There is no such thing as a proper American: On "hating" America

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to news story, “Trump says four Democratic congresswomen hate the US and are free to leave,” July 15, 2019:

"Unpatriotic": What political leaders say to shield themselves and their policies from criticism. Criticisms are met with ad hominem attacks. The greatest insult is being "other": You don't belong here (as we define what can be said).

With a European-accented education, in 2013, I returned from France. Apparently targeted (if I believe what they said) as a writer with worrying sympathies, the NYPD came after me, with the help of a gaslighting, "liberal" roommate, as well as one psychiatrist who said I am not a normal American (an un-American "personality," to match the "activities" said of some in the 50s?), and another who simply said, "This is a good country, and if you don't like it, you can sue me."

I had written on my blog a story in which at one point I said, literarily, that I hate America. In fact, I neither hate nor love my country, exactly; a citizen does not regard his nation or its symbols as icons of the holy, but as doing things that can be good or bad, with our needing to be concerned. The citizen's virtue is concerned thought, speech, and action, out of care, not admiration, for the polity.

Patriotism is always a lie that identifies people, place, and language, with a form and face of government. It always says: Obey, do not criticize, for our ideas and actions fully manifest God, as in all the state represents the people.

Want it "White," or without foreigners or dissidence? We will resist, and stop you if we can.