Patriotism

Patriotism is all the rage nowadays. People waving flags, holding signs, flags on porches, etc. The most potent weapon supporters of Bush have is questioning someone's patriotism. The mere mention causes people to vehemently defend themselves. If a righty doesn't like something, he merely calls you unpatriotic and you have to defend yourself, changing the subject. Just as the anti-war movement was hip for many young people, patriotism is hip for older people. But as is obvious to many, it's leading us down a bad road. An unquestioning, morally blind road with regards to the state of the world.

What drives this? Fear. And guilt. Fear that something awful will happen if we don't fight everyone and the guilt that soldiers are dying for them and they have to support it. Fear that the anti-war movement is representing them and they feel guilty and scared about. That's one thing that irritates me. There would be no troops rallies or anything if there were no anti-war protestors. They don't care enough to go out on there own initiative, they are coerced into it by guilt.

There's nothing wrong with being patriotic (here I go defending myself). But like many things, in excess, it's very harmful. You can see the incredible difference in opinions between the U.S. and the world and attribute it to detachment. We have no problem accepting bad things about France, but when it's your own country, it's not tolerable.

And one more thing: why is patriotism linked to God? One nation under God, God bless America. I realize these are old sayings, but they seem to be out in force these days. I really don't have much to say about this, other than it's wrong.

You can say this was an appropriate or an inappropriate rant with Memorial Day being, well, yesterday, now. But I needed to get it off my chest.