I came across this link, which reminded me of the brainless unicyclist with the crossed out French flag avatar :
http://www.americawestandasone.com/awsao.html check out the video it’s hilarious.
Now its parody ain’t bad either : http://www.smerpology.org/sprocket/images/america-fuckyeah-westandasone.mov
I forgot who said that when people pull out their flags they start thinking with their trumpets. Nothing against Americans, obviously, just making fun of patritotism.
Being mean is brainless, particularly to children. And as we all know all too well, “Mean People Suck” And sucking, like patriotism, can get out of hand.
Priceless.
T-shirt time.
Patriotism: pride in something over which you had no control - your place of birth.
My brother’s a patriot. He asked me why I wasn’t proud to be English. I told him because it was only a stroke of good fortune on my part. I’m no more proud of being English than of having two legs - although I’m aware that I am privileged.
He then asked why I wasn’t proud of my cultural heritage.
I’m the Morris dancer. He’s the intolerant racist whose great uncle died in WW2, apparently for our freedom to choose to be Nazis. Which is the English cultural heritage bit?
On the whole, patriotism is a bad thing, but it’ll never go away.
On this we agree.
Do you think that rejecting patriotism - which I do not equate with being unpatriotic - is more common in Europe? Could it have to do with the experience of seeing how close - sometimes indistinguishable from - nationalism it is?
Is it like sports-teamism? A lot more fervent and obvious and obnoxious when your team is winning?
Billy
Or, maybe when you at least believe your team is winning?
i never thought about you being in no control over your patriotism, good thinking, thats a good idea!
but you can be a patriot about a country even though you dont live there, its just considerd un-patriotic by the country you live in thats all
patriotism is dumb man…I’m not an American, I’m a human, exactly the same as everyone else.
Very good point, it must be related. I was always surprised when I lived in the US to see how many people were proud to be patriots. It’s yet another thing we Europeans have in common, we learnt from our griefs and are very cautious when it comes to patriotism, as it is often so close to nationalism.
I often thought that the US was of an exception since it was somewhat “cleaner” than most European countries after ww2, and that patriotism was genuinely a positive ideology. I realised after 911, being French in New York that there was hardly any difference between patriotism in France and in the US. “You’re either with us or against us” equation by Bush very quicly lead to “love it or leave it”, even though I was all for the invasion of Aghanistan, I couldn’t support the weapon of mass destruction bullcrap in Irak. Soon enough It became unbearable to stay, as a lot of people -but not all americans, far from that, and none of my friends, obviously- seemed to had been brainwashed so I took the advice, I left and moved to Africa.
No, you’re not. You ride a unicycle. If nothing else, that makes you different. 
oh yes, good point.
I’m not an American, I’m a unicyclist!!
No your not, you’re just another human with no self worth.
Right?
…right…
how about…one WORLD under God.
How about…You Photoshop it.
What does God have to do with patriotism? 
Ditto.
That video had the good, positive, peace and brotherhood kind of patriotism, rather than us against them. Unfortunately he made it sound way over the top, and completely phony.
A country is one of the communities we belong to, even if it may not be the most important one. It’s a community you’re forced into because you have to share laws, public space, etc no matter how different from you the other members are. A sense of community helps making things run more smoothly.
(Except when that sense of community is created by inventing common enemies).
I don’t see any reason why you should be proud of who your ancestors where, or where you where born, but if you have worked as a part of a team that has accomplished something, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be proud of that.
