Friday, May 11, 2007

on Patriotism

With the battle over funding the effort to put down the Iraqi insurgency in full throttle in DC, it seems as if we're hearing a lot more about people aiding the enemy and not supporting the troops. So far, the idea that such people are not patriots seems to be about, but muted. But lets examine patriotism. What is it besides standing for what your country stands for. i suggest the truest patriot is, again, one who examines what his country is doing and takes issue with it when it is not following its own ideals. We keep saying about the U.S., that we are a country founded on ideals, not just because a bunch of people were living in the same area, but people who founded a government based on certain principles. Essentially those principles come down to the idea that people should be free and that the people are the government. What we call the government is made up of people we elect and appoint to make sure the engine of government runs properly. It is a combined effort by all of us to ensure that we get the life that we want. A person who follows those ideals is the true U.S. patriot, not those who blindly follow a blind man into the future of war and of limiting our Constitution which is the source of our ideals along with the Declaration of Independence. (I would suggest that if someone were to stand on a street corner and start reading the Declaration of Independence out loud, he might find himself carted off in a paddy wagon as a subversive.) So, as to our current situation, I suggest that the actions to take on Al Quaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan were within these parameters since they had either attacked us or aided and abetted the attackers. But I would suggest that we were not told the truth, and were fed lies for some unknown reasons on Iraq. It was evident from the U.N. searches and from our spy flights that Saddam had neither weapons of mass destruction nor the means of delivering them if had had small amounts. So who is the patriot? The person who opposed and opposes that war or the one who insists on curbing our liberties to fight it?

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