Patriot
Noun
1. One who loves and defends his or her country.
Look closely at that definition. There are two things you can do to be a patriot: love or defend your country. Or both. When the definition becomes, "wear an American symbol on your lapel," then maybe I can have an intelligent debate with the conservative right. The key concept in this and all situations is action. To call yourself anything you must do what you claim. If I call myself a writer I must write. Simply buying a t-shirt that says I write does not establish anything. Symbols lose their significance when 1) they are overused, or 2) when they are abused by people who do not understand them or attach false meanings to them.
John McCain is a patriot. I say that because of his career and his actions in serving this country for most of his life, not because I saw a picture of him with an American flag on his chest. Barack Obama is a patriot because he has served the people of this country in a different way, to give them a better life through his public service. Wearing a pin says nothing about either of them.
I've got some sorry news for a lot of people. Wearing an AIDS ribbon does not help the cause against AIDS; it's not getting us any closer to a cure. The same goes for the pink breast cancer ribbon, or any other disease that has been commercialized. Magnets on the back of your car don't establish anything about your character, except that you want un-due praise. I have never been in the military, and if I wore an army uniform around town it doesn't make me anything of a soldier, and certainly doesn't entitle me to any respect.
These symbols are empty. What matters here is the actions performed, the sacrifices made, that these petty objects represent. You don't need to advertise what you do with your time, as long as you spend it doing something meaningful. A soldier has served his country, and whether he wears his medals in public does nothing to change that.
A man does not need to perform superfluous ceremony and carry evidence of what he has done. The actions will speak for themselves, and when you have performed actions for the good of this country and it's people, no amount of clothing accessories or shallow formalities will change that.
Republicans, supporters of John McCain or not, do not want Barack Obama to be president. Is it because they don't want a president who didn't wear a pin? If that were true this would be a sad, dark day in our country's history. The real reason is that they disagree with what he's proposing to do in office. So why can't they say so? Until the opposition stops fabricating problems and false criticisms, they are destroying the integrity of the race to the highest office in the country.
And that's precisely why they are lesser patriots for it.
I've got some sorry news for a lot of people. Wearing an AIDS ribbon does not help the cause against AIDS; it's not getting us any closer to a cure. The same goes for the pink breast cancer ribbon, or any other disease that has been commercialized. Magnets on the back of your car don't establish anything about your character, except that you want un-due praise. I have never been in the military, and if I wore an army uniform around town it doesn't make me anything of a soldier, and certainly doesn't entitle me to any respect.
These symbols are empty. What matters here is the actions performed, the sacrifices made, that these petty objects represent. You don't need to advertise what you do with your time, as long as you spend it doing something meaningful. A soldier has served his country, and whether he wears his medals in public does nothing to change that.
A man does not need to perform superfluous ceremony and carry evidence of what he has done. The actions will speak for themselves, and when you have performed actions for the good of this country and it's people, no amount of clothing accessories or shallow formalities will change that.
Republicans, supporters of John McCain or not, do not want Barack Obama to be president. Is it because they don't want a president who didn't wear a pin? If that were true this would be a sad, dark day in our country's history. The real reason is that they disagree with what he's proposing to do in office. So why can't they say so? Until the opposition stops fabricating problems and false criticisms, they are destroying the integrity of the race to the highest office in the country.
And that's precisely why they are lesser patriots for it.
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