This past Flag Day got the best of me in two ways.

First, I finally placed a sticker on my heretofore bumper-sticker-free Subaru. Second, I applied a sticker communicating to observers my deep affinity for, attachment to and patriotism toward my political community. If you see a white Crosstrek around town with a Bend bumper sticker, that’s me!

“Wait,” you say. “A Bend sticker? Shouldn’t you have placed an American flag sticker on your Subaru? The object of passionate patriotism is the nation-state not a city!”

While it is true that today, and since the rise of the nation-state about 175 years ago, patriotism has been about one’s bond to one’s country. But for the prior three millennia the dominant political community that gave meaning to people’s political lives was the city and village. The medieval Italian city-republics of Venice, Genoa, and Florence were powerful city-states. And in rural towns and villages of Europe into the 19th century, the material politics that mattered were those of the village. So historically, there’s no reason to constrain one’s patria, the object of one’s patriotism, to the recently-invented nation-state.

Despite this long history of subnational patriotism, or what’s called civic patriotism, some Central Oregonians will question my ties to country. Listen: I vote and pay my taxes. I prize America’s creedal values of liberty, equality, the rule of law, and democratic deliberation. Abraham Lincoln was a great president. I love a hamburger and fries. Yosemite National Park is stunning. And I’m always glad to return home from foreign travel. Nevertheless, to me the USA is just too abstract a political entity to generate an emotional attachment. 330 million humans spread across nearly 4 million square miles is not something I can wrap my heart around.

So, what’s the basis for my patriotic passion for Bend? Why the Bend sticker? I chose Bend and continue to choose Bend. I didn’t choose America. When I popped out of my mother’s belly did Dr. Nichols ask me if I desired, alternatively, Brazilian or German citizenship? Have I ever been asked to formally affirm my US citizenship at risk of deportation? Would it be easy to renounce my US citizenship, travel to a European county, and receive immediate citizenship?

No, no, and no. US citizenship is assumed at birth. I’ve never been threatened with deportation. And while renunciation of US citizenship is straightforward, gaining new citizenship elsewhere requires a multi-year residency or sizable financial investment. Nation-states assume citizenship and have not made nation-swapping easy, because the bond they seek to manufacture emulates the permanent family bond of blood. Alas, America, Brazil, and Germany are not blood relations.

Conversely, the material, emotional and interpersonal reality I negotiate every day, and have done so for 17 years, is that of Bend and Bendians. Bend is my physical and emotional home, my patria. It’s my moral community: A mere thirty-five square miles and 106,000 persons I can wrap my heart around and help nurture.

How do I demonstrate this covenantal heart-wrapping? Bend’s culture of outdoor activity, beer gardens, urban/rural duality, and self-sufficient localism is my culture. More importantly, I care for Bend’s institutions and residents. Since living in Bend I’ve mediated small claims conflicts, served on a park and recreation committee, taught history to hundreds, entertained Central Oregonians on public radio, educated library patrons and church members, helped feed, clothe, and comfort the houseless. I continually invest myself in Bend.

So if you see my car please don’t lob the ”flag-hating liberal” bromide at me. Instead, explore my suspicion of manufactured nation-state tribalism, observe the diversity of my community investment, and commend me for recognizing my deep and ongoing emotional ties to Bend.

If you must call me something, then call me a “Bend civic patriot.” Then search your heart and actions: You might be one, too.

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