# The Importance of Pride in your Country



## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

ok I've been thinking about this alot the last couple of years. How important to you is it to have pride in your country and your government? Does your government reflect your values?

If your not proud of what your country represents, how it treats it's citizens and the world, what do you do?? I've been thinking of all the people in the past that left their homlands and moved somewhere else for a better life. And how hard that must have been. And also about the people that chose to stay. Some may have seen change in their lifetime, and some never did.

And I'm not just talking about single instances, like a war we may not support. I mean taken as a whole. All that is done and not done.


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## ameliabedelia (Sep 24, 2002)

I have to say, I am not particually proud of America, for many reasons. So, no I don't think it is important to have pride in your country.


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## Marg of Arabia (Nov 19, 2001)

I wish I could be proud of this country.....


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## pugmadmama (Dec 11, 2003)

Quote:

_Originally posted by Arduinna_
*...If your not proud of what your country represents, how it treats it's citizens and the world, what do you do??....*
I'm fighting to change my country but I will not give up on it. I am proud to be an American for all that America has done and for what it can do. I am also ashamed to be an American, for all that has been done in my name and all that might still come. Being an American is not simple, but it is who I am and I would not change that.

I keep two poems up on the bulliten board by my computer and I read it when I feel frustrated and like giving up. The poems are *Let America Be America Again* and *I, Too, Sing America* by Langston Hughes. If you've never read them, they are such beautiful and powerful poems. Here is just a small quote from *Let America Be America Again*:

_Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!_


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## Meiri (Aug 31, 2002)

Overall I'm proud of this country, but I'm not proud of the doofus we currently have as president, nor am I proud of his actions--any of them.

Fortunately he is not the country. He can (and I hope will) be replaced next year by someone competent--with whom I may not agree 100%, but who at least won't be a puppet.


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## Hilary Briss (Nov 22, 2001)

This country is dying, and, it's too late to save it in my opinion. I'd just as soon not stick around to watch its death, but I may have to. Unfortunately, America's death will have dire consequences for the whole world.


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## anothermama (Nov 11, 2003)

honestly? I've pretty much resigned myself to giving up. Our plan is to move to another country.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

I'm with HB and anothermama. I too feel this country is dying. And I don't think Bush is really the cause. he is just the current symptom. it is really important to me to have pride in my country. But I dont' think I can stick around and wait and see if that ever happens to me.


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## isleta (Nov 25, 2002)

Talk about killing the light at the end of the tunnel







:

Where is death and his sickle smiley

Today's white house announcements give me even more reason not to take pride in my country!


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## Hilary Briss (Nov 22, 2001)

Quote:

And I don't think Bush is really the cause.
Bush is an accelerant; he is just greatly facilitating the demise of this country, which might be a good thing.


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## Dragonfly (Nov 27, 2001)

Quote:

_Originally posted by Arduinna_
*I'm with HB and anothermama. I too feel this country is dying. And I don't think Bush is really the cause. he is just the current symptom. it is really important to me to have pride in my country. But I dont' think I can stick around and wait and see if that ever happens to me.*
I agree, Arduinna. I think that Bush was able to come into being because of the direction our country has been heading for quite awhile. I think the reality is that this is, by and large, a shallow, materialistic pit of apathy with respect to anything else but acquisition and affluence. Yes, there are people who care and expend energy to promote awareness and bring about change - but they are largely glossed over as fanatics; their voices are muffled by the din of reality television and they're trampled in the rush for the newest Prada bag or Hilfiger jeans.

I want to have pride in the place where I live, but I have little else but disgust. And no patience for it anymore.


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## Curandera (May 17, 2003)

Honestly, I wouldn't be so enraged at the US if pride in my country was not important to me. And I'm just getting more and more frustrated. The November elections will be very telling for us. If Bush is reelected then I will fear I will really give up all hope for the US to be a country that can deal compassionately with the human race.


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## jannan (Oct 30, 2002)

I'll try to explain this as simple as i can. When I lived in another country at lengh, i really missed it here . But what i realized is that i missed "things" : the sunday paper, trips to target, the public pool, things like that. Am i proud of this country? Not at the moment. I see it dying everyday. I am not proud of its' values. which include:

wasteful behavior, driving huge ass cars, inflicting pain and chaos on other countries. Not taking care of the elderly and children.

to me,pride is not waving an american flag in front of your house. Nor wearing an american flag t-shirt.

It is working for a local candidate, cleaning the school,union organizing, going to an anti-war march

does it make sense?


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## dado (Dec 31, 2002)

Quote:

_Originally posted by Arduinna_
*If your not proud of what your country represents, how it treats it's citizens and the world, what do you do??*
what many of our families have done over the past few generations: emigrate.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

Dado, thanks for putting the emphasis back on the purpose of this thread.

My partner and I are having the emigrate or not discussion now ourselves. It isn't an easy one. I have alot more respect than I ever did for those that have left their homeland to find a better life.


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## Lucysmama (Apr 29, 2003)

I am so sad by the state of our country. Yesterday, my county shot down two issues on the ballot: one to give funding to our libraries to keep them from closing, and one to provide funds for foster care for abused and neglected children. How the hell can anyone go into a voting booth and vote NO?

I know you guys are talking about things on a larger scale, but this is where it hits hardest for me.

People in my county are so poor. The unemployment rate is very very high here (I'm in Ohio.) due to so many manufacturing jobs lost to overseas cheap labor. People are so poor that they would vote NO to a small tax increase to help children who are being abused.

America is losing its glory and beauty. People are downtrodden and having terrible lives while so many others are getting wealthy and flaunting it on television.









I am ashamed about so many things in this country. But I do believe that it could be turned around. Unfortunately, I think things are going to get worse before a catalyst for change comes along.

<----dreaming of moving to Mexico this fall if Bush is re-elected.


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## mocha09 (Jul 6, 2003)

I have been seriously considering moving to Canada when I am done with school, provided I can find a job there. I'm disgusted with the US domestic and foreign policies, and more and more often I lately find myself not wanting to be a part of the US.


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## mamangazelle (Apr 25, 2003)

Sometimes I am proud of my country (Canada):
- when we stand up and say no to our super neighbour (for war in Iraq for example)
- when we (our politicians) make difficult choices that won't please everyone and might frustrate other countries (kioto, ...)à
- how we take care of everyone (health, money, housing,...)

Sometimes I am not
(like for the bad environmental choices recently made) and then...
I GET IN THE STREETS AND PROTEST!!! I write letters to politicians, I try to educate people around me, I stop paying bills to the "sociétés d'états" (state owned companies)

I think it is not important to be proud of everything in your country, but I think it is important to believe that it is possible to change it so that one day you can be.


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## merpk (Dec 19, 2001)

Am a little confused. What exactly does "pride in country" mean to y'all?

To me it does *not* have anything to do with a particular administration, or even whether a particular policy (domestic or foreign) at a particular time meets with my approval.

It *does* have to do with the philosophies with which it was founded/based and the rights guaranteed to citizens ... and it also has to do with (as a very general rule) how the country treats dissenting opinions.

... and just how free we are in this country is evidenced by the vociferousness of the outcry when those rights are violated/tampered with.

And while particular administrations do things that make me mad, they're not in power forever. And we do have representatives and legislators to whom we can bring our issues, and (at least in my districts) they *do* listen. And ordinary people can bring change through activism. And while there will always be individual cases in the US of rights being trampled on, those are *individual cases,* exceptions to the rule ...

... which is why I am very proud of this country.

Not to say that I'm not planning on leaving ... I am ... but pride-in-country has nothing to do with it.


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## dado (Dec 31, 2002)

Quote:

_Originally posted by merpk_
*
... and just how free we are in this country is evidenced by the vociferousness of the outcry when those rights are violated/tampered with.
*
that's what worries me. the most fundamental right we have - the ballot box - was grossly violated in the last presidential election and...

nobody cared.

there was no vociferous outcry and a few short years later it's like it never happened.

that terrifies me, because it says many americans are willing to violate *any* principle if it gets them a (perceived) measure of power.


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## sohj (Jan 14, 2003)

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason.

So is despair.

They are obverse and reverse of the same coin.


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## GoodWillHunter (Mar 14, 2003)

I am proud of what America intended to be. I am not proud of what it is right now. I especially hate election years because they never talk about the issues. They only blab about what the other "side" is doing wrong. If I remember correctly we are a union...


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## Leonor (Dec 25, 2001)

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...


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## calgal007 (Nov 20, 2001)

To paraphrase a line from Hannah and Her Sisters, "If the original authors of the Constitution were alive today and could see what was being done in their name, they would never stop throwing up."


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## Snowy Owl (Nov 16, 2003)

Being proud of your country is like being proud of your local football team (or whatever sport you choose, all the same to me).
What does 'pride' have to do with anything?
It's territorial thinking. It's primitive and outdated. I wish we could all just...grow up!

Anyway all I really know is that I'm proud to be not American.


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