Patriotism! ... and health care ...?

[Kitsuner]

This about summarizes my view of the beloved homeland.

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That's actually a good example of what I'm talking about. People get so obsessed with their country and start thinking about how great it is, next thing you know they are claiming perfection and anybody who tries to change anything is a "filthy stinking communist."

And the next person that chants "U.S.A." get to see me go 1812 on your ass.

You're gonna burn our lighthouse?

[guy07]

You know it.

[guy07]

Maybe I should explain what I mean ....
*Ahem* I'm a Canadian citizen, as most of you know. Am I happy that I live in a country where my girlfriend can walk around with her top off and not be arrested? Yes. Am I happy I live in a country that is known for helping other nations? Hell yes. Am I happy that I live in a country that has emerged from the global recession before most others (well, we think we're in the clear for now ...)? Of course I am.
Would I ever claim my country is the best at something? No. Do I feel compelled to get drunk and yell out how much I love Canada while pissing on a bar ally wall? No. Well, only on Canada Day.
Canada is great, but we have lots of social, financial and government related problems that need to be dealt with before we can be considered one of the 'best' countries, despite the the UN ranking us in the top 10 for the best countries to live in for over a decade.
I'm assuming most of us feel the same way, we are happy to live where we live but by no means do we think we live in the 'best' country. Well, unless you live in Iceland. ( http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-bl ... d-wo-1122/
Am I right? Wrong? Don't be afraid to object, these topics are all about stirring shit up.
What do you love about where you live? What do you hate? Anything! Just say something so I don't bored.

[Immorrel]

Well I'm patriotic enough to serve in my countries military willingly, though I kinda grew into it. It was all for college to begin with and I kinda found out that I kinda like it here along the way. Does this blind me to the stupidity of the system I work for. No. Do I still think my country is great. Occasionally. There's entirely too much messed up in the USA for me to think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it does do a lot of things right.

So I guess I have to agree with you Guy. I'd hope a person could be patriotic without being blind to the problems in their country. The issue is that people confuse patriotism with nationalism, or just go beyond patriotism and wander into the realm of stupidity. Not much can be done about this since people are people, and in my experience people are dumb Not much else to say on the topic so I leave this to see what happens.

[CodeZTM]

I'd hope a person could be patriotic without being blind to the problems in their country. The issue is that people confuse patriotism with nationalism, or just go beyond patriotism and wander into the realm of stupidity. Not much can be done about this since people are people, and in my experience people are dumb Not much else to say on the topic so I leave this to see what happens.

This. /end discussion

[downwithpants]

i consider my community as part of my identity, i've done some voluntary community service at hospitals and ambulance services. i pay taxes. a part of my pay comes from state and federal taxes. i've peed on and thrown up on various parts of my state. and new york. i like to sing the anthem at ball games.

[Kionon]

What is best other than the least worse?

Thinking your country is the best all things considered is a very healthy attitude. That doesn't mean thinking it is perfect, or even very good.

As I tell non-Americans, especially Europeans, here: for all the ill you think America has done, think instead of what it could have done and didn't. We could have kept Germany and Japan, we could have nuked Korea and Vietnam (on the table, believe it or not), and we could have outright turned Iraq and Afghanistan into wastelands. America is great not for the amazing things it has done, but rather for the heinous things it could have done, and didn't. Remember, Spidey, with great power comes great responsibility, and so far, I think America has done a pretty good job.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I mean Hitler wasn't ALL bad... he didn't kill every jew...

[Otohiko]

I guess partially following humanistic principles that underlie the constitution gets a pass from the pragmatic point of view then.

But if you ask me, going at this from a "we could've done worse" perspective is rather disturbing to say the least. Practically anything could be justified that way. (Bashar got that one for me...)

I'm not saying I have some sort of deep-seated dislike of the American state, but to me it's all so mired in real and symbolic violence and fundamental hipocricy that about the only thing that can really be said in regards to the US is that they have managed to keep a very above-average level of security, stability, and usefulness to the rest of the world. But beyond that, sadly, all I can say is that it floats on a giant whale carcass that is (post-)modern capitalism with its banal, paper-thin symbolic order and its even more banal and obvious predatory elitism that I wouldn't touch it with a 40-foot pole.

That said, again, I would not march under any state or political flag at all at the moment. I strongly identify myself is a Russian, but I would never mean this as a full-on subscription to any national, political or even cultural identity. The only two things I subscribe to in Russia are my home town and a small and now-extinct social class which once existed in it. I can't actually live in either now, so I wander the world and spew my angst about it. What would you do in my place? The country I was born (and to a large extent raised to live in) is gone. It won't come back because all that it stood for has been thoroughly destroyed and exposed as laughable lies. Did that do me any good? Sure, it opened my eyes. It also killed the sociocultural and socioeconomic circle I was supposed to live in, and to add insult to injury, was replaced by an even worse poorly-disguised feudal order under predatory capitalism in the market and predatory Chekism in the government, which now makes it impossible to at least hang on to my geographic roots. So, my family dragged me to the land of better opportunity - better opportunity be left alone to my own pretensions that is. Where I can totally fail to understand the social economy and end up the bitter intellectual asshat I was always meant to be, but without the closed-circle social life that I was supposed to get for compensation.

Based on personal experience though, let me say that I totally dig Canadians, and I actually dig Americans even more, in a way I absolutely despise Russians as a whole. You have lots of great people. Don't get me wrong, I like Canada. I even like the US. As geographic locations and even places where life is more or less acceptable. But to say that I have any personal patriotic attachment to Canada, or any real personal will to ever move to the US would be total BS on my part. For all the multicultural rhetoric here, I've never felt completely welcome here in the West. Take it for crazy words of an old commie, but even a decade after first getting here, so much of what goes around me is totally bewildering to me in a way life under Brezhnev would be to most of you. And I don't mean that in a good way, generally.











***

...tl;dr version = patriotism sucks, capitalism sucks, communism sucks, and I'm a pretentious asshole. Blahblahblah


[edit]

Chatlog version:

me: mmm
nah
Orwell: no little girls shooting parents?
fine
me: parents are not to blame
it's the symbolic order
WE MUST OVERTHROW THE DIATONIC SYSTEM

[guy07]

Don't get me wrong, I like Canada.

No, it's understandably ... we're fucking cold! lol