I saw a quote recently that summed it up quite well. Unfortunately I cannot find the quote so I don't know to whom attribute it, but it was something like, "Neither extreme patriotism nor extreme pacificism is virtuous." Extreme patriotism can cause a nation to blindly follow a leader who leads the nation into the most horrific atrocities. The twentieth century is full of examples of such men and nations, the most well known of which will remain unnamed so as to not kill this thread. You cannot, however, say that the freedoms enjoyed by all people around the world are the same. In light of recent events, you surely cannot claim that the rights of the people in Afghanistan are the same as the those we have in the United States. I could easily name another half dozen or more countries in which you could not enjoy the same level of liberty that we have. It is for this reason that I am proud to be an American. I am not proud in an arrogant sense, but rather in a thankful one. And the freedom we enjoy comes at a price. That price is responsibility. Responsibility to both govern ourselves (as individuals) and make sure that those who govern us (our elected officials) preserve our liberties. Eric On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 08:58:51AM -0500, Jesse Erdmann wrote: > Okay, this probably isn't the place or anything, but I'm getting really > pissed about all of this nationalism. They even have a commercial with > people of various cultures saying "I am an American". > > This is all well and good, but wouldn't the most appropriate slogan (if > a slogan were ever appropriate) be "I am a human being". Maybe have > people say it in different languages. In the case of this t-shirt, > perhaps have a globe instead of the American flag. > > I suppose people deeply into animal rights would want it to be something > like, "I am a sentient being" or something like that. I guess I just > don't feel like going that far right now. :) > <snip> > > Jesse Erdmann > Engineer > Secure Computing Corp. > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >