Tag: patriotism

Today, when I was driving in to work, I saw a car being towed by a rather large tow truck, and noticed that the tow truck was emblazoned with “patriotic” symbols, such as flags, planes, and other red, white, and blue themed “USA is great”-ness. While I am all for showing your patriotic side, I think that there definitely is a continuum on which people fall with regards to displaying that patriotism; especially we Americans.

I tend to fall on the low end of the continuum, as I don’t have a flag anywhere in my house, on my property, or on my car. I don’t see the need to display the American flag to prove that I am in support of America, our troops, and our freedom. I have no problem with people putting flags, bumper stickers, and those awful “support the troops” ribbons on their cars, houses, and whatever they can find standing still long enough to attach them to; as long as it makes them feel somehow more patriotic for doing so. I do however, think that it is all a bit over board, as I said, I fall on the low end of the continuum, and these people clearly fall more in the middle, with many sitting close to the high end of the continuum.

Now, with that being said, I absolutely despise those people that take the notion of displaying patriotism beyond simply showing support through images of flags, words of support, or even those silly ribbons. (I say silly ribbons, for clarification purposes, because a ribbon on your car saying that you support the troops doesn’t make it any more real, or any more supportive than the rest of us that support them. If you really support them, send them a care package with the money you used to buy that ribbon; it would show more true support.). See, what I didn’t mention when I spoke of the tow truck earlier, was that as I took notice of the patriotic images plastered all over the truck, I started to notice that it went far beyond the simple flag and “we support the troops” display; it had a plane, dropping a bomb, with flumes of smoke and fire, to represent the destruction that we would bring on anyone that fucks with us. Now, in my opinion, that goes beyond patriotism, and clearly turns something that is meant to show that we are proud and supportive of our country and our troops, into something that represents a sadistic mindset where killing and destruction are somehow representative of our support of this country. And I think that is going too far.

If you feel the need to display this form of sadistic extreme “patriotism”, fine, but in my opinion, you have taken something that is supposed to be a positive affirmation of support, and turned it into a sad excuse for you to show your potential for hateful retaliation, under the guise of “support”. If you truly support our country, you don’t have to kill everyone else in the world to do so, so why not focus on the positive? I guess I just can’t understand the need to do that, because I don’t equate patriotism with bombing men, women, and children in the Middle East. We can be proud of who we are, without killing tons of other people in the process, and we can certainly show that we are proud of who we are without representing that pride as a bomb-dropping mural on a tow truck.