America: My response to Love it or Leave it

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A member here wrote a response to my angry post in the haven section. I have taken some time to think about this and here is my response to it. There are many concepts and matters to which I am absolutely ignorant in. Before one can have love for something one would have to know what love is and how one must love. What is the essence of love? Can one provide a detailed analysis as to what love is as I do not fundamentally understand what it is?

I have a deep reverence for certain values myself. I have a deep reverence for seeking truth and honesty. If I am right and America is corrupt then how would I show love towards America and my countrymen by leaving? If I saw a man on the ground who needed medical attention would I show love to this man by just ignoring him and leaving him? This is the same thing I view towards America. I see America as corrupt and like this man who needs medical attention. I believe the way to bring America back to moral health is to seek objective truth no matter where it leads. It has been stated that I should leave. This is why I do not understand what love is. I love my country as you do but not what it has become. I stand by what I say and that it is filled with corruption, deceptions, and lies.

It is stated I should leave. How would it be morally right for me to leave when the man(America) is dying and severely needs medical attention? Let's say I did leave. More than likely I would find something else wrong in this new place I go. I would question and examine it as this is my nature. I have to ask, where can a guy like me go who wants and desires to seek truth?

this seems to be the neo-con republican recipe for being a good US of A loving patriot-

1-Stop complaining
2-Stop depending on government welfare
3-Enlist in the Army
4-Go to some outpost in Afghanistan to risk your life for a meaningless cause at the behest of plutocrats in Washington
5-Eat Mcdonalds
6-Vote Republican
7-Be a good consumer
8-Buy a car. Drive it lots.
9-Buy a gun.
10- Buy lots of republican party stickers and 'support the troops' stickers for the back bumper of your car.
11-Get married
12-Have lots of babies
13-Be a good consumer
14-Stop Complaining.

I guess I'm a lousy patriot,I hate McDonalds and only had two kids.I drive my car on average one day a week,my lawn needs mowing too and that's really un-American.I do have a gun but I live in a rural area with rabies,I'm on SSI and get a whopping 35.00 in food stamps a month,never inlisted, did get married(what a mistake,I don't recommend it).
But I get what Cubedemon6073 is getting at,it seems quite a few people have issues with the region( southern U.S.A.) that I live in, but if all the open minded people left this region it would never change,the asses that make it look bad would then win.All you can do is try to fight ignorance and injustice with reason.Things are different in the South than when I was a child,it's getting better because people stayed and tried to make a difference.

^ Of course that was satirical, and by no means a fully comprehensive list.

i really dislike the way that the right wing (not just in America but every country) have tried and by in large succeeded, in monopolising 'patriotism'. This has really been crystallised by the likes of the tea party movement and their efforts to brandish everyone who disagrees with them as a freedom hating terrorist sympathiser.

I can barely speak openly about my distaste for the war in afghanistan without attracting a chorus of disdain from sheep that wail about 'supporting our boys'. The mindless obedience and conformity of it all sickens me. I think speaking as someone from Northern Ireland its why I am increasingly feeling more Irish than British, despite being brought up in a unionist background. Ireland has a proud history of rebellion and standing up against tyrants.

To make it clear, patriotism means loving ones country Whether that means its indigenous culture, cuisine, geography and/or the people who reside in it. Not its government or the value system of the people who run it.

You said it all in a nutshell.

H. L. Mencken

Couldn't have articulated it better myself.

What good does complaining do? Besides, there are whiners even in the best of times.

I’ll vote for that. At least don’t make a career out mooching when you don’t have to.

Or the Navy or the Air Force, or the Marine Corps, or the Coast Guard. It'll make a man out of you....

It wasn’t plutocrats from Washington that kamikaze’d those airliners into the WTC. Kind of a no-brainer there.

Eat at Five Guys instead. They have much better burgers and fries than Micky D’s ever did.

Better than voting democrat.

Good for the economy, obviously.

Gotta get around.

Don't stop at one. I have lots and lots of guns.

I do.

If you can find someone you can stand to live with.

Think of them as future soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to keep the military machine staffed in the future….

Already said that and it’s still a good idea.

Same for this.

Those two contradict eacheother, all active duty military depend on government for food, shelter, medical care, legal advice, ect...
plus get $1600 monthly just starting out.

I'm not trying to knock enlistees (their day to day lives suck), but they're the poster-child of government assistance and nobody ever brings it up.

You forgot one: "Watch Fox News", and don't think too much.

Patriotic - America is corrupt, and I want to help fix it.
Unpatriotic - America is corrupt, and I want to destroy it.

Just saying "America is corrupt" is in no way unpatriotic. It's just an observation.

Quite right. The sole object of human life is to be wasted it in geopolitical adventures.

I dont doubt the patriotism of the Left.

I don't doubt that the feelings of love they have for this country in any way differs from the feelings of love I have for it as well.

Just be clear, replace Tea Party with Conservative because you are not dealing with fringe conservatism, you are just trying to make them a rebellious outlier, but they are not.

It is not a mindless obedience and conformity to want to stay in Afghanistan. We have had failures in our nation building efforts, most notably the reconstruction of the south following the civil war, and the philippines among many others. But we've had successes with South Korea, Germany and much of western Europe, and Japan, all of which lead the world in their own respective right, economically, socially, democratically, however you want to square it. So the successes we have lead to a huge payoff, these countries do not go to war with other democracies, they value democracy, the western ideas of a safety net, a transparent court system, they are great trade partners, they have a free and watchful press, social rights are respected, a sharp contrast not only to what they were before, but to many parts of the world, today, in 2012. Nonetheless, a failure in that part of the world where it needs democracy and liberty the most amongst other western values is unacceptable. The stability of the entire region is dependent on that.

The American value system is what made America. If you hate accountability to a moral unseeable whose text has shaped our culture, if you hate the melting pot ideal, if you hate the our love of liberty or economic liberalism, then you are an American who hates Americanism, but in no way are you unpatriotic. Other things that the left does might make you unpatriotic, but just simply disagreeing with Americanism does not make you unpatriotic, as that strand has always existed throughout history, small, but there, and that hasn't stopped left wingers from serving their civic duty, the community, or being in our military.

well let me correct that... I don't doubt that there are patriotic people on the left.

Not all of the left is patriotic.

Complaining seems to run contrary to amurcan culture(with the exception of Jews who kvetch and their culture permits it). There is this blind faith in not just optimism, but positivism("positive patty")no matter what your political persuasion may be. It also seems to be a tool for enforcing the Status Quo by ridiculing and lashing out at those who complain about the way things are


If you are going to voluntarily join the armed forces you had really be ready to make a commitment to serve and particularly if you're in the Army or the Marines you are almost guaranteed to see combat.

That's because it's not "government assistance."

My pay and benefits are part of the contract I signed, and I receive them as my part of the deal when I agreed to work for the government.

"Welfare" is given out with no obligation on part of the recipient.