The New Yorker decided it was in good taste to publish a missive on Memorial Day titled, “How Problematic Is Patriotism?” wherein longtime contributor Arthur Krystal attempts to justify his severe lack of patriotism by dismissing the American people’s love of country, “given the White House’s current occupant.”

Krystal makes many claims that are simply untrue. It is clear that he has a very grounded education in many political philosophers, both ancient and modern, but he misses what is crucial to American patriotism.

Perhaps that’s because he’s coming at it from merely a materialist perspective. American patriotism was built on Judeo-Christian values, and because of that foundation, Americans have long understood that there exists an order of love and duty.

St. Augustine articulated this ordo amoris (order of love) in his book The City of God, and it goes like this:

And thus beauty, which is indeed God’s handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. … For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately. … But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another thing in His stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love.

We do not love our dog the same way we love our children. If we do, that is disordered love. We should not love being seen as more virtuous than actually being virtuous. And yet, here we are.

Patriotism, or love of country, is a love both material and relational. We love the land on which we were born, and we love the people with whom we interact on that land. Leftists’ biggest mistake in their ordo amoris is that they believe they have more in common with someone from a third-world nation than their conservative neighbor two doors down. Their love is disordered; therefore, patriotism is “problematic.”

Krystal describes patriotism as a “brand,” or lifting up white men like George Washington. He later intimates that Washington wasn’t a great American hero because Charles Thomson, the First Continental Congress’s secretary, did not publish his transcripts publicly. Thomson decided to burn them because, in his own words, “I shall not undeceive future generations. I could not tell the truth without giving great offense. Let the world admire our patriots and heroes. Their supposed talents and virtues … will serve the cause of patriotism.”

Yet even without Thomson’s transcripts, there are other firsthand accounts and stories about our first president: his prowess as a leader, and his greatness as a man.

Why choose this particular example to muddy the waters and damage people’s opinion of George Washington? For the same reason, leftists fulminate against every hero who doesn’t align with their worldview: to tear down America and wear its carcass as they scavenge on the remains.

Krystal claims that when the Revolutionary War started in 1775, the colonists did not consider themselves a separate country from England. That is true, but what he misses is that the colonists were not disparate; they were connected both by a sophisticated mail system (thank you, Benjamin Franklin) and by the understanding that, after a century and a half, American colonists had more in common with one another than with England.

In fact, at the very first Continental Congress in 1774 — where each colony sent delegates to discuss British taxes, Britain’s occupation of Boston, and organizing a boycott on British goods — founding father Patrick Henry made a stunning statement that set the tone for the rest of the session: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more,” he said. “I am not a Virginian, but an American.”

The most telling paragraph in Krystal’s piece was this one, where he reflects upon his country’s fight in the Vietnam War, a theater in which he didn’t have to serve:

Nearly sixty years ago, my government was willing to risk my life on its behalf. Not because North Vietnam posed a threat to a Maine fisherman or an Indiana farmer but because the President and members of Congress didn’t mind sacrificing the lives of teen-agers to achieve peace with honor. The question I should have asked myself then is: Can someone be a patriot and not love his country but simply be glad that it exists? I like to think the answer is yes. Some may find this attitude unworthy, even ungrateful. But, just as obsessive love in a relationship can warp intimacy, so excessive national pride can debase the nation that one is trying to protect.

In other words, Krystal believes that he is still a patriot even when he doesn’t love his country. Our language is a very precise one. You cannot, in fact, be a patriot and not love your country. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a patriot is “one who loves and supports their country.”

Love of country should be in its proper place in the ordo amoris, and that shouldn’t change simply because the political party you dislike is in power. You also cannot claim to be a patriot and hate your country. That is oxymoronic and utter nonsense.

The New Yorker should be ashamed for publishing such a baneful piece, particularly on a day when we remember those brave souls who gave their very lives for this country. Ultimately, the Leftmedia’s lack of patriotism is what is problematic.