Disrespect or Patriotism?

The Colin Kaepernick stunt continues to produce minor ripples in the convosphere.

When I went to church with V and CJ, I stood when everyone else stood, I sat quietly, I didn't read a book or listen to music on headphones. I didn't share their beliefs, but I was respectful. THAT is the difference. You don't have to share the beliefs, but respect someone's house when you are in it - or don't GO THERE.

No one says America is perfect, but when a black can earn 19 million dollars, or be President, or Attorney General or Governor or CEO or any other damn thing we have in this country....well, it doesn't give them a pass to be disrespectful of the society that gave them that opportunity.

The breakdown of American Society is the coarsening of the way people think of it. When segments believe there is nothing redeemable about our society, that it is racist, or misogynist, or ablist or whatever claim people to make about our society to argue for their withholding their support - except for their daily participation and benefit of it - then outside influences have the opportunity to widen the cracks and further damage what they can not damage themselves.

It is said that strong cultures are not destroyed from without, but from within. And that is what is happening. We are fracturing ourselves by isolating smaller and smaller groups, segregation writ large and self imposed, and then withholding our support from the larger society when it faces external and existential threats. More and more people are embracing those ideas and ideals that are destructive, socialism being one of the largest. But also the demand that others not assimilate into our culture but retain their ancestral own within our borders. The argument that our culture is no better than any other is demonstrably false.

It is not disrespect of another culture to ask the people that come here to assimilate and participate in our culture - after all, if theirs had been superior, why would they have left it? The benefits of our culture are a function of its foundations which was created by the assimilation and participation of everyone that has been born or chose to move here.

I could attend that church, participate in it's community, share the foundations but only by being respectful of it. Holding yourself apart, being disrespectful of the culture that you live in and benefit from is not making things better, it is making it much worse than you think it is. The alternatives are out there to see, and it should scare the hell out of you.