Let's play a thought experiment. Imagine that you were born in the same place and time, to the same parents, in the same home, and that everything in your life went pretty much the same as it has except you never saw a flag, you never heard nor were required to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and you never saw or heard anything relating to or about patriotism. You grow up. You grow accustomed and attached to that community of your birth.

In our thought experiment, as much as you would have learned to love your community of birth, do you think that your love of place would have grown to encompass all of the United States? If you answered "yes", would that love of place mysteriously end at the borders of the United States and not extend, for sake of argument, to Canada as well? If that love of place would stop at the borders of the United States, why would it stop there, at some arbitrary line? After all, in our thought experiment, you have not been instructed in such things.

Imagine, under this scenario, that you learned that someone in a far off city named Washington D.C. had at his disposal a large military force and, for no legitimate reason, attacked a foreign land with the aim of stealing its oil. Would you feel instant solidarity and allegiance to that warlord in Washington D.C. or would you worry that perhaps one day he would attack your community too, in hopes of stealing whatever it is your community has? Would you instantly hate these victims of the Washington D.C. warlord?

The answer to all of these questions, of course, is "no!" You would see the man in Washington D.C. for what he is: a murderous thief. You would worry about what he might do to your community one day. You might even feel the desire to come to the defense of those victims in a far off land.

These positions and reactions are natural. We then must ask ourselves, if it is natural to not trust a corrupt aggressor and it is natural to align oneself with the victim of an unproved and unjust aggression, then what is unnatural about the way we live that brings us to support the tyrant and murderer? By the construction of our thought experiment, the answer should be clear: patriotism is what turns honest and well intentioned people into accomplices to crimes against humanity.

Think now about natural "patriotism", patriotism in general, and patriotism in its uniquely American form. There is no doubt that there is a love of place that is natural to humanity. The Irish have continued to love their land, despite centuries of foreign occupation and a nearly ceaseless emigration away from their homeland. They love it not because they believe themselves superior to others, but just because they do. The Basques have occupied the same lands for millennia yet have seldom had what could be called a national state. They love the place they were born so strongly that their last names refer to the houses their families have lived in. This love has not provoked them to conquer foreign lands or impose the Basque language on non-Basques. This is a natural love of place. There is nothing wrong with it. It is the kind of love I have for New England, though no government names itself the Government of New England and New England has no nation state.

Many nation states in the world have their own sense of patriotism. In 1995, I studied Spanish in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico. I stayed in a local resident's home while at school in Mexico and the owners of the house had a son. Decorating his room was a sign that read "el deporte es patria" or "Sport is Patriotism". Mexico doesn't have much of a history of going to war with its neighbors, especially since the revolution. Like most Latin American countries, patriotism is expressed most strongly on the soccer field. Outside the soccer field, Latin Americans get along with their brothers and sisters in other countries (for the most part).

The patriotism of Americans (by which I mean citizens of the United States), however, is a patriotism of a completely different kind. It is a patriotism only equaled by that of Nazi Germany. Indeed, it has many parallels with Nazi Germany's brand of patriotism.

Americans have a strong belief in their superiority to all other people on Earth. Unlike the Nazis, the American belief in superiority is not racially based. It is ideologically based. The American "Master Race" is the kind of master race that Nietzsche spoke of: one of ideas and beliefs. American children are taught all kinds of absurdities about their superiority. They are taught that Americans invented nearly every technological advancement of the last century and a half. American children falsely believe that Americans were the first to fly, the first to invent the television, the first to invent the car, the first to invent the radio, and the first to invent the computer. Americans believe that their space program was an American program when, like the Soviets, it was largely an extension of the V2 program initiated by Hitler's Germany. Even on American soil, the man who got us to the moon was a German scientist, not an American (the very same man responsible for Hitler's V2 program). The intellectual force that got the United States to the Moon was Hitler's V2 program and the motivation was not the advancement of science, it was propaganda.

Like the Nazis, American children are required to salute the flag. When they do, they recite a pledge. In a semi-religious performance, they recite their pledges in much the same way Catholic children recite the Hail Mary and when they do they look up to a flag which stands in the same relation to the children as the cross does to the church goer. If you don't believe me, consider this. Pledges are oaths and oaths are not intended to be repeated ritually. A president does not take an oath of office each and every day. An engineer does not sign, over and over again, the same non-disclosure agreement for the same employer each day before starting work. Once is enough, for an oath. What purpose does repeating an oath over and over again serve unless that purpose is to brainwash? When we require our children to say the pledge each week or each day, are we not brainwashing them?

Travel to another country and take note of the frequency at which you see their national flag displayed. Usually, you will see it only over governmental buildings. It does not play a prominent role in their schools. Their children do not salute the flag each and every day. You could pass an entire day in most foreign countries without ever seeing their national flag. Few regimes push their flag the way ours does. In Nazi Germany, like in the United States, the flag was everywhere. Not even the United Kingdom displays its flag with a frequency approaching ours.

This extremely fanatical (and intentionally created) patriotism is used by politicians and officials. Recently, John McCain announced that all Americans support Georgia in its conflict with Russia. Was McCain's statement true? I certainly did not support Georgia in that conflict. I'm sure a large number of other Americans saw that conflict for what it was, a provocation by Georgia. Yet there stood John McCain, speaking for me. In essence, what John McCain was saying is that if you do not support Georgia, you are not a real American. This form of fanatical patriotism allows politicians to define who we should side with, as individuals, in each and every conflict. It goes even deeper.

When Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, he weekly produced a radio address. At that time, I was an ardent atheist. I remember one evening, driving through a dark forested road in Massachusetts, listing to Ronald Reagan's radio address, when Reagan stated: "All Americans believe in God, if not the same God, some God."

I felt that patriotic knife deeply. Ronald Reagan was saying that I am not an American because I did not believe in God.

We are told by our politicians and our media that all Americans support Israel, all Americans oppose socialism, all Americans support "our" troops, all Americans this and all Americans that. It is this "Americanism" that is created and then beaten upon our heads with the intent to make us conform.

"Americanism", once created, brings into existence dialectically the notion of "anti-Americanism." If you do not believe all of these things you are told that all Americans must believe, you are labeled an "anti-American." Of course, this is as absurd as calling an opponent of Nazism under Hitler an "anti-German." I am sure that those who loved Germany the most opposed Hitler. How then do we not see the absurdity of a "land of the free" dividing its citizens into "Americans" and "anti-Americans". Indeed, this divide is so deep, from the perspective of the "patriotic", that they have no greater hatred than the hatred they have for their fellow Americans with whom they do not agree.

Not surprisingly, the Americans I have seen most fervently pushing this "American" vs. "anti-American" dichotomy are those who work for or do the dirty work of the U.S. Government. Specifically, these are the Police, the Firemen, the Politicians, the military officers and personnel, those who work for the intelligence agencies, the defense contractors, and the arms producers.

My wife from my first marriage is Vietnamese. During the first Gulf War, her sister's husband, a refugee from Vietnam, was employed by Raytheon in Massachusetts, maker of the "Patriot" missile (and other murderware). At that time, I protested the Gulf War. This brother-in-law despised me for my opposition to the war. He told me, in words not ambiguous, that I should support the war because the war was good for his job. He, a man who ran like a coward from his government in Vietnam to live in the land of its enemy, admonished me for my lack of patriotism. For him, patriotic Americans meant more wars and more wars meant job security.

In the name of our absurd form of patriotism, we are supposed to oppose Palestinians, oppose Cuba, oppose Iran, oppose Russia, and oppose any enemy du jour that we are told to oppose. If we do not toe the line, we are labeled anti-American and declared open game for the police, right-wing nutcases, and unethical employers.

If we think back to what is different between the first two kinds of patriotism and American patriotism, it comes down to this. In American patriotism you are told what to believe and who to hate. Indeed, you are told what Americans to hate – namely those who refuse to believe what they are told and who refuse to hate who they are expected to hate. Mexican patriotism does not entail hating Mexicans. Why then do patriotic Americans hate other Americans?

If you look closely at the imagery of patriotism that has become popular since the events of 9/11/2001, you will notice the prominence of the eagle. This eagle is not the majestic soaring eagle of the past. It is a predatory eagle with extended talons, steely eyes, and sharp beak. It is an angry eagle ready to pounce. It is a symbol of violence.

The new patriotism does not speak of love, it speaks of hate. The new patriotism refers to dissidents as "cunts", "terrorists", "anti-Americans", and so on. Where dissent was once seen as a right of all Americans, it is now seen as a reason to club a person with a baton, shoot a person with rubber bullets, bar a person from flying, slander the person online, and blacklist a person from employment. All along the way, the main champions of this patriotism are our government officials, our government workers, and their contractors. Isn't it time we said "enough of this bullshit!" Do we really need to hate on command?

Love of place may be natural but American patriotism is everything but natural. We have substituted hatred, intolerance, and violence for love of place. We have inflated our sense of accomplishment to the point of delusion. Our desire to hate has grown to the point where we now are consuming ourselves. If this is Americanism, count me as an anti-American, for I love all of the people of my planet equally and I understand that the best way to love my place of birth is to oppose its insanity. Those who find themselves in a perpetual state of war do so by choice, for the desire for peace within the hearts of healthy men and women exceeds the desire of war. No one hates us for what little freedom we have, they hate us for hating them.