Ever notice how when one argues with a typical know nuthin' ditto head or Anne
Coulter type, how likely it is that you will be viciously slandered, accused
of aiding the enemy, of treason and worse? If one points out anything remotely
unflattering about our country, regardless of veracity of the statement...TREASON!

Sigh...

Well, to all ditto head juju zombies and McCarthy wannabees out there, let me try
to make you understand how I and many others really do love our country...

First, let me say how I do NOT love my country. I do NOT love my country the way
I love my favorite sports franchise. I do not dress in red white and blue, wave
flags ad nauseum, nor get all emotional and teary eyed upon hearing "God Bless
the USA". In fact, I had to seriously contain myself recently at the supermarket
when I kept setting off one of those motion sensitive singing stuffed animals. It
was a teddy bear in fatigues, and everytime my head stopped hurting someone would
set the freaking monster off again, warbling out that idiotic drivel over and over and
over. Thankfully I was able to conclude my business seconds before I snapped,
snatched the infernal thing, stomped it into smithereens, and then payed for it.
Good for me, saved some money there. I do not love my country the way some people
love their mommies or others love their God.

Let me illustrate. Almost every parent loves their children. Some love their
children in such a way that they fail to see their children's shortcomings. They
conciously or subconciously filter out any information about their precious darling,
which is in the least unflattering, defend their spawn regardless of the
situation, and become highly indignant and hostile should anyone point out
anything in the least unflattering about Jr., especially if its TRUE.

Other parents love their children dearly also, but love them so much that they
actually see their children as they really are, good, bad, ugly, beautiful...
When pointed out something unflattering about their child that is true, these
parents, rather than getting defensive and nasty, look at the accusation and
although they love their child, admit the truth even if it is ugly... They see
their beloved children as they really are, love them nonetheless, encourage them
to do right and admonish them when they do not do right...

Which is better for the child?

This is how I love my country...like it really is, good, bad, ugly, and beautiful.
I refuse to whistle "Yankee Doodle" while Rome burns. I refuse to mouth semi
mindless platitudes to assure that a pack of know-nothing right wing ideologues
will not label me a traitor. I prefer to acknowledge the full scope and reality
that is this country, our strengths and weaknesses, our accomplishments and failures,
our righteousness and our iniquities, our triumphs as well as our disgraces. We
are indeed a great nation, and like all great nations, we have much to be pleased
about, and some to be ashamed of... It would be strange indeed if so important
and vast a political entity as the United States of America were possessed of a
past and present as pure as virgen snow, would it not? To obsess with our shortcomings
would be wrong, but to utterly fail to acknowledge them and obsess solely on how
great we are...is actually kind of scary, is it not?

Why are so many of us so defensively insecure about our OBVIOUSLY great, wealthy,
and fortunate country? I have talked with several foriegners here in the USA in
recent years, and once they understood that I was "cool", admitted a rather strange
and bothersome phenomenon regarding certain types of Americans... These foriegners
felt that it was necessary to tell these types at some point in their conversations
with such, how awesome America is and how great us Aericans are. In fact, with many
of us, simply neither saying anything good nor bad was enough to be suspected as
being.....anti-American!

Sigh...

I love my country dearly. Enough to call it down when its wrong...enough to tell
the truth even when such is potentially dangerous.