In my daily travels around the bay, I listen to various opinions about our country and the discussions of what or who we’re suppose to be, and I ask many: can we have patriotism without war? I know that seems like an odd question, but in reality, I truly wonder – especially for those who have lived their lives from somewhere around WWII through Korea, into the Cold War, past Vietnam and into the Middle East conflicts. There’s an attitude questioning the country’s diversity throughout this discourse that becomes evident as well. Then I ask, if you don’t like this diverse world we live in, why continue backing a party or elect officials that allow corporations to diversify your world for profit by extending their reach to every country, metropolis, city, burg, and village, and then begin to cry foul and then paradoxically like it when people want to build walls. First off, patriotism exists in the love of what we stand for in the UNITED States of America and that is a diversified nation of individuals working for a common cause and security for each person. That cause, at times, may have to be protected from some nut-job individual or group out there, but don’t throw your corporate borders open, want everyone to be like you e.g. the same religion, the same clothes, the same manners, the same culture, etc. and then when you’ve finished exploiting them for their resources think you can protect yourself by crushing them militarily to make you feel like a patriot. It’s the old adage, you can’t have it both ways. People would like their stock portfolios to rise. They would like to have the finer things in life. But they want both on their terms and their terms only. Well guess what? Pandora’s box has been opened and the world is a smaller place. Economies are intertwined, banks are intertwined, and alliances keep most at bay from blowing each other to kingdom come. So I ask, does patriotism equate to being at war with others? I suspect if people looked around there are multitudes of things they could do in their own backyards that would make their community stronger without having to cause destruction on a weaker population just to puff out our chests and toast a victory. Take heed folks. Instead of setting ourselves up for the big fall – and every great civilization takes a tumble – why not work to create a great civilization of many and embrace diversity for what it is: life-giving. That seems very patriotic to me.