is patriotism natural for an aspie?

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Wow, you're pretty cheap.

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Last edited by leejosepho on 25 May 2011, 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay, I respect your opinion completely. It's the people who make websites calling them horrid killers and those that hope they die that upset me; before you say anything, I know these people are total radicals. Still, they're are those soldiers who DO just want to go kill some Commies, and they aren't much better.

I hate war just as much as the next guy, but half the time I don't think they even know what they're signing up for (as I think you may have suggested with the ignorance comment). No one I've known in the military has at least; they just wanted to help their country and it didn't help. I feel sorry for them too. The Vietnam War affected my grandfather so bad it helped screwed up 3 generations in my family. They are victims, but I still have respect for them. Of course I respect just about everyone, but I still look up to them. The man I consider my father (technically my uncle) is a soldier and I fear for him everyday despite my belief he should never have joined.

Destroying enemies is self-destructive behavior.

I would preserve and protect my family, but not extended family, there is a reason we call it extended family instead of just family.

Second order of consanguinity. Take care of the cousins too.

ruveyn

Oh I forgot about that quote. One of my favorite lines from that movie, which happens to be in my top 5 favorites.

Do you think the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising should have sung Kumbaya to the Nazis?

ruveyn

I don't like any overt expression of patriotic sentiment. It reminds me of Frank Burn's comment, "mister, when that flag goes up the pole each morning, I go with it".

That said, I have patriotic sentiments. I just don't put it on my sleeve.

No. Used to be though. The rationale was that the nation-state was an extended unit of cooperation to which patriotism facilitated the functioning of it, and to which people belonged simply as part of the nature of how things worked. So, to be patriotic was simply to support the success of oneself, the body that a person was a part of as a matter of birth, and it was a practical matter for that body to become as good as it could be.

I am now not patriotic, even in the abstract sense. Nations should not be glorified.

Actually the place of one's birth is part of one's heritage, and while most people are taught in schools to hate their country these days, I actually love my country in spite of its flaws.

I think of America as my house. I live in it and I thrive in it, so I will do my share to take care of it. It is simply a matter of practicality. When something serves you well you should cherish it and care for it.

I love my wife, I don't love my house, but I will take care of it.

ruveyn

heritage is emotional word used by hucksters.
most people are taught patriotism in school the pledge the flag and all that.
I was immune,I tend to be immune to platitude.
But I don't hate America. but I can not say I love a state.
the concept is too incongruous for me to get my head around.
of course you prefer the place you were born but to think that
bias is a virtue seems silly

Agreed. I will not burn a flag, but neither will I stand for one.

This guy says it pretty well:

For behind everything "national" stands the will to power of small minorities and the special interest of caste and class in the state. It is they who in reality direct the "will of the nation,"...The states as such have no purpose; only the rulers have. But that the will of the few may become the will of all - for only thus can it develop its full effectiveness - every form of intellectual and moral drill must be employed to anchor it in the religious consciousness of the masses and make it a matter of faith. Now, the true strength of a faith lies, in the fact that its priests draw sharply the lines which separate the orthodox from the adherents of any other religious communion. Without Satan's wickedness, it would go ill with God's greatness. National states are political church organisations; the so-called national consciousness is not born in man, but trained into him. It is a religious concept; one is a German, a Frenchman, an Italian, just as one is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew.

http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/rocker/nc-12.htm

Gandhi did. I always thought that was weird

Eh, I don't see why you couldn't have American flag toilet paper at this point. I mean, I've gone a very different direction that nationalism.