I’m writing in response to the April 30th letter titled “Nothing to be Patriotic for.” I tend to be a very open person, willing to take the ideas of others into consideration. This is truly the only way to develop legitimate ideas of your own. I was, however, taken aback by this recent article with it’s antipatriotic, socialistic demeanor. The author of this article was too wrapped up in socialistic pessimism to see beyond himself. He took the ideas of patriotism and twisted them to fit his own distrustful ideals; saying that you cannot be patriotic if you don’t like your government and the decisions it makes. Personally, I tend to lean liberal and was opposed the war, but I thought it was handled well by the Bush administration. It’s true that I would like to see this country get out of the “Bush’s,” yet I don’t base my patriotic sentiment on the will of one man.

Patriotism goes beyond the administration and lies with the people. The freedoms we live with; the people who gave their lives for those freedoms, and the family values of the people in this country are where I draw my patriotism from. The author of the article cites a few bad decisions made by past administrations, including the late decision to enter WWII while many were being killed by horrific regimes. This was a bad decision, I’ll give him that, but does that make the thousands of Americans that gave their lives in the defeat of Hitler any less honorable? My grandfather has a buttocks full of lead due to patriotism and willingness to fight for this country during that war. I’m sorry you were upset at the name dropping of the Holocaust in a past article in defense of war. That, however, does not mean that the reasons of the soldiers to fight in that war are anything less then love for their country. You say the U.S. should have entered that war earlier in defense of the helpless people being killed in Germany, yet you’re opposed to attempting to liberate the Iraqi people?

You suggest reading outside the U.S. press to gain the real story, and believe me I’ve done plenty of that. I would suggest checking out www.arabnews.com, an Arab-run news Web site that has had great war coverage; and, probably to your surprise, has many accounts of Iraqi’s in favor of the toppling of the Hussein Regime. You also cite U.N. sanctions in Iraq as part of your unpatriotic views of the United States. Being the Sherlock Holmes that I’m not, I was able to realize that there is no argument there as the U.S. is only one of 191 countries in the U.N. right now, making it a lesser factor in many U.N. votes. You say that one million Iraqis are dead due to these sanctions and I challenge those numbers; you won’t find inflated number propaganda like that anywhere except www.internationalsocialist.org, an extreme leftist site devoted to socialist propaganda. My friend, you are correct in saying that you must read outside the U.S. media to gain the true story, but you should expand your own reading past the extreme socialist sites if you’re interested in the truth.

You leave your ideas open to the challenge of Republicans, yet, my friend, I’m an Independent that leans Liberal, and your ideas are still nothing but wholly socialist arguments. You’re too wrapped up in pessimism to see the light of this country past your own cloudy views. This is a great country, my friend, and I challenge you to look past bad administrative decisions and see this country for what it is; a country of the people, a great country, a country with many freedoms and if all else fails, it’s a country that doesn’t regulate the people that depart. So feel free.

– Michael Glennon is a freshman communications major.