The Most Unpatriotic Bunch

Mom, baseball, and apple pie. 

Reciting the Pledge to start the school day. 

Standing with your hand over your heart when the Star Spangled Banner plays before the ball game. 

Cheering and saluting our flag as it passes in a parade.

The above captures patriotism and what it means to be a true patriot pretty well, huh?

No?  How about the following?

Mom, football, and pumpkin pie.

Reciting the alphabet, multiplication tables, or important historical facts of the day at the start of the school day.

Kneeling in reverence...and in defiance...as the Star Spangled Banner plays before the ball game.

Waving an upside down flag and booing as the flag passes in a parade.

No?  Still doesn't capture patriotism and what it means to be a true patriot?

How about recognizing that all of the above actions are examples of what it means to be an American?

Yup.  The person who recognizes that everything listed above are examples of what it means to be an American is a true patriot. 

True patriots understand the Constitution, both in letter and spirit.  They hold their elected officials accountable to uphold and defend the Constitution.  They protect every action described above whether or not they agree with the actions.  True patriots understand, and pledge allegiance to, the Constitution - not the flag nor party ideology.  They, at minimum, hold accountable any elected official or citizen who tries to undermine the Constitution and the rights it guarantees...particularly the first ten amendments and the fourteenth amendment.  Here's a refresher course on the Constitution if you feel you need to bone up on your high school civics lessons.

Never impossible to reconstruct
a shredded document.
Photo credit

The ink wasn't dry on the paper when the Founding Fathers wrote and signed the Constitution before starting to whittle away at it.  At the end of the Civil War, when the federal government asserted its power as the central ruling force of the land that every citizen is beholden to, the whittling away grew into an all out chopping and cutting frenzy.  Today, we pay lip service to the Constitution, go through the motions of patriotic actions described by tired cliches, and pledge allegiance to a party or elected official of the party we pledged allegiance to.  Often, such blind allegiance requires us to turn a blind eye to the Constitution. 

The rights to privacy ship sailed decades ago.  Get used to being an open book for everyone to read and spit on.

Guns kill people.  Take them away before they kill more people.

My religious freedom rights says I don't have to bake that cake for those people.

My objections to abortion and desire to protect the rights of the unborn means I don't have to fill that morning after pill prescription despite what the doctor says.

We need more conservative judges!

We have to put a stop to these mainstream news sources publishing fake news.

Who needs Congress when I have this nifty pen?  (No, Trump isn't the only one guilty of this thinking and practice.)

We've already shredded the Constitution to bare threads.  I can see the day when my grandkids will ask, "What Constitution?"

Posted by A Drunk Redneck