Dissent is Patriotic
Jul. 4th, 2006 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maypirateHappy 4th of July, whether it's a holiday or just a summer day to you.
And in the spirit of asking "who doesn't love the English?" on Independence day, I provide these thoughts on the U.S. and me:
-I hate the government and believe it has set us on a path to destruction of epic proportions. I do no agree with many of the policies it proclaims or the people it puts in power.
-I believe my country is being run by some kind of hideous troll-king, and that though there will be a horrific mess in his wake, we cannot possibly do worse, we have not reached the end yet. We can rebuild us.
-I think this war is wrong, I think we do not understand what we are doing, and I support soldiers as people who have chosen that job, but I am all for ending a war that never should have been started. Cut and run is cut and live, and we can finally take down these yellow ribbons that blind us from logic.
-I know that we are not favored in the eyes of the world, that we suck at tourism and sometimes we suck at being ourselves with each other, we are rude and loud and racist and full of slurs, unwilling to look beyond our own borders.
-But though I consider myself a citizen of the world, I am an American first, and the branches of my family tree stretch so far across the country and time that I don't even process where they came from in the first place.
-It's a flawed country, and we are a flawed people, we trip over ourselves trying to prove things that don't need to be proven, we thrust fists and ideology across oceans without even attempting to understand. We are a city on a hill and we keep the doors open, but it's hard sometimes to get in the gate. We are proud, too proud, and pride will have its fall.
-After all of this, though, I love my country, I love the interstate and the beautiful fucked-up scars of history that I want to spend the rest of my life with, I love flying at night and watching city lights go by, I love missing home and then coming home and missing somewhere else, I love knowing that this is who I am, I love the smell of grills in the summer and suntan lotion, I love watching the air force fly over and getting a thrill, I love complaining about politics and how much I hate the president, I love shouting "USA! USA!" at inappropriate and nonsensical times, I love that we lost the World Cup so soon, I love that once upon a time we thought putting vegetables in jello was a good idea.
-And I love my country because I can disagree with everything that I think is wrong, because I know that imperfection is not a flaw but a continued dialogue, and I love my country not good or bad, but good and bad.
And in the spirit of asking "who doesn't love the English?" on Independence day, I provide these thoughts on the U.S. and me:
-I hate the government and believe it has set us on a path to destruction of epic proportions. I do no agree with many of the policies it proclaims or the people it puts in power.
-I believe my country is being run by some kind of hideous troll-king, and that though there will be a horrific mess in his wake, we cannot possibly do worse, we have not reached the end yet. We can rebuild us.
-I think this war is wrong, I think we do not understand what we are doing, and I support soldiers as people who have chosen that job, but I am all for ending a war that never should have been started. Cut and run is cut and live, and we can finally take down these yellow ribbons that blind us from logic.
-I know that we are not favored in the eyes of the world, that we suck at tourism and sometimes we suck at being ourselves with each other, we are rude and loud and racist and full of slurs, unwilling to look beyond our own borders.
-But though I consider myself a citizen of the world, I am an American first, and the branches of my family tree stretch so far across the country and time that I don't even process where they came from in the first place.
-It's a flawed country, and we are a flawed people, we trip over ourselves trying to prove things that don't need to be proven, we thrust fists and ideology across oceans without even attempting to understand. We are a city on a hill and we keep the doors open, but it's hard sometimes to get in the gate. We are proud, too proud, and pride will have its fall.
-After all of this, though, I love my country, I love the interstate and the beautiful fucked-up scars of history that I want to spend the rest of my life with, I love flying at night and watching city lights go by, I love missing home and then coming home and missing somewhere else, I love knowing that this is who I am, I love the smell of grills in the summer and suntan lotion, I love watching the air force fly over and getting a thrill, I love complaining about politics and how much I hate the president, I love shouting "USA! USA!" at inappropriate and nonsensical times, I love that we lost the World Cup so soon, I love that once upon a time we thought putting vegetables in jello was a good idea.
-And I love my country because I can disagree with everything that I think is wrong, because I know that imperfection is not a flaw but a continued dialogue, and I love my country not good or bad, but good and bad.
