Friday, July 12, 2013

Thoughts on Patriotism

The red-white-blue 'n' bar-be-cue (& fireworks) fumes from the 4th of July have faded into the ozone.  Now is a good time to share some thoughts regarding this deeply ingrained mental and emotional disorder called patriotism.

"Imagine there's no countries / It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too." - John Lennon

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Naturally the common people don’t want war . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.
– Hermann Goering
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That worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor . . . This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism–how passionately I hate them!
– Albert Einstein
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How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be “American” before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries? It is really too easy a disguise for our shortcomings to dress them up as a form of patriotism.
– Edith Wharton
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God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.
– Luis Buñuel
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Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
– Arthur Schopenhauer
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You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
– George Bernard Shaw
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