America is pretty hard to define, which is why I have trouble being “patriotic.” It’s a conglomeration of a bunch of things, people and policies and philosophies and lifestyles and laws… I can’t lump them all together and say, “Hooray for America!” any more than I can put nutrition and exercise and disease and genetics together and say, “Hooray for health!” It just doesn’t make sense to me.

But I, too, love fireworks, especially the loud ones and, this year, the glittery-waterfall ones. I wish we could have them in the spring or fall, though, when there aren’t so many damn mosquitoes.

Anyways, after way too long in Taiwan, I have had more than my share of things blowing up, thank you, and I spent my fourth the way I used to spend Chinese New Year: with the doors shut tight, and the radio cranked up (Afro-Cuban jazz on KPFK).

Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

Emma is unrelenting in her criticism of the passion, so be prepared. It’s a classic.

That said, I doubt we are capable as a species of surmounting our territorialism. Even a one-world system would wind up balkanizing somehow.

Where patriotism becomes evil (and it very often does)is when it becomes self-aggrandizing and narcissistic–I think most of the post 9/11 American patriotism has been of this sort. We’re good, we’ve never done anything as bad as 9/11 to anyone else (not in our lifetime, at least), and so on. And anyone who disagrees is somehow justifying 9/11.

You say you don’t “mind” a world government - the U.N. declaration of human rights does not acknowledge the sovereignty of God, therefore it begs the question if we had world government, where would our rights come from? Would we even have any rights?

Your question is relevant only if you accept the existence of God (or gods) as fact. Many of us don’t believe that our rights come from God. If they did, why would God give us rights that, say, the Chinese don’t enjoy? This can quickly degrade into a thread on religion/faith. I’d prefer not to do that here. But my first sentence stands.

You failed to answer the fundamental question - WHERE DO OUR RIGHTS COME FROM? Communist regimes have rejected God and God’s laws, and therefore have rejected His rights for us well. When this happens, the state grants citizens privilages that can be revoked at will.

Besides there are many good things to love about America — our ideals (no matter how much they are breached in practice) have inspired other countries to seek and surpass our commitment to individual liberty. We are a grand experiment in government — it’s just that we’re starting to look like the grand experiment that’s been left in the fridge for far too many months lately — crusty around the edges and starting to rot.

As to Burk’s naive belief that our rights come from God. Excuse me, but that ignores the centuries of Christianity that preceded the US experiment…centuries of serfdom, tyranny and despotism. Those governments claimed their “divine right” as well. Moreover, the Bible has slavery and was used to condone slavery — even in the 19th century.

Your statement completely ignores history. The Greeks and Romans had democracy and republican government and they were not Christian. There are more centuries of Christian depotism than Christian democracy. Our rights come from the triumph of reason over superstition, from the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. From people who thought for themselves, not listening to the church leaders whose loyalty was to the kings, not the common people. The phrase “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights”… might sound like the philosophy originated from biblical scholarship, but it didn’t. It was a nice rhetorical flourish. If those were inalienable rights endowed by our Creator, they wouldn’t take a revolution to enact, now would they?

Our rights come from us. People. Sometimes a very few people. Well most of the time.

The existence of the laws of physics can be proven. The existence of deities cannot be proven.

As for “His rights”…. Read the bible, dude. Nowhere does God grant us the rights to….. freedom of speech (in fact the bible specifically forbids certain forms of speech), the freedom from unreasonable search & seizure, freedom period (the Bible does nothing to hinder the institution of slavery), the pursuit of life, liberty, etc.

If you’re going to insist that the rights that we now enjoy (but are slowly losing) are from God, please provide some documentation.

Also, re: “Communist regimes have rejected God and God’s laws, and therefore have rejected His rights for us well. When this happens, the state grants citizens privilages that can be revoked at will.”
unless you’ve missed it - you no longer have the right to due process. You can be arrested & held w/o being charged w/ a crime & w/o notification of your family, etc. Or does God specify that that is not one of his rights?

My documentation that our rights come from people (AAAAAAAH! Rights are made from people! PEOPLE!*)
is the US Constitution. Authors: Jefferson, etc. Along w/ a lack of said rights listed in an older religious text.

None of which has the least to do with patriotism or nationalism.

Here I turn to our faux patriotism. ‘Member after 9/11 when everybody had those little USA flags fluttering from their cars? ‘Member what happened the first time it rained? Itty bitty flags got soaked & heavy & ripped off. Making me drive over thousands of them on the highway. Damn, that made me feel proud. Not one of those who, until then, had a bitty flag on their car took any time to pick ‘em off the road. Is that love of your country & flag or what?

And, hey, how ’bout taking down them flags at night (unless you’ve got a light on it) and in inclement weather? Then don’t tell me you love the flag. You haven’t even bothered to learn the rules associated w/ the tradition. You’d be better off with a giant red/white/blue foam “we’re # 1″ hand. Nobody will care if that gets maltreated. Oafs!

* Soylent Green reference. Humor.

So you’ll know where I’m coming from, I am a constitutionalist not a neo-con. I am not a Bush/Ashcroft supporter, yes I am fully aware of the rights we are losing under the so-called patriot act and homeland insecurity. No, I do not support this faux post-9/11 plastic banana patriotism. I fly the colonial flag, not a 50-star flag made in China. I hope third parties (green,libertarian,constitution) leave the republicrats in the dust!

You all are confusing European Christendom (led by a corrupt catholic church) with true Christianity.

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”

Leviticus 25:10 - inscription on The Liberty Bell

“Where the spirit of the Lord, there is liberty”

2 Cor 3:17

By the way, the Bible prescribes the death penalty for kidnapping (slavery)

You say our rights come from “the people”. What if the majority of “the people” decide that Jake Squid has no rights? What if the majority decide that this website should be shut down? What if the majority decide that blacks have no rights and should be enslaved again? Surely you realize the destructive nature of democracy and majority-rule. The founding fathers railed against democracy. Yes Roman democracy was wonderful - burning Christians and mad emperors. Where is the Roman empire now? America is heading the way of the Roman empire now. We have college football instead of gladiatorial combat.

The French revolutionists adopted a humanistic, Age of Reason “power to the people” of government. They wound up with guillotines and a meglomaniacal emperor. Read de Tocqueville sometime if you want to study some REAL history.

I don’t have to prove that God exists - orderly creation and life are scientic and mathematical proof enough.

Bottom line, there is no liberty without God’s laws. Mankind has tried over and over and over again to create Utopia on earth while throwing God out of the equation. Ain’t gonna happen.

I enjoy the debate.

Feel free to email me to continue this. I prefer not to fill a thread about patriotism w/ a debate about the nature of God and the murky definition of “liberty” in the line you quoted.

I’m curious though. What do you mean by “constitutionalist”. Do you consider yourself affiliated w/ the Constitution Party? Do they match your definition? Or is it something else?

For the record, I have no objection - I’ve been enjoying the debate, thread drift and all.