This isn't patriotism. It's the bluster of the deeply insecure.Eric Liu, source
This ties in with this from Abrose Bierce:
- PATRIOT, n.
- One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
- PATRIOTISM, n.
- Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
"True patriotism comes not from being scared to talk about where America has failed (and still fails) to live up to its stated creed and ideals. It comes from naming those truths plainly and closing the gap between our ideals and our institutions. We have to combine reverence for our exceptional creed with a demanding skepticism toward claims that we have already fulfilled it."
ReplyDelete"More than 140 years ago, a U.S. senator from Missouri stood to address the tin-pot patriots of his time. His name was Carl Schurz. He was a German immigrant and had been a general of the Union Army in the Civil War. To the jingoists' chant of "My country, right or wrong," Schurz replied, "Our country -- when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right."
"Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."
Ambrose Bierce
I support my country all of the time, I support my government when it deserves it.
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