A form of Patriotism

It's not a new form of patriotism. But it's not the patriotism that I was suckered into learning as a youth. Damn that John Wayne!!

When some Americans talk about dying for their country, they remember the Duke's ultimate sacrifice in the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima. And do they still teach youngsters the story of Nathan Hale, Mr. "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country"?

Even as a youth I know I looked at that in a slightly different manner. I've now come to label this slight askew view as "Pistolish." The label is new, but the view has been there, like, forevah...

See, I figured that Nathan's speech was slightly incomplete. Naturally I assumed that it was the reporters' faults. Since it's not on Youtube (in about 20 years, young people will be stunned when they search for video of Cleopatra clasping as asp to her bosom and can't find it...) we have to rely on what was handed down, like that game where I tell someone a fact, they repeat to a a third person, etc. and at the end my statement, "Frogs are green" has turned into "Former members of Congress have trouble peeing."

In my mind, Nathan's full statement was likely to have been, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country, while my other lives are busy doing things that amuse me. Like I'd reserve one entire life to just tracking down Paula Bunker and getting her pregnant. And sure, I'd like to waste one or two lives memorizing the dialogue to the complete Family Guy oeuvre. Who wouldn't? Anyway, go ahead and take this one life for my country so I can grab my backpack and go follow up that lead I got about Paula Bunker being spotted near that hill in Boston..."

But back to the other form of Patriotism: It's not the love of country, but rather the love of your country's money. Bill Gates is filthy rich. But all he's going to do for the rest of his life is give that money away. He's not going to impoverish himself, but the essence of his purpose is NOT get as rich as possible.

There are people out there who are trying to get as much of their country's money as they can. And very often they aren't concerned with legalities, or even civility. And LIE! Big ones! HUGE ASS lies!

And it's basically because, as a culture, we have never been able to agree on an answer to a very fundamental question: How much is enough?