What Chesterton said about Kipling can be said about not a few pundits today: they love America because she is strong, not because she is America.
I enjoyed Napoleon as well, within limits.
"Napoleon" in this case ended up largely destroying the UK and forcing a reboot, which is interesting until you remember things like the fact that there are other countries.
Lee's aphorism is all well and good too, until you remember that he lifted his sword against the country that had given it to him and taught him its use and had trusted him to guard her with it. He could have left his sword in its scabbard if he wasn't willing to harm Virginia.
If you're going to present Chesterton as an exemplary patriot, you should also face up to his rampant jingoism during the First World War (defenders of the current Iraqi war could accumulate quite a lot of GKC quotes from that period on the importance of a fight to the finish and the wickedness of compromise with a barbaric enemy who muct be fought to the finish - a view quite contrary to what Pope Benedict XV was saying) and the way in which he demonised most things Germanic while idealising almost every product of the Latin countries (including Mussolini).
I'm a Chesterton fan myself, and I know he was reacting against the Protestant-inflected Teutonophilia of Victorian Britain, but it's still excessive. (In case anyone tries to justify him on this by referring to the Nazis, I would suggest that a much better approach to them is represented by Tolkien, who denounced Nazism as a distortion and pollution of all that was best in Germanic culture.)
Happily, I do not hold a doctrine of Chestertonian infallibility. 
I haven't read Chesterton's comments on patriotism (though I've read a few of his work), but I know of them secondhand through the superb mini-essay on patriotism that C.S. Lewis wrote based on them in his "The Four Loves." Have you read it, Mark? Highly recommended. He too believed that patriotism, rightly understood as love of Home, would make us generous to other nations and less likely to be belligerent.
This little essay also contains one of my favorite sentences from Lewis. He comments that all loves, including patriotism are subject to the rule of "tearing out your right eye" if they lead us to sin, and adds, "but a creature that did not have an eye, but had got only as far as having a photo-senstive spot should not be put to meditating on that severe text." (Not an exact quote, but close).
This marvelous comment gives the problem in a nutsehell: too little enthusiasm for your earthly Home will neither protect it nor make you a more loving person in general - because this love as well as all loves, are a good thing; but too much enthusiasm can be equally disastrous.
I would love to set everyone in the White House using their photo-senstive spots to read and meditate on Lewis and Chesterton . . .
Actually, their eyes are more likely to be the too-highly developed kind.
I don't hold a doctrine of Chesterton infallibility either, but what hibernicus says about Chesterton's so-called "rampant jingoism during the First World War" is a complete crock of shit. Chesterton defended the war because of the dangers of Prussianism, but the last thing he was, was a jingo. Were he a jingo, he also would have supported the Boer War. Were he a jingo, he would never haver written all he did about the shortcomings of his own country, which he feared was quickly adopting some of the worst elements of Prussianism.
Nor is it accurate to characterize Chesterton's writings on Mussolini as "idealizing" him, but it is certainly easy to do so, especially when one has the benefit of 20-20 vision afforded by the hindsight of several decades. It frees one up from the hard work of thinking, and of reading what Chesterton actually said.
And so what if current Iraq War apologists could crib Chesterton for quotes in suppot of their cause? Anyone can cherry-pick quotes from any source he wants to support any cause. People cherry-pick quotes from the Bible to support homosexuality, and even abortion.
But at least those people will actually mine a source for quotes. Again avoiding work, you cited not a single quote to support the notion that Chesterton was a rabid jingo or a fan of Mussolini. All you've shown is that you can regurgitate tired talking points from Chesterton's detractors, talking points that are easily refutable for anyone who wants to take the time to do a bit of research.
I'm a Chesterton fan myself...
Sorry, but I don't believe that for a second.
Ed the Roman, I think that part of the point of "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" is that there WEREN'T any other countries, at least not many. In the opening scenes, it's stated that the vast majority of the other nations in the world have been conquered or absorbed by England. A Nicaraguan patriot, for example, protests the essential destruction of his nation. I think I'm remembering it right, but if I've made a mistake, someone please correct me.
I'm a Chesterton fan myself...
Sorry, but I don't believe that for a second.
Oh, come on; one can be a Chesterton fan and still believe GKC was wrong on the subject of World War I. There's no need for you to try to read hibernicus's mind and accuse him of what amounts to lying.
Calling Chesterton wrong on WWI is one thing. Any man's opinions should be open to debate, and Chesterton is certainly no exception. But mis-characterizing Chesterton's writings on the war as "rampant jingoism," and then padding that opinion with a bevy of other errors, half truths, and non sequiturs is quite another thing. Hence, my conclusion.
Sean:
Chill.
Mr. Dailey:
So hibernicus is wrong. That doesn't mean he can't be a Chesterton fan.
In good distributist fashion, rather than link to the corporate behemoth Amazon, why not provide a link to a free web resource where all of Chesterton's works (nearly) are available.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/...ward/gkc/books/
I'm still trying to figure out how supporting the war on terror, or more accurately, the war against Islamic fascism, equates to "mere devotion to Bigness, Empire, and Power."
It would serve arguments against war better to stop characterizing all who are not anti-war as "imperialists."
Last time I checked the dictionary, imperialism implies development of an empire. It's very post-modern to define what is going on in Iraq as "imperialism," despite lacking any of imperialism's dictionary attributes.
But I suppose the meaning of language is the first thing to go when reason is abandoned.
I'm still trying to figure out how supporting the war on terror, or more accurately, the war against Islamic fascism, equates to "mere devotion to Bigness, Empire, and Power."
And I'm trying to figure out where you thought I said it was.
Better get your eyes and/or ears checked.
Franklin Jennings:
One reason to link to Chesterton books on Amazon.com is to encourage enough people to buy them and knock Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and their ilk off the bestseller list.
The way to celebrate Chesterton, however, is to go to the American Chesterton Society's website (www.chesterton.org) and buy his books from the Society. The money then goes to a very worthy cause.
(I don't mean to tell you how to run your blog, Mr. Shea, but I'm sure that Dale Ahlquist would appreciate it if links to Chesterton books on sale linked to the ACS's "for sale" page instead of Amazon.com.)
Really, Chris? The thought had never, ever, occurred to me.
Mark, Ok, I'll chill.
Also, what Chris said. 
Mark,
Thanks for the Chesterton and the Willa Cather. I find too few Catholics who TRULY LOVE Willa Cather. She and Thornton Wilder have written possibly the two greatest love songs to the Church--Death Comes to the Archbishop and The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
"But I suppose the meaning of language is the first thing to go when reason is abandoned."
In pacifism, truth is the first casualty (chortle).
Lee's aphorism is all well and good too, until you remember that he lifted his sword against the country that had given it to him and taught him its use and had trusted him to guard her with it. He could have left his sword in its scabbard if he wasn't willing to harm Virginia.
Ed:
You make the mistake of ascribing a belief that is commonly held today, i.e. that the founding fathers intended to create a nation in which the interests of the States were subordinate to the interests of the Federal government as opposed to creating a union of States which they were free to leave if it ceased to be in their interest to be part of that union. After all we are a union of “states” and not “provinces” or “counties” and being a “state” denotes a sovereign entity unto itself, an idea or definition that has been lost over the past 150 years as a result of a Federal Government which grows bigger every day and continues to encroach upon areas which were until recently considered the sole purview of the States.
You also tend to minimize the Declaration of Independence which stated:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
In doing so you deny that as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to break away from the political entity to which they belong and assume political independence as did the original 13 States. Perhaps General Lee was much closer in his beliefs to the founding fathers and Natural Law than you and others who prefer living in a huge monolithic state than one that is smaller, freer and more in touch with its peoples.
Hmm. There was enough sense of nationhood that Pitt referred to the Americans. And before the Revolution there was a regiment in the British Army named the Royal Americans. Seemed some people thought we could be aggregated that way for a long time.
Hmm. There was enough sense of nationhood that Pitt referred to the Americans. And before the Revolution there was a regiment in the British Army named the Royal Americans. Seemed some people thought we could be aggregated that way for a long time.
Just because you refer to all peoples in Sub Sahara Africa as "Africans" all peoples wh live in the Middle East as "Arabs" or "Muslims" or all who come from the far east as "Asians", doen't mean there are not tribal, national or cultural differences beteween them. But, I'll forgive you this error Ed . . . its a common one made by those with an imperialist mindset.
I should explain that I was a Chestrton addict when I was a teenager, reread most of his books, soaked him up like blotting paper (I did literally believe in his infallibility and made the classic defensive reaction to any criticism)and then had to spend years sorting myself out from them. I keep on meaning to reread him and work through what I agree and disagree with but I have never got back to doing it systematically because I'm extremely busy and there are just so many books. I didn't get my criticisms off an anti-Chesterton website: I worked them out myself.
Re Mussolini - I've read THE RESURRECTION OF ROME and know whereof I speak (though I would also note that GKC condemned Mussolini's aggression against Abyssinia in 1935). I don't think the adulation of Musso in that book makes GKC particularly wicked (many of his contemporaries were equally foolish) but it does raise the question of whether he knew what he was talking about. Mussolini came to power by systematically beating up and killing opponents; didn't GKC know about Matteotti?
By jingoism I mean the way in which he utterly demonised the Central Powers and glorified the slaughter on the Western Front as if it were a crusade. I think the Allied cause was probably the better one, but I have studied the period and know of decent people who were not Germans and took the opposite view (OK, I'm Irish and we spent a lot of the war arguing over this, though to a certain extent on a "my enemy's enemy" basis.) Quite possibly Benedict XV was mistaken in thinking a compromise peace was possible; but to adopt GKC's view unquestioningly amounts to the view that Benedict advocated a deal with the Devil, and I don't agree.
One passage in GKC that gets better the more I think of it; in THE RETURN OF DON QUIXOTE where the businessmen who have created a pseudo-mediaeval movement to safeguard their own interests discover it is judging them by such mediaeval standards as a fair wage and a just price.
One that gets worse; the FATHER BROWN story involving the discovery of a mediaeval tomb, in which Father Brown gravely explains that the Jews were never persecuted in the Middle Ages but specially protected and that nobody in the Middle Ages ever committed suicide from despair.
"...so-called ''rampant jingoism during the First World War''"
Chesterton was taking the King's Shilling for his pro-war essays, if I recall. He writes in his autobiography: "But I set to work to contribute as much as I could both to the general press and the Government Propaganda; of which there were several departments." (p. 239 Ignatius Press edition).
He says on the preceding page: "I wrote several pamphlets against Prussia...I am still perfectly prepared to support their truth."
So he was consistent on that at least.
Re Chesterton and Mussolini: Chesterton and Belloc were so disillusioned with parliamentary government that they tended to idealize its opponents, Mussolini included. That's my impression.
Re Wilder: I wouldn't be so willing to see "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" as favorable to the Church; although in fairness its churchmen are merely human, and normal for their time and place.
Hope this helps...
Histor
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