On Patriotism And Starving The Soul Of A Republic

On an October morning in the 11th grade, I was suspended from school for being a libtard. I was very much into punk music that year and used the brown paper cover of my U.S. history textbook to let everyone know. In black Sharpie, I decorated the book cover with drawings of skulls, crosses, and skulls with mohawks, and a clever, if immature, phrase: “Bush? Dick? It sounds like we’re getting fucked.” My teacher, who had a beard and wore elbow patches on his tweed jacket, noticed this inelegance, tore it off the book, threw it in the trash, and sent me home for the day to think about my behavior.

I look back on this with no small amount of cringe, the kind that tickles your back teeth and sends your brain hunting for a delete button. It’s only mild comfort to remember the cliché: if you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re older, you have no brain. But the fact remains, as a young man, I looked at the nation and its leader, George W. Bush, and found little to be proud of.