I'm so afraid of the way we're moving in this American age of ignorance that we're in, this age wherein the majority follow the leader on the sole basis that it's the "Patriotic" thing to do. And those few of us who do disagree do so at great peril, for to be deemed unpatriotic is nothing short of treason and punishable by anything the human mind can devise and worse. Pop-Patriotism echoes more strongly than aught else in these frightful times the words of Milan Kundera: "Modern stupidity means not ignorance but the non-thought of received ideas."

What sickens me most about pop-patriotism is that it's not patriotic at all. Patriotism is fighting for and supporting the ideals of your country: these people are supporting the ideals of their President, which are not wholly in line with the beliefs this nation was founded upon; in fact, they're frighteningly disjoint.

If we attack Iraq pre-emptively, irrespective of UN support, we're setting a horribly dangerous precedent. That act would effectively posit that to consider or even to have the capability of infringing upon the global--or, microcosmically, the local--norms, is akin to actually doing so. Thought-police are only a few steps away from this.

What do we accomplish by attacking Iraq and forcing a change in regime? Cut off the head, the head grows back. Besides, what better to spur Iraq to use its supposed arsenal than war?

It's a frightening time we live in where the president and his spokesman can confidently accuse dissenters with being unpatriotic and being uncaring about our nation's security. It's a wise move on the President's behalf, though, I must admit: following such an accusation, one can either fight it or not fight it. If one fights, then one loses the real focus of the debate, and the President has won by default. If one doesn't fight it, then one is effectively stating that the accusations were founded.


We're screwed.