I agree. I told Kate tonight, as she wanted me to drive she and the kids all over town looking at fireworks, that all these folks walking around watching the fireworks, to some degree, remind me of the zombies in Dawn of the Dead, the 1978 flick. In the movie a group of four human survivors fly in a helicopter escaping the zombie apocalypse and they land on the roof of a super sized mall. They break into the mall and there are zombies walking aimlessly around. Then there are zombies outside the mall desperately wanting to break in. Francine, the lone female character, asks the guys, "why are they here? What are they doing walking around? What are they looking for?" Peter says, "They're after the place. They don't know why; they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here. They're not after us. They're after the place."
As the movie progresses, they take subtle digs at consumerism and the obsession with material gain and the keeping up with the joneses mentality of Americans.
I think it was an interesting concept---the zombies just remember that the mall mattered to them. They didn't crowd over to the Church or to their homes or any place of depth, they went to the mall...an instinct buried in them from before they died---$$$$$
I told Kate tonight that these people walking around look like zombies. They seem clueless. They don't know about the Revolution, the motivations behind it, the aftermath with the Articles of Confederation or the formation of the United States, the Bill of Rights, Constitution, or the concepts of liberty. They just feel this pull, like the zombies felt a pull to the mall, these folks feel a pull toward the fire works, that there is "something" good there...something.
I used to get that feeling when I watched people at Mass as a Catholic. They mostly are uneducated, have zero clue what the Church teaches, but there is just "something" good there...they just migrate there like the zombies with some deep-seeded herd mentality.
It's important to be patriotic to some degree, but I think if we were true patriots, we'd care more about issues facing our morality, care more about cleaning up the country with our faith, we'd speak out more, and we'd be fed up with the propaganda and false messiahs like Obama. I think this country is a mess. It's a nation of takers and moochers mostly. And, like the zombies, they just migrate to the newest 'in' thing.
I wish we could get up the enthusiasm for exploding fireworks targeted at more impactful issues...
I don't think either a "mindless" (ie, indifferent to evils) patriotism OR a "Let's mourn on this day that speaks of evil" attitude to be right. We SHOULD love our country. Enough to both praise AND criticize it, but especially to be grateful for its being at all, for the good and despite the bad, because it formed us, our language, experience of climate, arrangement of neighbors and collection of wonders, as well its history, and both the prices paid for the good and a determination not to let the bad be repeated.
Patriotism is a good thing, not a bad thing, as long as it is not brainless.