Patriotism

I got to listen to a lot of people yelling at each other about the good and bad of patriotism. Of course all the yelling was on the radio. I don't know what it is about the radio that gets people willing to be so damn loud and obnoxious.

So here is my bit on Patriotism for 2008. If you are trying to make life better for the people around you who are not directly related to you, chances are you are patriotic. If you felt nothing for your community you would do nothing for them and that is not very patriotic. You do not have to defeat fascism in order to be a patriot. Just helping out at your local school, or staffing the food bank, etc, is just as good. Since it is the small, unnoticeable, things that in aggregate make the most lasting change for the better. Those little things make a nation great or weak, loved or hated.

If I were running for President I would have a jacket with 1000 flag pins all over it and wear it into a debate. This would get peoples attention. Then I would say that since I have 1000 flag pins on I am more patriotic than all of Congress since at most they will have 535 flag pins on. Then I would ask the audience for their concerns and then command the flag jacket to solve their problems. This of course would not work and there would be a lot of laughs. Making my point that little metal pins don't mean jack or do jack.

Pride is not patriotism. Pride is pride, that is why it is called pride and not patriotism. Pride must be kept from patriotism for it to be beneficial to the nation. Pride leads to blindness which leads to mistakes. To make a great nation pride must be avoided. Pride, like sugar, is superficially satisfying but offers no real sustenance. Pride is the fast-food version of patriotism. We have lots of prideful people walking around thinking we are great for the mere fact of us being us. They probably also partake in McDonalds. As we need to ween ourselves off the fast food we need to ween ourselves of the pride.