Quote:
Originally Posted by S14rebuild
We dont hide behind the flag...we fly it high and with honor. Your people burn it.
Rest of your post is nonsense and not gonna bother to acknowledge it
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Your people fight against abortion, rattle sabers for military involvement, cheer when multinational corporations move manufacturing overseas, ask for extensions of the USA-PATRIOT Act, refuse to acknowledge institutional racism, refuse to see that we have more people in prison than anywhere else on Earth, refuse to see that our systems are broken.
We're not ranked first in any scale of wealthiness per capita (3rd place in the world according to Credit Suisse- however over 20 million Americans belong to the bottom quintile of global wealth!), healthiness per capita (we're 35th according to Bloomberg's Healthiest Country Index), education per capita (by UN education index we're 8th, by education level we're 4th) or happiness per capita (we're 19th according to the UN).
Maybe the reason why more people don't fly our flag high is because nationalism has always been the crutch of the stupid and ill-informed, the bullies and tyrants. Patriotism =/= nationalism, and nationalism =/= patriotism. Nationalism is, by definition, xenophobic. It creates and breeds an unwillingness to want to make one's country better by espousing and entrenching the idea that one's country is already the greatest.
Those of us who love this country but don't need to show it aren't somehow less than. We're equal to and often greater than. The difference between conservative and progressive isn't right and wrong, it's that one side wants to stay stalwart and the other wants to move forward. We are in a moving world, and we've royally fucked up some aspects of our society. We must not stand idly by while the world continues to pass us, but rather step forward into the role we think the country we love deserves. We will make a better country for all Americans by being willing to change.