Patriotism Is Alive and Well

Well, we’ve just past college graduation season, dear reader. You know: That time during the year when university faculties can demonstrate their deep regard for intellectual diversity by boycotting and hectoring conservative speakers. Ah, you can smell the tolerance for miles.

At the recent Boston College graduation, for instance, sundry students and tenured radicals were dismayed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the speaker. According to The New York Times one-third of BC’s faculty signed a petition against her participation in the event.

Thankfully, the audience was generally respectful—unlike the ill-mannered crowd that heard Senator McCain at the New School. (That twit Jean Sara Rohe still has us fuming.) And yet Ms. Rice’s appearance brought out the traditional cavalcade of lame protesters.

According to the Times, outside the ceremony, numerous people—unshaven and un-showered, we’d bet—held signs reading “No Blood for Oil” and “We’re Patriotic Too.” “No Blood for Oil”: Gee, does it get any more unoriginal than that? Come on, you stupid hippies—stop ‘phoning it in. Condoleezza Rice supposedly works for the most evil regime since Genghis Khan’s; this is no time to lapse into lazy protest clichés.

But perhaps the “We’re Patriotic Too” sign is even more pathetic. Why is it that the radical Left is always vouching for its patriotism? Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, says radical-cum-millionaire Howard Zinn. Why the heck does he care?

If you ask us, people on the political Right seldom question the patriotism of others. In fact, it seems to us that the Left uses the patriotism card, if you will, to stifle debate—not the other way around.

So let’s just get this over with, shall we? We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” hereby declare that everyone—every last person—is patriotic. To the whole world, love of country is paramount. It’s a beautiful thing.

Do you think America is chock-a-block with “Little Eichmanns”? If so, you and Ward Churchill have a deep love affair with America. Do you find a George W. Bush speech as horrifying as the events of 9/11? If so, you and Eric Foner are ultra-patriots.

So there. As Richard Nixon might have said, we’re all patriots now. Congratulations, leftists.

Now can we discuss the fact that your ideas are dimwitted without your incessant recourse to Francis Scott Key?