I am a progressive. I am anti-fascist. I am part of the Resistance to authoritarian rule.
I love this country. I want it to do better.
I want it to be better. I want it to strive to be the best it can be. I want it to prove to the world that those papers drawn up in the 18th century were not empty words and promises. I want it to be the leader the world needs.
I don’t parade around with military weaponry and call myself a patriot because that sort of behavior is crass and unnecessary for someone who loves their country. The more you wave the American flag, the more you flaunt your Second Amendment rights, the more you shout about freedom - as far as I am concerned - the more insecure you are. The less sure you are of yourself.
Patriotism does not require you to be angry.
Patriotism does not require that you have served in the military.
Patriotism does not require that you be armed.
Patriotism does not require you to be steeped in religion.
Patriot is too small of a word for what we need right now anyway. Just when the world needs more collaboration to fight the current pandemic, future pandemics and the destruction of our atmosphere, we have nationalism and small P patriots popping up around the globe. Throwing sand into the crankshaft.
What we need is to be free from regressive thinking. We need to be unfettered from a stodgy system that only thinks about maintaining the status quo. We need not to hark back to another time because there was never another time to hark back to that was any better. We need to plow ahead into the future cognizant that humanity needs to think outside the box for the good of all.
Earth needs to be put first, not America.
Rich nations have not been spared from the pandemic and they won’t be spared from climate change. Rich people may be able to turn a blind eye for a time but - eventually - their money won’t be able to protect them.
Authoritarian governments have no intention to plan for the future. Their only interest is survival. Their leaders only interest is self-interest. They are the worst forms of government in a time when you need innovation.
“What was in it for them?” asks the man small P patriots idolize. You should not have to be a clinical psychologist or the niece of the guy or the sister or the former Chief of Staff to understand the man small P patriots will someday want to canonize cares nothing for their insecure patriotism.
He looked out at the craters left from the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and his first thought was that one of his buildings would now be considered the tallest in New York City.
He wouldn’t have run into Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School even if he were armed with an AR-15.
He belittled military families because they didn’t like him.
He ridiculed a Vietnam vet because he was captured.
He saluted an officer in the Chinese military because he’s an idiot.
He wanted a military parade for himself, not for the country.
I cringe every time I hear “God bless America” uttered because I doubt very seriously that if there is a god they would bless one nation out of hundreds, but the man small P patriots celebrate has never intoned those words and meant them. If he said, “God bless MY America”, he might mean that.
“What was in it for them?” were the words he spoke while standing before the grave site of a fallen American soldier in France. (I am going to suggest subscribing to The Atlantic if you can afford to). Could he really not understand why Americans chose to enlist to fight and, hopefully, stop belligerent, occupying, war-mongering forces?
Someone whose only thoughts, no matter what the circumstance, are “What’s in it for me?” would sell their country on a moment’s notice, especially if it were to save their own hide.
Don’t you small P patriots think?