Two different countries, two different people; both calling something either Patriotic or anti-Patriotic:
- Already there are high-profile cases of rich people who’ve left — movie star Gerard Depardieu and France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault of Louis Vuitton, to name but two. And France’s highly prized soccer champions are now vowing to go on strike. Hollande calls them traitors.
- Though young people will be forced to pay more under Obamacare, she pushed them to enroll on the exchanges. “I made my kids sign up because I just said, ‘This is your patriotic duty,’” she said.
The first would be French Prime Minister Francois Hollande who seemingly believes that Patriotism is measured by total abject acceptance of the State taking most of the fruits of one’s labor. The second would be NBC’s chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman (who really wants a single payer system in the US; a complete healthcare takeover by the Government) who has no problem in conflating signing up for a Government program as Patriotic.
Both are wrong – people generally don’t make an equivalence Patriotism with letting Government filch your wallet (in both cases). Paying higher taxes is not charity nor Patriotic – it is simply obeying the law (or the lawman will pay you a visit and take it all). Signing up for military service when your country has been attacked (aka, WW II) – yeah, patriotic. Signing up for a Socialist healthcare program? Not so much.
Patriotism, for most people, is not lent to just a run-of-the-mill government program, to a government official, or to the revenue stream of on-going governmental operations. Instead, people are patriotic to their country as a whole – they are much more in love with their country, its history, and its ideals. Here in the US, we swear fealty to our Constitution and the ideals incorporated therein – not to the Congress, not to the President, and not to their policies or their taxes.
