PATRIOTISM

"It is extremely important that the citizenry be kept ignorant so that the only thing they will have to live for is to die for their country." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

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"Let boys who will be boys all kill each other if that's what they like; all scientists and scholars should be internationalized as living cultural assets and protected from these things boys who will be boys grown up do." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

"The government can't let people do what they want, because then they might not do what their government wants them to do." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

"Young males whose highest attained level of education is watching football games on the television often like being patriotic. Few people are so stupid that they can't wave their country's flag." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

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It is very important to support one's country!

Every man (woman, other) should strive to do his best in life, for his country, for his loved ones and for himself!

Please, ladies, do not mis-use your sexuality to seduce the men in your life into dying for their country's political agenda du jour! Don't be latter-day Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis! Encourage them to get as much education as possible, to make their minds more valuable to you, to themselves and to their country than their raw bodies! During wartime: Encourage them to serve their country by volunteering for desk jobs as staff officers in the military, or to be essential workers in homeland industries and educational institutions!

Everyone should support their country by living for it, criticizing it, creating great works of art for it → not by just dying to become a corpse for it.

Unfortunately we are all too late to be the very highest and most estemed of patriots: Founding Fathers, such as Benjamin Franklin, who, as ambassador to France, enjoyed the stimulating Enlightenment French intellectual life, and the favors of the ladies in elegant Parisian salons, in his tireless pursuit of his young nation's political interests. We need to make do with enjoying the good things in life political office in our country can offer today.

Bertolt Brecht wrote:

Student "Happy the land that breeds a hero".
Galileo: "No. Unhappy the land that needs a hero.

There are bad times when one or more governments screw up things so badly that their citizens (and/or the citizens of third-party countries) get cornered into sacrificing themselves not for their country but against a mess their country has got involved in. (See: here.) In that sad case, I would like to see the war heroes who survive, when they at last come back home, spit in the faces of the leaders on all sides, and tell them: "Damn you all for having made us do this." Example: The "Allied" as well as the "Axis" leaders after World War II, which war would never have happened had the nation state leaders in 1914 not wanted to have a potlatch.^[1] And back it goes from there to the "conquistadores", the Crusades, etcetera and so forth, none of which benefitted the productive members of society: peasants, artisans and scholars. God save us all from living in interesting times.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria vivere. Also: Dulce et decorum set pro patria cogitare, and and: Dulce et decorum est pro patria artem magnam creare. But not to die to make Russia's western border safe for NATO, especially when the Americans did want Russian missiles in Cuba some years ago.

(As the tltle of a Werner Herzog film has it: "Every man for himself and God against all.")

USA 2022

Whether from imperialist ambition or bleeding heart sentimentality💗 or a toxic mixture of these two toxins, America in early 2022 is getting all patriotic over Ukraine. On the imperialist ambition side, Americans are being told Vladimir Putin's dangerous aggression in Ukraine must be stopped before his tank divisions destroy Disneyland in Orlando Florida and all Americans get sent to slavery in Siberia; a new domino theory for Eastern Europe. On the bleeding heart sentimentality💗 side Mr. Putin is depriving the innocent Ukrainian people of their freedom and human rights. By whichever path or both, this propaganda offensive obviously leads to one thing: the recruiting station, where young American males will sign up to die for their country and/or for the freedom fighters on Russia's Western border.

Nobody is saying that Mr. Putin wants NATO out of Ukraine just like John F. Kennedy wanted the Soviet Union out of Cuba, and therefore we have no business trying to do to him what we did not want the Soviet Union to do to us. Where patriotism starts, reason has been disavowed: My country right or wrong, and proud of it! Proud to be irrational! Proud to be dead, or, more often, non-combatants get all emotional to dispatch anybody but themselves and their nearest and dearest to die for what they selflessly selfishly want. As Dr. Joseph Goebbels said: Tell a lie often enough and people believe it. Even more compelling: Only tell the lie, so that the people won't have anything else to compare it with. CNN is being a big propaganda organ. President Biden is escalating our misadventure in Eastern Europe because Russian aggression must be stopped.

Do Messrs. Biden and Blinken believe their own anti-Russian propaganda? In that case, we are driving down I-666, the superhighway to hell which is paved with good intentions. Please let me out of the car before you crash!

The North Amerian Colonial Rebellion

Had I been a young male in the English North American Atlantic colonies in 1776, I would not have cared about all the todo, but I know that the frenzy of patriotism is more contagious than measles, so I would have had to take care to keep my head when those around me were losing theirs. I would not have wanted to get hurt, fighting either for the rebels or for The Crown. I don't like getting my hands dirty, much less bloody. Give me liberty? Was King George taking away my freedom to read Shakespeare? But I heartily agree that military conscription is involuntary servitude. I would just have wanted to live my life in peace whatever others wanted to do with themselves.

If The Crown taxed tea and consequently I could no longer afford it, I would stop drinking tea. No big deal. I would have lamented that the young ladies wanted to go to bed with young lads who were so drunk with testosterone that they lusted to kill other young males and be killed by them. It's so puerile, but alas the girls are bird-brains too (left).

It's "stupid" to give up living for a me[a]taphysical hypothesis. On the other hand, had either side offered me an intellectually challenging desk job where I could grow my mind doing work that advanced their partisan cause, I'd have been eager to get paid for it, unless I disposed over independent wealth. But, as one of my IBM managers told me when I asked for a job assignment that would be both productive for the company and also further my own development:

"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride."