#patriotic

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way to the Maine border on their first New Hampshire meet and greet. I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People," Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising," and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes. ↗

— Sarah Vowell

#nerd #nerdiness #nerds #opinion #patriotic

I love my country, not my government. ↗

— Jesse Ventura

#bill-of-rights #constitution #despotism #freedom #government

The last time I heard an orthodox Marxist statement that was music to my ears was from a member of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, during the mass slaughter in the country. 'The terms Hutu and Tutsi,' he said severely, 'are merely ideological constructs, describing different relationships to the means and mode of production.' But of course! ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ideology #marxism #rwanda #rwandan-genocide #rwandan-patriotic-front

I felt that a number of people might have questioned my loyalty, but I continue to be a patriotic American. ↗

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#continue #felt #i #loyalty #might

Even now, we make no apologies for the choice we made. The sacrifices we made were selfless. The options we offered were patriotic while the paths we chose were well thought out. ↗

— Ibrahim Babangida

#chose #even #even now #made #make

Mutual forbearance and reciprocal concessions: thro' their agency the Union was established - the patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it. ↗

— Martin Van Buren

#concessions #emanated #established #forbearance #forever

The name America has definitely grown on me. I wish there was a big patriotic story behind it, but the truth is that my grandfather was a librarian who knew all sorts of random facts. ↗

— America Ferrera

#behind #big #definitely #facts #grandfather

Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#enthusiasm #faith #good #good faith #monopoly

The average American is nothing if not patriotic. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#american #average #average american #nothing #patriotic

There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#always #between #difference #experience #foreign