the same feelings about land that our more agrarian ancestors felt, but we still become attached to places. Familiarity in this case breeds affection. Who doesn't feel affection for the areas where they were born, grew up and lived?

A patriotic love of land, of course, means our own nation - that land within the borders of the United States. The land immediately on the other side of the borders - say, in Canada - might look just like our land, but it isn't. I feel more at home on the New York side of the Niagara River than I do on the Canadian side, and I am a Southerner. But Southerner or Yankee or Westerner, we are all Americans. Despite the similarities, the United States and Canada are distinctly different countries with different forms of government, different cultures and different traditions.

What makes us unique as a people is certainly not race or ethnicity or religion. We're a hodgepodge of those things. What makes us unique is that we do not take an oath to a politician or to a political party or even to a government. Our oaths in this country are to the Constitution, that written charter of government and basic rights.

Teddy Roosevelt, one of the few geniuses to occupy the White House, once said that an American citizen should stand by a public official only so long as and to the extent that the public official stands by the Constitution. This is entirely consistent with America's founding philosophy. If we have to choose between a politician and the Constitution, we must choose the Constitution. To support a politician who doesn't support the Constitution is to be disloyal to the very thing that makes America, America.

That being the case, it would be a good idea for all Americans to read their Constitution. It's not a lawyer's document. It was written in plain English by some very intelligent men and was intended for public consumption. There are some ambiguities that could lead to honest disagreement about the meaning, but they are mostly on minor points. Americans should also read The Federalist papers, a collection of newspaper articles written during the constitutional ratification debate.

There is no room at all for the ridiculous interpretations some judges and others have made of the Constitution. It was intended to be strictly construed, not surrealistically construed, and if changes are needed, they should be amended by the process the Constitution provides. All Americans should object strenuously to "amendment by interpretation." That is as anti-American, as anti-democratic as you can get.

Too many Americans, it seems to me, associate patriotism exclusively with war. A constitutional war in defense of our land and our people naturally deserves support. The last war that fits that description ended in 1945. Since then, more than 100,000 Americans have died in battle, but not in defense of our land and our people. Since we are a free people, presumably able to control our government, that is our fault. We must learn not to be so susceptible to demagoguery and propaganda. We were never intended to be a people who would shout "Heil Bush" (or Clinton, Nixon, Reagan or anybody else).

The greatest dangers facing us today cannot be solved militarily, yet these civilian concerns are being de-emphasized by unnecessary wars against Third World countries. We had better concentrate on rebuilding the United States rather than Iraq or Afghanistan, and we had better worry more about the health of our people than sending our money to Africa or Asia.

Love and concern for our land and our people is the patriotic duty of every American. How about supporting all of the American people for a change instead of just those in uniform? Let us not throw away the very things so many Americans died to protect for some cockamamie scheme to run the whole world.

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