Stop calling me names, you jerk!

The Sunday LA Times features a lead article in the (soon to be overhauled) Opinion section, "True Patriots Act," by Professor Richard Kaye of Hunter College. It's about the hundredth piece I've read where someone on the left says he's tired of being called unpatriotic for opposing the war in Iraq.

Now I have no doubt some conservatives are calling anti-war liberals unpatriotic, perhaps as much as liberals are calling pro-war conservatives unpatriotic. It is easy to slip into questioning people's motives rather than answering their arguments.

So what does Kaye think is true patriotism?:

Patriotism consists of multiple, positive actions on behalf of the United States — registering voters, working in an AIDS hospice, volunteering at a disadvantaged school [you wouldn't want to volunteer at a regular school since that would just give them more advantage over the disadvantaged] or raising questions about the Bush administration's full-throttle militarism.

I see. Questioning anything Bush does, even calling him names--those are positive acts of patriotism. But daring to criticize those against the war--that's just wrong.