What is Patriotism?

Patriotism means ignoring that the earliest Americans engaged in a massive genocide to "clear the land" of the Natives before settling in.  I will grant that quickly the Natives fought back, and a long history of fighting back quickly became a justification, to the newspaper reading public, ignorant of the longer history and of the broken treaties.

That said, it is hard for me to get my head around the idea of giving back the land, even as I hypocritically support removing the white farmers from Zimbabwe.  One difference I quickly have latched onto is that Zimbabwe has only been independent since 1980, so the white farmers with more than half of all the best land personally profited (in almost all cases, even if only as children) from the racist arrangement.

Pride is a sin. Americans, followed by Venezuelans, are the peoples with the most sinful pride in their countries.

That said, I believe in Home Rule for Earth.  We should welcome the ideas of the extra-terrestrials, and take advantage of their experiences, but be wary of even volunteers who wish to take a more engaged role, not to mention paying them for the privilege.