I wrote an opinion piece for my school newspaper after yesterday's massive "Support the Troops" rally on campus. Here she goes.......
Leading politicians and media outlets are destroying the word patriot. I see people draping themselves in a sea of Stars and Stripes to justify their selfish actions. Patriotism is supporting war in Iraq, but not questioning our government's motives for such a war. It was patriotic to say "I support the troops", while ignoring the government cutting $18 billion out of veteran benefit programs. Somehow patriotism is wealthy individuals and corporations demanding to pay $400 billion less in taxes to fund our common needs. A patriot supports the Patriot Act, a governmental intrusion of our most precious civil freedoms. The hypocrisy of our current government is stunning.
The carnage and destruction in Iraq was our government "protecting our freedom". But no terrorist or impoverished nation can threaten our freedom. Only the United States Government can do that. Freedom is not granted to us by government; it is our natural state as humans. The only thing that limits freedoms are society's agreed upon laws and powers granted to law enforcers. We need to remember that our role as patriots in the world's greatest democracy is to guard our freedoms from unnecessary laws or enforcement. Not to fight phantom boogey men from far away lands that we are told hate us because we are free. Freedom is expressed by individual citizens standing up together against those monetarily and societal elite who would want to use governmental power to promote their own interests. I fear for this democracy when I see the majority of college students, our society's most informed members, act ignorantly of this.