Shallow Patriotism

[kevin_standlee]

While Lisa and I made an effort to stock up on things at Bi-Mart in Klamath Falls yesterday (cheaper prices and no sales tax), I ran across yet another item that to me shows the shallowness of the "patriotism" some of my fellow American have.


It's not the silly hat itself (I've worn lots of silly hats). It's that the hat (and indeed, most of the American flag-themed stuff on offer for the upcoming 4th of July celebrations) is made in China. As if the best way to celebrate that your country is #1 is to do yet another thing to undermine the economy of that country.

Caring about your country is more than just shouting "USA! USA! USA!"

Comments

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

That's not even patriotism; it's wanting to be the center of attention

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally I re-read the essay collection The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell recently. She didn't write anything about shoddy Chinese American flag stuff but she certainly could have.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Really? YOu know the 1980s are over and globalization won, right? Buying products made in other countries is no longer undermining the U.S. economy any more than we are undermining the Chinese economy by having factories over there.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

If the Chinese would let their currency float on the global market and if the massive amount of USD flowing into their country was being spent on anything other than driving the prices of real estate in certain parts of the USA so high that nobody who works there can live in those areas anymore, and if the USA hadn't effectively thrown its garbage over the fence into China by offshoring industries due to environmental regulations, I might be more inclined to believe that. As it is, China is the worst offender; the producer of shoddy products, and the reason it's often impossible to find any good-quality products in certain categories because they've driven everyone else out of business.