If there has ever been a lesson of the atrocities of the 20th century, it would be one of the dangers of blind faith. To be fed lies, to eat them up like the candy-coated versions of the truth that they are, and so much more. I never want to see nationalism, but the world would be nothing without thus – you create a nation through a common cause, and whether that be hatred of a perceived evil, or love of certain delicatessen delights, the populace of a nation must be bound by some common cause. And once that happens, a divided assortment of people becomes a unified and cohesive sovereign.

The problem lies not in the formation of such bonding, but the manipulation. Once some group has a confessed similarity or goal, it becomes easy to manipulate, to distort turn against itself, even justifying the new, warped, cause by using the old and familiar one as a guise. The desire for a release from poverty can turn into a desire to eliminate entire races by a few words from a strong, manipulative mouth. It's very simple, so simple for a leader, or even a common man, to turn a peaceful nation into tools of destruction.

Nationalism – the root cause of every single one of the deadly wars of the 20th century has been with the United States for well over two hundred years, longer than Germany, longer than China, longer than Russia. We are a nationalist state, not ruled by the people, but by those who can find a cause to rally the people, a personal cause under the ruse of being for the parent nation. Here, we call it patriotism, an Americanization, a pleasant name for a darker truth. We are said to be rallying under the flag of America, but, really, are we? Is everything done for the greater good of this nation? Or is it said to be, as to enforce the idea of America, the invincible and indivisible, all-powerful nation and leader of the free world?

Sure, America is doing pretty swell now, but even in my lifetime I have heard the terrible cry of nationalism, resounding from the bowels of America. First, after 9/11, there was a resurgence of nationalism. We were infringed upon; our little piece of unscathed earth was scorched. We rallied against terrorists all over the world, rallied to a type of warfare akin to the war on drugs – not winnable in the slightest. Sure, it was tragic, sure a great many people died, and hundreds of thousands were affected directly. But we, we are pampered pets of a protective state. If nothing, 9/11 awoke us to the realization – America isn't invincible. We can be bloodied. But this was turned, in favor of revenge in the form of terrorist hunts – I'm not sure how many plots were foiled, if they may be in the hundreds or nonexistent. That is irrelevant. Protecting the nation is of importance, I won't deny that. But the lengths they went. Invasions of foreign, sovereign nations, bringing down regimes in the middle-east, this was accomplished by the force of nationalism, and not for the better.

I was a victim, at first. I was all for war, all for bringing down terrorist-supporting, WMD – carrying madmen with mustaches worthy of Stalin. I really was. But it was the lies, the deceit, it all never made sense. You can tell when somebody is lying often by their BPS – Blinks per Second. And right now, the man we put in the big chair is setting records for the Guinness book

A terrible event is often made all the much more potent by a powerful, motivational leader. The ones who can manipulate the least important facts into a strong contingency to the security of the populace, those are the most powerful, most despotic kind. And I do NOT want them gaining power in America. We have to deal with the manipulation of important facts into powerful causes enough; the little ones need not be expanded to such a degree.

I fear mindless, blind patriotic souls, I fear what they represent, I fear what they may do. America thrives on patriotism, bathes in the red, white, and blue, but we still have doubt, and if doubt persists, if we continue to think, we remain free. But the moment that we stop, the moment we give in to the belief that everything the government does is for the good of the people, we have failed, we have gone blind and given in. We become nothing, just another figure in a crowd of collective conscious, we lose our independent thought.

There is a reason I don't cheer mindlessly for sports teams, a reason I owe no allegiance to much of anything, save my friends and free thought – I have no faith in blind patriotism, in any form, under any guise. It is still the same force that killed untold millions, and cause unthinkable acts of destruction. And I won't allow that in my own mind.