Are you a patriot?

[justaprogressive]

Jason Statham: Are you a patriot?

Robert Downey Jr.: Well I don't vote Republican!

(from "Operation: Fortune&quot


Sorry, should this have been posted in the DU Lounge?

[Rorey]

1. I don't know what it is, but I can't stomach Statham

I tried to watch movies with him in them a couple of times, but there's something about him that really turns me off. But I do like Robert Downey Jr.

[FSogol]

5. It is hard to take him seriously as an action star when he spends all his time w/ a self satisfied

smirk on his face.

[cyclonefence]

2. Apparently I am

That's how all the Trump Co. fundraising emails address me (I'm on a mailing list for shizt & giggles).

Interestingly (to me anyway) about a month ago they started adding "if the Biden economy has put you in rough times, don't even think about donating" to each offer of Gold Memberships and chances to save our country from the Democrats. That's after they tell you that even a one dollar donation will make a difference.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. "PATRIOT"

What concerns me is now dividing the U.S. into "patriots" and "traitors".

And to MAGAs/"Patriots", if you're not a "patriot," you must be conquered and/or destroyed.

Non-Patriots are the "enemy". And there must be war.

[IronLionZion]

4. Exactly, RWers always use that excuse on anyone who disagrees with them

If we're against whatever fascist bigotry they are promoting, then we hate America itself.

[Martin68]

6. The word "patriot" is a very loaded term. It always has been (listen to the song "The Patriot Game")

I "love" my country, but that absolutely doesn't mean I believe my country is always right. In fact, as a liberal and a progressive, I believe if you love your country you will ceaselessly strive to make it better. And it's a job that is never finished because day by day we learn more and become more aware of how to better achieve the goals listed in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (I took out the "Creator part," because I don't think that is a necessary component)

[bottomofthehill]

9. Thank God, another Luke Kelly fan

Love his music, I heard him sing The Town I Loved So Well, the richness of his voice made me melt! He was a talent gone too soon.

[Martin68]

10. Yeah, there are a lot of version but I like his the best. Has the sound of authenticity.

[bottomofthehill]

7. Yes, I am a patriot.

One who has taken the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. My oath is not to some self serving read bastardizing the meaning, but the Constitution as amended over time and validated by the judicial system. In doing so, I have been put in harms way and have put myself in harms way because I still believe that this is the greatest democracy ever created. There are bumps in the road, some significant, but all worth fighting for a more perfect Union.
Yes, I am a Patriot

[Wonder Why]

8. I agree and I served. Patriotism is not "my country right or wrong" it is "my country and

I care to make it the very best and when it is wrong, we need to fix it".

[niyad]

11. "Patriotism is the last refuge of ***A*** scoundrel." Samuel Johnson. Every time

I hear the word "patriot", I am reminded of that quote, and Johnson's actual meaning, which referred to the Patriot Party in England, and sound like the ancestors of the pukes and magats of today.

And, while checking on it, I ran across a fascinating site called "Interesting History", and the delightful Dr. Oliver Terle. The wordsmiths, bibliophiles, and weird history buffs out there might enjoy it.

[MineralMan]

12. That word has lost its commonly understood definition.

The GOP and the right-wingers have tried to apply it only to themselves. I have been called a traitor, despite having voluntarily served in the military for four years. Those who called me that never served. I reminded them of that, very pointedly. They STFU.

[petronius]

13. One of my favorite Patrick O'Brian quotes (Aubrey/Maturin novels):

"... patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”

[Hortensis]

14. But that's a very limited, strongly CONSERVATIVE picture.

Only roughly half the nation, and world, is conservative by temperament, and only some of them have those kind of strong conservative traits. The other half leans liberal in temperament and feels very differently.

Imo, he mistakes in even trying to hedge this very narrow notion by saying "generally."

Because it's not general, rather it's exclusive to those common types whose thinking and attitudes are unfortunately limited by temperament.

In fact, at its most extreme, "loyalty" is seen as an ultimate moral virtue, and failure of absolute loyalty is seen as moral betrayal, by a subset who are capable of only very basic moral reasoning and unable to understand most moral issues. Extreme RW thinking.

Not many of that kind of patriot here! But we do have plenty of other kinds.

[Hortensis]

15. :) Nice to see clueless RW extremists aren't "living rent-free in our minds,"

so to speak, having ridden in on their definition of this word. We know what patriotism is, in all its manifestations.

Now me, liberal by nature and as a member of the human race, I've aways felt like a citizen of the world, and I don't think it'd be possible to feel that positive, inclusive, belonging way, that loyalty to the whole, without also having similar feelings for the place and people where I was raised and live now. Patriotism.