Patriots, All

This is the beginning of my small movement that I'd like to call the Patriotic Renaissance.  For years now, patriotism has been viewed as something conservative, almost reactionary, and not as a trait that can accompany a progressive outlook.  The old patriotism is keeping things the way they are at all costs, maintaining nationalistic, isular pride at the expense of logic, reason, or decency.  The old patriotism is seen as forging ahead with myopic vision of what should be, a vision of the mission, not the origin of that mission. 

Instead of these ideas about patriotism, I would like to go back to the beginning, and look at where it all came from.  Patrick Henry, William Penn, Paul Revere and their cohort were patriots, but not in the ways described above.  They were men who thought outside of the box, who decided that the establishment was corrupt, the old fights weren't worth fighting, and forged ahead on a new, markedly progressive path.  These patriots that paved the way for the incredible nation that we call home were also patriots that urged lawmakers to be just, dynamic, and open to change.  Unfortunately, we live in a nation today that is like the old country those men retaliated against over 3 centuries ago.  Lawmakers claim that they still represent our core beliefs, that fundamental values still govern their actions, and their chambers are as dynamic and diverse as ever.  When the electorate pauses to take the blinders off, we see that our government is anything but that.  Congress has become entrenched, caught up in a game of loopholes and semantics rather than reason and efficacy.  Politics in the United States is as perverse as it is in any corner of the world.  It's just smarter, more subtle.  What other countries do in the open, America does behind closed doors, in sleepy chambers, using backhanded rules meant to disenfranchise those who don't know any better and still believe that the harder you work, the further you can go. 

Greece, Rome and Persia were able to last for hundreds of years with a high level of corruption and stagnancy.  America could too, but we could also work to live up to the higher standard America set for itself, and hold lawmakers to their word. When old men on marble floors jokingly concede that they don't know how to use the internet and never will, their apathy should be met with outrage.  If congress would rather go on recess than repair a crumbling economy and looming debt crisis, the masses should speak.  And when bipartisan groups are given incredible power and tasked to resolve huge governmental issues but cannot agree on any sound legislation, the underlying patriotism that created this nation and got us to where we are should storm halls and empty the coffers. 

We deserve better.  America deserves better.  The world deserves better.