I hate when someone tries to lecture me about patriotism. You hear a lot in right wing politics about how someone is "un-American" if they don't believe in this or if they don't support that. For instance, I respect the sacrifices that soldiers make, but I don't kiss their asses for anything and everything. I appreciate their service, but the fact that they served doesn't make them a better class of person than someone else and it really pisses me off when you have some right wing asshole, especially those who go on about how great the military is, how we should always respect it, etc. yet didn't volunteer to sign up themselves.

Patriotism is hell of a lot more than just standing up when the National Anthem is played, or saying the Pledge of Allegiance. To me, being a patriot means that you not only ask questions, you ask questions when it's not a convenient time. What's happening with the debate regarding gun laws is a great example of people who're tired of seeing this issue kicked down the road to die down until the next mass shooting happens and then we start the whole thing over again. They believe that there's something wrong with some of the laws in this country and that adjustments and outright changes need to be made. They're questioning the way the system is set up because there are too many ways in which they believe that the system has failed. Pointing that out doesn't make then un-American in the least in my eyes. Like every other country on Earth, the United States has a checkered past. Pretending that the United States is this land of milk and honey where there are no injustices, where every dream can come true and where opportunity is readily available to all isn't patriotism, it's propaganda.

For me, being another part of being a patriot means that you want to see the promise and potential that a society is founded on applied to and open to all who want to share in it regardless of skin color, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation or disabilities. What we have too much of, in my opinion, are people who want to exclude other people based on some personal dislike they have towards any of those traits. Dislike it all you want, that's your right, but to deny someone else the same rights and privileges that you have because they're different? Now that's un-American.