popslut wrote:Tone Deft wrote:
(we should all love our countries)
I disagree. I believe patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
By all means know your history, love the people around you and respect the society that they form, but to love a country is way too abstract a concept for me to get behind.
I love my neighbours, I love the Beatles, I love our coastline, I love Arthurian legend and I
love Monty Python.
I detest that our infrastructure was built on the profits from slavery and 200 years of colonial plundering sprees, and the fact that I went through eleven years of school and wasn't told about any of it.
Not once.
20 million Africans exported as chattels and all they could teach me in English history was how we beat the Scots at Culloden.
Sorry. Back to healthcare.
Wow, that's messed up about the lack of slavery education.
On patriotism, Americans still have this sense of rebellion as the core of our country, to me there's nothing more patriotically American than challenging your government, asking tough questions, telling them to fuck off. I can see flag burning as being ironically partiotic if done right (not that I care, it's just fabric). I also have to realise that there are billions of people on the planet in 2nd and 3rd world countries and I was lucky to be born in a country with so many advantages, I'm fucking spoiled because of where I live and I have to give thanks to the country that made that happen. There's a LOT rotten with the system but there's also good, but you have to be thankful for what you have. Bush is not my country, he's a fellow countryman who's best left used for target practice. In 10 years he'll be dead and gone but my country will still be my country.
That's why I like MM, he makes a lot of noise telling people to take a look at their country, take care of it, ask questions, get mad, do something. Right or wrong, he's looking out for the US. If he's wrong then at least you did a status check, all's well.
If you didn't love your country it wouldn't make you mad, maybe.
My spelling sucks, I always miss 'z' or 's' in words that end in "ise" and such. I use dictionary.com a lot actually. 
)