Quote:
Originally Posted by The silenced majority Let's get this straight. If a person truly believes that wealth re-distribution, social re-engineering and re-education is the best thing for this country, then they are a patriot? Or, if a person believes that only white Christians should be able to vote because it's the best thing for this country, then they're a patriot?
You people get the government you deserve I guess. |
In
their minds yes they are somehow patriots. Albeit hate based. Being a patriot is very subjective in it's nature, we all have our own ideas as to what makes a "good" patriot. Typically that is where we diverge and begin name calling and claiming that one side is patriotic and the other is not.
Obviously the majority here reject extremist views for very good reasons. You cited extremist ideologies to make your point. Racist typically put race first, not country. So their degree of patriotism is tempered by their racist superiority complex. I would say tempered to the point that it is very questionable. Still in some small way they probably believe they are true patriots, as ****ed up as that may sound. Now do I believe they are patriots? No, because they preach hate against their fellow countrymen based on the color of their skin. Their main motivation is not preservation of the country, it's furtherance of their race, and typically the suppression of other races.
But we still get back to the argument of "liberals aren't patriots because of this, neocons aren't patriots because of that, I'm a real patriot and you are a traitor." Blah blah blah.
I will rattle off a list of posters here that I believe could be patriots (I don't want to assume anything because some people reject patriotism and nationalism)...I'm just going to give examples of people who have completely opposing view points about what is best for this country but who I think could be legitimate patriots because of their convictions about doing what's right for our nation (keep in mind "what's right" is subjective...but it's not for me to judge their true intentions)....
Billo, Cherokee, TOT, Stinger, SgtStinger1, Voidwar, WI Crippler, Galenrox, bhkad, americanwoman, Gardener, jfuh, GottaHurt, Hatuey, 1069, Caine, CC, Stace, Iriemon...and Silenced Majority. Obviously there are others, I was just trying to give a cross section of people I know who typically have opposing viewpoints on things like the war, economics, religion, global warming, etc. Sorry, I don't even know if some of you actually live in America, but I was just trying to make a point about differences of opinion.
See what I am getting at? They all feel that changing things in a certain way would help make our country better or safer or whatever. They just don't all agree on what those changes should amount to. Of course some people already have a concrete definition of what a patriot is and nothing will change that. I prefer to go with the traditional definition which centers around "love of country" not "what JeffMerriman defines a patriot as based upon his current political and social agenda."
So I would admonish you and anyone else to tread lightly when you call someone down for not being a patriot because they think differently than you do. You may not like their vision of what is best for the country, but that's not really relevant to the definition of the word.