First Principles

A Rant.

Yesterday, someone told me that while she’d never really been “into the whole patriotism” thing before, this election changed her mind.  Another person told me that, “maybe now we can be the country we should be in the eyes of the rest of the world.”

On Facebook, countless profiles talk about being “proud again,” “having faith in American Democracy again,” and “finally a President who will represent what this country was meant to stand for all along.”

All of them echo Michelle Obama’s famous, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

I thought long and and hard about how to express how I feel about these later-day patriots.  I needed something of the proper eloquence, and yet perfectly accurate.  Something that summed it up in a single phrase.  And then it came.

Fuck you.

You heard me.

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I am as proud today of the United States of America as I was a week ago.  And a month ago.  And a year ago.  And eight years ago when Clinton was the President.

If you cannot say that, then you don’t understand America.  Or her people.  Or her principles.

If you cannot say that, you are not proud of America.  You’re proud of yourself and your fellow travelers, while still snide and sneering towards the other 48% of the nation.  You’re proud of a man you voted for.  When (not if) the wheel turns again, your pride will cease.

If When this man does stupid, foolish, and dangerous things (because they all do), you will be proud anyway.  If When his eventual successor of another party is voted in by the same electorate you so admire today, you will cry about the ignorance and ill motives of your countrymen.  And when that successor does noble, important, and good things (because they all do), you will scream about how horrible your nation is anyway, because you didn’t vote for him.  Why should I expect anything else?  That’s what you’ve trafficked in for the past eight years.

You are pathetic.

It is a man you tie your patriotism to.  Think how terrifying that is.  When you tie your pride to a personality, you forget the central premise of this country that makes it so great – that we are a nation of laws, not of men.

American pride and patriotism is about far more than random excitement over an accident of geography.  It’s not rooting for the local sports team just because it’s local.  It is about pride in the principles of freedom and liberty and the profound prosperity they have brought these last 232 years.  It is about accepting our failures and moving to fix them, while never forgetting the greatness we have always had, the greatness we have now, and the greatness we can keep – if we don’t forget what makes us so exceptional.

I am proud to be an American precisely because my success and happiness does not depend on the beneficence of a political leader, except that they stay out of my way.  And that, too, is one of the central principles of this country – that our government exists to keep a clear path, not to chaperon us down the road.

I love this nation and everything it stand for unconditionally.  I wll fight to the death to protect her, and to ensure my children enjoy living in the greatest, most free, and most prosperous nation in the history of civilization.  I have loved it always and I’ll love it forever – no matter the political winds or the policies I will surely despise.  I love her people and her history and her free, individualistic spirit.  I love that of all nations, we are the one the downtrodden of the world risk their lives and limbs to get to.  I love that we lead the world instead of following it.  I love that we have liberated more people around the world than any other nation in the history of the planet.

My love and pride doesn’t depend on a man.  It never will.  It never can.

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To all my friends who voted for Obama who feel the same way, good for you.  For the rest?

Well, I think you heard me the first time.