Signs of Trouble

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Patriotism is fundamentally a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born it." He was a real wise guy, wasn't he?  

I'm happy to be an American (sorry, Lee Greenwood) and very proud of my country's accomplishments, but I don't turn a blind eye to where we can do better. I like how Carl Schurz, an immigrant, repurposed the words of Stephen Decatur, "My country right or wrong. If right, to be kept right; if wrong to be set right." 

One person's patriotism can prove to be another's jingoism or xenophobia. Fear of the other isn't a uniquely American failing, but the virulence and violence of the sentiment especially when it becomes more than just an expression borders on a national trait in my opinion.

I watched the Tiki Torch March with its chants of 'Jews Will Not Replace Us' with some bewilderment since here in my corner of the Nutmeg State at the time I had seen no indicators of such baleful ignorance. 

A week ago, while I was out strolling around Chelsea Parade, less than two minutes from my house, I encountered this inanity.

The Meal Team Six YeeHawdists responsible for this obscenity hide among us and will never show their faces and scatter like cockroaches the second ANY light is turned on their activities.

They want to 'take back their country' but from whom, and for whom? Inchoate rage at all manner of grievances, real and/or imagined, can put feet on the street and lead easily to adding blood to it as well. But it takes more energy to be a light than a horn.

Yeah. I took your sign down, Tough Guy.

If you're looking for it, I put it where it belonged: in my trash can. I know, you'll be back. I'll be ready.

-bill kenny