By: Paige Rohe

An Irishman I know once told me that he felt Americans are lucky because our society encourages patriotism. Donal informed me that although  Europeans love their respective homelands, fervent displays of nationalism are considered a tad taboo: “They evoke bad memories of the Nazism and fascism they experienced during  World War II.”

So, while we Americans are free to fly our flags and sing Bruce Springsteen's  “I’m Proud to be an American,” French, Dutch, and especially Germans, refrain from getting too excited while paying  homage to the “Father” or “Motherland”-that is, unless of course, the World Cup is on.

Everyone has a right to think their national heritage is better than everyone else's. International sporting events wouldn’t be any fun. if we couldn’t sit in bars drinking beer and making jokes about Country X.

In general, Americans are no worse than any other nationality of sport fan during the Olympics than Brits or Italians. However, our patriotism doesn’t calm down once we return, to our Homeland, the most powerful political and economic force on earth.

The British thought they were something special a long time ago and have in subsequent generations since their great empire ended, been ridiculed for their self-righteousness and pretentiousness. The age of British world domination ended round about the same time American supremacy began. With it, we inherited the previously notoriously British ego-centrism that was as much Britain’s strength as its downfall.  

Will we be smart enough to heed the lesson of Achilles, or stumble, a nation that failed to acknowledge the weakness of its pride?

While wandering around my neighborhood I have found a troubling  proportion of my fellow Georgians who, in their efforts to support their nation, appear to be confused between love of country with zealous nationalism.  Cars are plastered with American flags. New business are being named “American Dry Cleaners,” or “American taxidermy.”

The Bush Administration doesn’t seem to particularly care that no distinction is being made between nationalism and love of country either. Or, maybe they don’t know themselves. Even the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, the world’s authority on our mother-tongue has, in its most recent edition of the illustrated lexicon, added the phrase “Bushism”  to describe the President’s  notorious difficulty with the English language.

However, in all our efforts to maintain our might and promote all that is right, we must be careful not to act in err and create more enemies for ourselves.

Thinking you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread does not mean your love for yourself is harmless nor appropriate. Likewise and on a more political abstraction, Nationalism is not “love of country.”

Rather, it is love so extreme it borders on obsession. It is love that is as damaging as it is intense. It is a love that forgets the harm it causes- even calls that harm necessary and advantageous.

Thus as I see hundreds of flag bumper stickers or hear people constantly reminding others that they are “proud to be an American,” I question whether they are really helping or potentially hurting themselves.

A flag is a symbol and should never be worshipped above what it represents. Those who fly flags at their homes may love their country, but do they also vote or donate their time to volunteer at their local homeless shelter?

You don’t have to be a Mother Theresa and sell all your possessions to devote your life to those dying of AIDS in Los Angeles. You don’t have to become an expert on the Trail of Tears or the slavery of Africans.

You do have to be aware of the prosperity you enjoy and at who’s expense it did come. You do have to educate yourself about the problems of our present and make sure your local representatives in government know how you feel about them

Another wise Irishman, William Hazlitt has said:  “There are no tones to awaken Liberty, to console Humanity.”

Paige Rohe is an International Studies student at Emory University and a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com. She can be reached at feedback@purepolitics.com.

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