I rarely find fault with America. But I also don’t believe that always pretending we are incapable of making terrible mistakes during times of crisis is realistic. It does appear from your response to my point that you personally are unable to deal with disagreements since everything you wrote back was nothing more than a personal attack. Apparently, I am a blame America firster, I don’t learn because I choose not to, and I use borrowed opinions. Those are laughable, but I am offended by the suggestion I am not a true patriot. I don’t know exactly how you define a patriot, but I think having fought in two wars, and still carrying the physical effects from one of those wars allows me some small claim to patriotism, even though I believe fighting for your country is a privilege and not a sacrifice.
I guess you think putting innocent people in camps, taking everything they own, and then “allowing” their sons to fight and die for us is patriotic. I disagree.
Fair question. First of all, if I thank you for your service you’ll probably think I’m being insincere, but I’m not. I do thank you for your sacrifices. I too am a veteran and my son is a veteran.
As to your question as to what I consider a patriot, here’s the simple answer. A patriot does not look for ways to undermine the moral integrity of their country during a time of its utmost peril, during a time of war. No matter how you chose to rationalize this, to do this is undeniably aiding and abetting our enemies, and to me, that is simply unconscionable. And a patriot does not do this. Further, a patriot does not merely repeat popular opinions about the supposed immoral acts of their country, but does his own careful research to see how much validity these attacks might actually have, to see what the circumstance really were at the time, and — most importantly — what the alternatives would have been. In short, a patriot thinks long and hard before adding his voice to that chorus of American-bashing leftists.
A patriot’s main concern is in defending America against such disingenuous assaults on her character, not advancing them. And don’t use the excuse of your right to free speech, a right that you fought for. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t wash with me anymore. Your right to free speech doesn’t oblige you to use it to the detriment of you own country. You consider that you are speaking for the truth, and in that way you are helping America. But you haven’t even bothered to do you homework before speaking out. I’m sorry, but I have no respect for this kind of intellectual laziness. You have, as I stated earlier, just totally ignored all of the carefully researched and substantiated facts of the arguments in that article and just continued defending your personal opinion.
You are, as I said earlier, exactly who this article was written for.