At
least, as close as I ever come to one anymore.
It
is difficult to be patriotic anymore. The word “patriot” is loaded to mean
conservative; to mean Republican; to mean “follower of Trump.” Even though I
was born an American, and my Native American roots go back ten thousand years,
I do not feel as though I am a real American, because I do not sing “Praise the
Lord!” after every Trump tweet.
I
consider the American flag, the one that we are supposed to wave and fly today,
to be an embarrassment to the world. It used to be something positive, back in
the days when Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. But today the American
flag merely proclaims Trump’s ego to the entire world. Trump proclaims “America
First” to the world. Not too surprising; all countries put themselves first.
But what Trump means is “America Only,” that is, America will make all of its
decisions as if no other countries exist except to be our markets, our sources
of raw materials and cheap labor (so long as they don’t come here). He pulled
us out of the Paris Accords and implies that NATO consists mostly of
freeloaders. He is insulting everyone he can think of and seems to think that,
if it were America vs. the rest of the world in a conflict, we would win.
Not
everything is bad in America. So far, we still have laws that restrain even The
Donald from grabbing absolute power. And, to me, the principal cause for faith
is that many, perhaps not most, Americans remain good people. This includes the
younger generation. When I think of my daughter and son-in-law, both of them
powerful forces of good that make the world better for everyone around them,
and their friends, who are also good people, and of my better students, or my
fellow scientists, I feel good about the future. The feeling doesn’t last very
long, however, since such people are not abundant. But since the future will
not be improved by my worrying about it, I prefer to focus my attention on the
good people whom I know.
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