Be A Patriot: 4th of July

At some point in my life I would have laughed in your face if you wouldv’e told me you were “patriotic.” I put that in quotations because I genuinely don’t know what it means to be “patriotic” anymore. I grew up hating the army and everything they stood for. I felt they bred intense fear and anger into their soldiers; I was just going off of what I had seen in my father. The only soldiers I ever knew were him and his brother. I was taught to be proud to come from a Mexican-immigrant family. When we watched sports we support teams/athletes from the homeland, I actually remember being angry at team USA for doing good. So if you ever told me it was a good thing to be “patriotic” I would’ve looked you up and down and thought you were some idiot who barely crawled out of your mother’s ass.

A Google search defines “patriotic” as:

“1. Feeling, expressing, or inspired by love for one's country.

2. Inspired by patriotism; actuated by love of one's country; zealously and unselfishly devoted to the service of one's country"

Well “unselfishly devoted” sounds a shit-lot like, “blindly-loyal” to me. Does being a patriot mean never question your leaders? Or does being a patriot mean always looking toward the government-sponsored news channels for an answer and being “unselfishly devoted” to that government? Does being a patriot mean always listening to what your elders say and stay in line until it is your turn to speak? (which will never come until you’ve forgotten what you were arguing for in the first place.) Does it mean giving your own life in the line of duty for your country? Do you trust the people making these decisions which affect hundreds of thousands of lives? this is what’s going on in my head as I’m watching my cities skyline filled with fireworks and a burning hillside on the 4th of July? Is it ever right to give your life for something you don’t love? Are you fighting for what you love??

I grew up in the generation where publicly denouncing Amerikkka became a way to increase your social score. I felt that since I grew up hating the army anyway, this was a perfect fit for me (all I really wanted to do was have a reason to be mad at my father, it would confirm my view of the world. It was the exact shape I needed to finish my outlook on things, I was unaware that I had shaped the entire puzzle and the last jigsaw piece itself to my own wanting.) I had plenty of close relatives, who I grew up with, shout anger towards power-frenzied policemen, corrupted politicians, a crooked patriarchy. I agree with them. Then I dug into all the war crimes committed by our country, listened to Noam Chomsky behead each and every one of our presidents; calling them all out as criminals if appied the same legal restrictions as any other American citizen.

I no longer trusted. I no longer cared for. I hated America.

Then my antisocial, self-doubtful nature had me start to hate myself for hating America. Why does Everyone hate their own country? Why does Everyone hate the president? Do I even really know the president to hate them? It takes a lot for me to hate someone.

How does all that negative thought serve me? What kind of contribution will I make to my country with that mindset? How can I criticize an entire group of people without ever having met one outside my family?

Today I am proud to be an American as cheesy as it feels to type it out right here. I know there are both heroes and reptiles in the troops and I know that sometimes, they overlap each other. I think about them as I drink an entire beer on the 4th.

I say, watch the hillside burn. It’s quite beautiful actually. Watch the fireworks too, give thanks to the boys overseas and do your own work as an American. Educate yourself on our great and terrifying past and see for yourself, how everything was planned out 100 years before you were born. You were just meant to serve as cattle, growing fatter and dumber, being milked just sporadic enough so you don’t cry but often enough to keep you dry. I always give the, “they shove the sugar in your face so you don’t notice the finger being slipped up your ass, man” speech. And then the internet was born and the descent of America began. The greatest country in the world at this time and the one who’s making is slow, maraudic walk towards the gallows now..

We have two choices friends. Watch the fire until it engulfs you. Or look deep deep inside you, find the one speck of patriotism you have left and try to steer your countrymen into a more positive outlook. The internet has caused a fire. Burning down all the curtains hiding those who make our fates. Now we can harness that fire to fuel us or we can become overtaken by it and be enthralled with the flames.