Quote:
Originally Posted by shesus
We are born into many things. Under that thought, why do you have to love your parents? Why care about your extended family?
I find that thinking depressing because it seems like a helpless state. It's true that a person was born in a specific area, but that doesn't mean you can't have pride or lack thereof.
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Interesting. The more local the area, the more likely I am to take pride in it. I'm exceedingly proud of some of the guys that I grew up with and of my neighborhood. I'm sort of proud of my high school - not many best selling authors AND starting NFL quartbacks come out of schools who average about 100 members of a graduating class. My city has it's ups and downs. The state I grew up in ranks ahead of Mississippi in education, which I guess is nice. And my country, well, let's just say that we've got a longer history of picking the greater of two evils than not.
I have a serious problem with enforced patriotism. I find it moronic that the National Anthem is sung before sporting events (interestingly I give baseball a pass on that because there are some historical roots to it - I'm not claiming consistency). I find the whole "American, love it or leave it" dogma a potential clue to mental retardation - not all accolytes of that school of thought are, but enough are to form a majority.
I have a difficult relationship with Patriotism vs. patriotism. The former is probably best shown in the commercialisation of the flag and the companies that took advantage of the post 9/11 furor. I find the latter to be generally underspoken. I am violently opposed to the former, to the point that I now go out of my way to avoid wearing the flag, especially in pin form (by the way, wearing the flag as an article of clothing is both disrespectful and potentially illegal in my book, flag patches excepted). I do not wear red, white and blue on the Fourth of July. I will display it in front of my house, but only if the sun is shining.
Honestly, I find American Patriots boorish, juvenille and a small step away from any brand of zealot you want to name - Nazi, Communist, etc. A Patriot wants everyone to know that he "thinks right" and "loves his country, do or die". A patriot doesn't care what anyone else thinks and just does what he thinks is right.