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-- I wrote this back in August, reflections on my experience at Invesco Field in Denver, in this blog. On this day, at this moment, looking at the crowds on the Mall, I believe it fits here, too. --
Patriotism
I was walking about in an ocean of patriotism. This was a patriotism that, certainly, waved flags and choked-up (I certainly did) when Michael McDonald sang "America the Beautiful", but it was a patriotism that went much, much deeper than that. It was a patriotism that was not jingoistic, that was not substituting "Nation Worship" for a lack of self-estem, that was not shallow. Rather, the patriotism I saw was born from a passion for the ideals that are, or are supposed to be, embodied and exemplified by our Nation.
-- Continued --
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The patriotism I saw on full and sincere display arose from a body of people who truly believed that we're all created equal, that we should be an example of liberty and democracy to the world, that in matters of neighborhood or commerce or funding allocations or religion or world affairs or whatever micro- or macro- aspect of society one could imagine that we ought to follow the "Golden Rule" (or perhaps even the older Confucian take on it: "Don't do to others which you would not want them to do to you").
This throng of Patriots loved the United States with a passion and zeal that I challenge any other group to match. It simply could never be exceeded. And, if I may, the Patriotism I saw at Invesco Field came from a purer, more heartfelt, more intense part of the souls gathered there. I neither saw nor felt the kind of Patriotism that merely wants to "kick ass". On the other hand, I saw that kind of Patriotism that informs an individual to lay down their life, not just for their country in the abstract sense, but for the people they love, their fellow-countrymen and women, with whom they share some inexplicable bond of an Ideal (ill-defined though it may be) and based neither on race, nor ethnicity, nor creed, nor religion -- all of the typical ways that nationhood has typically defined or otherwise based itself over millennia, up to this day. This was a moving thing.
BenGoshi
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