Patriot Games

Posted on July 4, 2010 in Citizenship Festivals

I like America. But I don’t like Americans who tell me how great it is, as if they themselves made it.

— Andy Rooney

Plenty of people are playing patriot today — the most modest with American flags that they sometimes have let deteriorate to rags or, as I saw yesterday, in the form of banners that cover the sides of whole buildings. Bit like the hypocrites of the Gospel of Matthew who make a spectacle of praying in public.

It turns sadly funny when conversation turns to respect for the flag. Most do not know that the proper way to dispose of a flag is to cremate it. I saw this once as a Boy Scout. You separate the stars from the stripes before the holocaust. Today, you may eat cupcakes decorated with tiny flags that end up in the trash along with plastic bags printed with flags that share the same fate. The people who scream loudest about flag-burning may be the most casual about this.

A true patriot doesn’t put his store in ersatz symbolism. Nor does he boast about his country or limits the concept of service to time spent in the military — often in places where he never sees the glint of an enemy’s rifle. You can’t say “I did my time” as if you were a prisoner. And you must remember that you serve your country every day.

The type of politician you elect shows whether you love it or hate it. The people — not the land — are the nation. You educate them, protect them, feed them if times are bad, look after their health. You must vote as if they are the nation’s most precious resource. It makes for the worst kind of citizen who only votes his pocket-book or out of a blind fear of whatever certain demagogues call “socialism”.

Don’t be a superficial patriot today and a selfish bastard tomorrow. Love your country for what it is and stand to defend it from those who would weaken it from the inside as well as the out.