playtriots

since today is flag day, and also the birthday of the man who puts the “pay” in “patriot”, i wanted to discuss the bastardization of the word of late…

…because it used to mean something positive.

with all the government purging of actual history lately i’m really surprised this is still around. i’d love to see a “third wave” bit about the current bullshit, but i don’t see that coming out of our government anytime soon as they keep appointing the third wave into posts of power they are neither qualified for nor equipped to handle. it’s always fun to sit back and watch rome burn until you realize that, much to your chagrin, you’re roman.

in the early days of our country “patriotism” meant being loyal to your country. in the eyes of many who still use the term the meaning hasn’t changed, but it fundamentally has. it now doesn’t mean loyalty to THE country, or OUR country, but the version of the country the person using the word wants it to be, which more and more means white, christian, straight, and conservative. you know, kinda like the founding fathers said – “all (white, christian, straight, and conservative) men are created equal”. that IS how it reads, right?

i tend to lean towards the mark twain definition – “love your country always, and your government when they deserve it”. that seems a lot more realistic.

basically, folks need to realize the word does not, and should not, have party loyalty, and i think that’s where we miss the mark. there are patriots on both sides of the aisle, in the true since of the word, and that shouldn’t be overlooked nor should party affiliation be a disqualifier. as the fake w said in the second harold and kumar flick, you can love your country without trusting your government.

it’s funny, although not in the “ha-ha” way, that the term has generally been co-opted by the right when the left is in power. during the clinton years extreme right folk called themselves “patriots” in protest of ruby ridge and waco. later the movements sprang back up (“later” being when the link in the first full paragraph was written) when obama was elected because of his melanin content. but now we have a tangerine-colored game show host who basically uses the term for folks that support him above everything else, and that, dear readers, is the antithesis of the term compared to what i learned it means as a kid…

…but is it really?

“patriot” springs from “pat”, which means “father” and denotes loyalty to the “father land”, and we all know who beefed up the use of that term last century, don’t we? sure, it was around for centuries before them, but so was the symbol around this buddha statue…

…and we all know we don’t think “zen” when we see it now.

so hopefully the term finds its way back to the positive. i really hate that america’s 250th has become about one egotistical asshole, when there are literally tens of millions of americans, in all colors and creeds and genders and orientations that it should be about. and the fact that it’s been made to be that way shows that man is no patriot, he’s just a self-centered diaper-filling octogenarian dick.