Patriotism?

What is patriotism? The standard dictionary definition reads “love of one’s country.” However, it seems that patriotism is often confused with nationalism.

Nationalism is about power: its adherent wants to acquire as much power and prestige as possible for his nation, in which he submerges his individuality. While nationalism is accordingly aggressive, patriotism is defensive: it is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others (Orwell 1968, 362)

Based on Orwell's definition, the US is full of nationalists rather than patriots. I like the idea of loyalty to place. I think America the Beautiful would be a better national anthem celebrating our natural beauty rather than our bombs bursting in air.

America
A Poem for July 4.
1904 version

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

Sometimes the headlines defy a comedic response.

It's an orgy! Flowers are spreading their pollen far and wide. Perhaps plants go insane like breeding animals...thoughtlessly spending their energies in hopes that their pollen will land on a fertile stigma....caught in a sexual frenzy. To paraphrase Jimi, it's a yellow haze gonna kiss the sky. Flowers are attractive (for the most part), at least to some pollinators. Many pollinators are insects and they are disappearing, you know. In the cycle of life there is a time to create seed by blooming. Later in life, at maturity, is the time to sow seed. In recent years I've come to the conclusion that as a species, we never matured beyond the selfish infant stage (which might explain why we are such bloomin' idiots)...but evolution happens and there are pockets of growth and progress. Are the choices we have illusory, or can we direct our own development? What choice does the flower have?

If these was ever any doubt that Democrats hate leftists more than they hate conservatives, consider who they can forgive. Let's start with George W. Bush.

The U.S. is the world's spoiled bully.
We have absolutely no ability to see ourselves through someone else's eyes, and we wouldn't be bothered to do so anyway.

“The people in charge can always justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. A slaughter here, a little torture there. It becomes moral to do things that would be immoral if an ordinary individual did ’em.” - Joe Hill, The Fireman