I Once Wrote Something About Veteran's Day

From Winds of Change:

I love this country, my country, my people. And those who attack her...from guerilla cells, boardrooms, or their comfy chairs in expensive restaurants... better watch out.

I don't get a clear sense that my fellow liberals feel the same way. And if so, why should ‘the folks’ follow them? Why are we worthy of the support of a nation that we don't support? So let me suggest an axiom for the New Model Democrats:

America is a great goddamn country, and we're going to both defend it from those who attack it and fight to make it better.

And for everyone who is going to comment and remind me that ‘all liberals already do that’…no they don't. Not when the chancellor has to intervene at U.C. Berkeley to get ‘permission’ for American flags to be flown and red-white-and-blue ribbons to be worn. Not when the strongest voices in liberalism give only lip service to responding to an attack on our own soil.

Loving this country isn't the same thing as jingoism; it isn't the same thing as imperialism; it isn't the same thing as blind support of the worst traits of our government or our people.

It starts with recognizing the best traits, and there are a hell of a lot of them. They were worth defending in my father's time, and they are worth defending today.

So thanks, veterans. Thanks soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen. Thanks for doing your jobs and I hope you all come home hale and whole, every one of you.

Then, from Ace of Spades:

Half of the problem is that lefties are intellectually insecure and have been taught that patriotism is for stupid people. Determined to prove themselves non-stupid through an easy course (not everyone can split atoms, you know), they buy into the various signifiers of a high intellect promoted by their lefty heroes.

If it became Liberally Correct to wave flags and wear flag pins tomorrow -- if suddenly that denoted education, erudition, and progressive virtue -- you'd have seas of red, white, and blue in San Francisco.

Anti-patriots denigrate patriotism as empty-headed jingoism. But most of their antipatriotism is itself empty-headed, a trivial tribal signifier, a vapid fashion accessory informing the world that they are members of the smart set of Sneeches whose bellies defintely do not have stars upon thars.