The New Patriots

Laurie Cohn Rosenthal
Mirror Contributing Writer

   Sure are a lot of American flags out there these days. The new patriots are a funny breed. I didn’t know it was so easy to be patriotic. I didn’t know if I just slapped a flag on my car, on the same spot where I had a Lakers flag several months before, that I would be considered a very patriotic person. Had I known that’s all it took, I might have decided never to devote any time or money to charity and drive around with a flag on my car instead. Hey, there goes a patriotic person in a fancy sports car with a flag who just cut off a school bus.
   In my days of traveling abroad with a backpack, I was always struck by how many Canadians sewed their maple leaf flag on their backpacks. Americans didn’t do that for fear of being a walking target – even 15 years ago. Sewing an American flag on my backpack while hitchhiking through the West Bank (dumb idea, even then) was not a way to win friends and influence people. In fact, there were times it was just easier to tell people I was Canadian and thus skip their diatribes against the U.S. and Reagan and so on. Many young Americans felt the same way.
   Cynical me, after 9/11 when everyone started flying flags from their cars and homes and businesses and whatever, I couldn’t help but think the flag makers must be raking in the dollars. Suddenly flag experts were in demand everywhere, catapulting them from flag conventions to the national spotlight. The one I saw on some cable show was interesting.
   This was the first time I could remember that everyone, regardless of politics, race, creed, sexual orientation, or other distinguishing factors, was flying a flag. There was something nice and unifying about it, though I doubted the Taliban would care. The terrorists weren’t living in our neighborhoods, our neighbors were, so in a way it was neighbor telling neighbor, American telling American, that, hey, I’m American and proud of it. I kind of felt it was obvious I was an American who enjoyed the American way of life otherwise I would have moved to an ashram in the Himalayas long ago.
   One newly patriotic old lady in a Mercedes blocked a major crosswalk at Montana and San Vicente. There were no cars behind her, so she could have backed up if she wanted to. But Mrs. Patriot didn’t want to, and gave me and other pedestrians two choices –- either walk behind her car and inhale the fumes or walk in front, right in the path of oncoming traffic. I chose the former, pushing the stroller holding my three-month-old son behind her stinky fumes. What really got me was she looked me directly in the eye as I came towards her car and not only refused to budge, refused to show any remorse or sympathy whatsoever. What good is loving and supporting your countrymen who are across the country or on the other side of the world if you can’t even be nice to your neighbor standing right in front of you?
   The American flag as a fashion statement.
   Periodically our flag does become trendy, though fashion icon Ralph Lauren has always used the image. I can’t help but wonder how a red, white, and blue belly shirt is going to make a person more patriotic. If wearing a tight, body-hugging, flag-decorated top makes a fit woman more patriotic, then does whistling at her make a construction worker more patriotic as well? Would I be a better American if I forked over several hundred, or thousand, dollars for a piece of rhinestone embellished or diamond encrusted red, white, and blue jewelry? If a person is wearing patriotic jewels and clothing, then will they be exonerated of income tax invasion?
   It’s easy to wear a flag to show you’re a dedicated American. Wave your flag if you feel so inclined, but back it up with action. Do a mitzvah (good deed), be a loving person, show your neighbors you care, take the time to offer a kind word or act of assistance to strangers. That makes you something better than a patriot, better than an American. It makes you a wonderful human being, as valuable in America as it is in Afghanistan. Wars will come and go, fashions will come and go, love of country will come and go. Kindness is forever.