons or listen to Rush, watch cartoons on TVO, and even scarf down a dishwater-like Tim Hortons Double Double, I am forced to admit that whatever this weird convergence of Place and State is, I should like it to continue to exist, and that whatever replaces it must not be that nihilistic kleptocracy to the south.
            Happy Canada Day, eh?