Political Memes

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

—Mark Twain

Nah, fuck that. Patriotism is just nationalism light.

If your whole identity is based on the fact you where born at some location on this planet, you really need some self reflection and deprogramming

fuck either of them.

no loyalty to any state.

Both are stupid, especially if you live in the USA, where your government will let you be rendered homeless and dead in the street if you can't pay enough money into the capitalist machine.

What's to be proud of?

A long time ago I read some post that stuck with me.

It said that some people love their country the way a child loves their parent. They're perfect and smart and strong and can beat up your parent. They don't have any flaws, and can do no wrong. They're the best ever.

Other people love their country the way an adult loves a peer. They see the potential, the good, but also the flaws. They want what's best for both of them, even if it's uncomfortable and difficult. And ultimately, if the relationship becomes abusive, they won't just take it.

Conservatives often are the first one, but I think they are generally more immature. Fearful, tribal, angry.

Loving your country in the second way can be okay, I think. It can be a vehicle for improvement. People have wanted to improve their living spaces and communities for longer than we've had recorded history. It doesn't have to be toxic or zero-sum.

Patriotism isn't a good thing at all.

Office meme, they're the same picture. The world no longer needs people who are willing to die for, or equally kill for, their country

Patriotism is the little sibling of nationalism, and the boundaries are fluid. I will never understand why people are proud of other people's accomplishments and make them their own. Or is it because people were shat on somewhere else in the world than everyone else? Makes absolutely no sense.

Every "nationalist" believes themselves a "patriot".

All this image does is allow you to self-soothe that you're "one of the good ones".

fuck nationalism patriotism all that shit.

Simp for community, not a heirarchical country you were taught to fall in love with.

This is bullshit.

Even if the technical definition of "patriotism" is all of these good things, it doesn't matter because everyone thinks it means all of those bad things.

Both are tribalism of different levels of intensity. Our brains are predisposed for us-them mentality, some stronger than others, some can leave it behind others never will. It's also the most exploitable feeling in the history of our species, with fear may be the close contender.

Obviously a government embracing tribalism leads to horrid shit (everyone without an armband knows it) BUT ignoring it completely allows something else snake its way into that void. If you're lucky its something vegetarian like football hooliganism, if you-re not -- pan-nationalism, religious zealotry, whatever the 4chan incel shit is, people who can't or won't leave tribal mentality will find a dirt to roll in.

IMHO it is worth considering implementing a civic religion a-la french republicanism. Yes it can be a gateway to nationalism, but it also lets tribal minded people wave their flags and "guard the civic values" or whatever while the rest of us continue our lives in peace. As a bonus it improves civic participation and if you're attacked -- well there's already something for you to rally around.

And the brainwashing goes on and on..

I don't like how people continue to use pepe to signify the right, I have literally never seen someone use pepe as a right wing hate symbol or whatever the fuck and even if they do I don't give a shit, pepe did nothing wrong.

"(Pepe) he currently remains one of the most popular memes in the world"

Free Pepe! The most popular meme in the world is not a hate symbol unless you want it to be one, and I say it defintely isn't.

"In an interview with Esquire, Furie (creator of pepe) said of Pepe's usage as a hate symbol, "It sucks, but I can't control it more than anyone can control frogs on the Internet".[39] Fantagraphics Books, Furie's publisher, issued a statement condemning the "illegal and repulsive appropriations of the character".[40] The Anti-Defamation League, an American organization opposed to antisemitism, included Pepe in its hate symbol database but wrote that most instances of Pepe were not used in a hate-related context." - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog

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Existed just 4 years

Lost a war againt the USA

Prouldy waved 150 years later

Strange semi related old person story -- back in highschool, one of our teachers had the class write essays on whether nationalism was good or bad. We were then given an option to either present our papers, or do a debate exercise with a kind of round robin pro or con. So you'd partner with 1 other person, debate if it was good or bad, then groups of 4 doing the same, until it was the whole class. In my paper and in my discussions, I had used a similar approach as this comic -- basically just establishing what nationalism was vs patriotism, and drawing nazi's in as an example too. No one in those discussions contested that Nazi's were nationalists -- but they still argued in favour of it.

By the end, I was the only person who thought nationalism was overall 'bad'. The tide had turned in the groups of 8 stage. Because a hot girl had declared her support for nationalism. That's all it took for people to like/excuse nazis, even back in the early 2000s. An excuse.

Patriotism is often equally bad.

Humanism ftw.

Nationalism has become such a no go that nationalists will call themselves patriots but it's just a euphemism for the first

It's false and self serving to say all the good parts are patriotism and that's what I do but all the bad parts are nationalism and that's what they do.

All nation states are murderous vermin undeserving of respect. Holding any identity strongly - national, religious or ideological - can turn you into a destructive rube.

The only good fascist is a dead fascist

Both are shit. It seems like american culture in general is just lesser-evilism.

Patriotism is just a nice word people invented to be proud of their genocidal and colonialist country without feeling too bad about it.

Patriotism is a MacGuffin -

It's a feeling.

Now, you may think I'm attempting to invalidate it, but far from it. From the revolutionary war up to present - what is a 'Patriot' has been poorly defined, and left to subjective interpretation.

Forget the gaslighting Republicans have been under since the Tea-Party. Let's go back, say thirty years, to the Family Values Coalition. Or perhaps another thirty years back to McCarthyism and the HUAC. Or even further back to Strom Thurman trying to legitimize the KKK. (or else we could just recognize that the family lines in control of the narrative now, are the slave-owner families of the South.)

-Make no doubt - They think they are 'Patriots'.

People will become bellicose about what a true 'patriot' is - I tell you, don't give two flying-f*cks..

Did Thomas Paine, and Paul Revere know the impact of their actions on those days? Of course not.

And that is the way it will be with this new history. It tends to be defined by the victors, by the way. Might wanna get off your ass...

I feel like all those traits from patriotism are on a venn with something else like internationalism/antipatriotism, like they can indeed be found in patriotism but are not at the heart of what it is. Like, technically, german, italian or japanese patriots fought alongside nazis. You can say your country can do better regardless of whether you support its existence or not. It's not necessary to learn from history to be a patriot, etc.

Fuck both, honestly. I can take pride in who I am, learn history, improve my community and defend it, without tying all of those values to a nation state that can and will inevitably at some point use it's centralized, hierarchical, border-delineated power to oppress and dominate and be exactly the thing I don't want.

I'm sick of these lib takes clinging desperately to values they never bothered to fully examine because of some misplaced nostalgia, national mythology, material privilege, etc.

💗 🌸 🤗 Death to America 😎 ❤️ 💋

But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.