Inconvenient Patriotism

America waved a lot of flags and said many fine words earlier this week about those who serve our country. A day later and a week after our elections, people from Texas, Louisiana and Florida are petitioning the White House to secede from the United States. ["White House to Review Online Secession Petitions"]

I guess that's silly and harmless enough since you and I could petition the White House to disregard those petitions to the same end.

If the presidential election had gone another way, would the petitioners have been satisfied to remain as part of the United States? Would those left-leaning citizens who threatened to move to Canada really have pulled up stakes and left?

People still say the Pledge of Allegiance and it must mean something to say "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I don't like the "under God" part because I don't think God has much to do with how we govern ourselves, that's up to us, but I say the pledge, because the important part for me is the "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" part.

It's too convenient to say you are an American citizen until things don't go your way, then want out. Or then claim to be more of a real American patriot than those you don't agree with.

I think the real tough kind of patriotism is the inconvenient kind the President talked about a week ago when he accepted the second term. The kind of patriotism that doesn't see red and blue states but a United States, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

--Mike Sato