March 15, 2008

• What’s your idea of being patriotic? Do you consider yourself patriotic?

  I never really got patriotism. Just like I don’t get a lot of sports fandom. People tend ot be a fan of certain sports teams largely because they live in the area or they attended the school of the team and not for any other reason. Likewise, Patriotism is supposed to be like support of your country just because you happened to be born there.

  And I don’t think international politics really is or ought to be a game of “my country is better than your country!” Demanding patriotic loyalty of the populace seems to make it into one. And it divides peole from disparate backgrounds. People from other countries can’t be patriots of yours nor will you ever be a patriot of thiers. That will always be something you disagree on.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t like the United States. I like it well enough and I’m certainly grateful to have been born here and lived here.  But there’s lots of stuff I don’t like about the United States and lots of stuff I like more about other countries. I’m quite the fan of a lot of countries even though I don’t know that much about them. But I can only be patriotic toward the US? That’s silly.

  When the US does something wrong, I won’t support them. And when other countries do something right, I’ll support those endeavors. Maybe it isn’t very patriotic. But it’s certainly moral.

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  • 12:30 pm
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