Wear your pride on your sleeve! In defense of patriotic belligerence

I am an extraordinarily patriotic guy. I own American flag shirts, shorts, socks, shorter shorts, sweat bands, swimsuits, and even boxers. Occasionally, I will wear Ol' Glory on every part of my body at the same time. At major sporting events, you would need Seal Team Six to keep me from joining in on the National Anthem.

But considering my cynical political beliefs, this patriotism would often cause confused friends and concerned loved ones to question my sanity: how could I love a place so much, they wonder, and yet fundamentally disagree with the way it's being run?

For years, my answer to this apparent paradox usually involved a thick southern accent, repetition of the word “'Murica,” and some good old-fashioned anti-communist expletives. In other words, I fell into the classic teenage cliché of justifying stupid behavior with an even stupider explanation. Eventually, however, I did find my explanation; I just had to cross the Sonora Desert to do it.

On a dusty porch outside "La Posada Milagro", hidden amidst layers of crumbling buildings in the searing desert sun of Terlingua Texas, two wannabe rednecks felt at home in a strange place. Those strangers were myself and my good friend Will. We sat on that porch for hours on a cool summer night listening to an old, probably toothless man in a Jeff Gordon shirt attack the strings of his blackened, war torn six-string, as he stomped a beat on the ancient floorboards and sang stories about God, love, and Johnny Cash. Those boots had probably been resoled as many times as that guitar had been re-lacquered, but they both sounded better than new.

The inhabitants of this ghost town could not have been more different from us - two city-slicker dumbasses in brand-new steel toes and a needlessly lifted Land Cruiser - yet they embraced us with open arms. For all of our differences, we had one thing in common: we had a small American flag attached to the top of our CB radio whip antenna. In fact, they would probably tattoo the flag onto their foreheads if they could make it the ~250 miles to the nearest tattoo parlor on a four wheeler.

I started to think: how can these people, who were so insurmountably removed from the political realm that the TV at the local watering hole still had a rabbit ears, be so passionately patriotic? On the long drive back to Austin I saw flag after flag, eagle after eagle fly by outside of homes and businesses. It was clear that no matter who the president is, or what our government does, these people will love America until the day they die.

At this moment I stumbled upon a simple idea, one that somehow eluded me my whole life prior: America has nothing to do with the government of the United States.

America is a rich patrimony of traditions, ideals, tenets, and customs that have stood the test of time, especially in places like Terlingua. America is apple pie cooling on the windowsill. America is the good Samaritan that pulls over in the middle of a thunderstorm to give you a jump. America is an old man with nothing but a six string and a pair of tattered boots, sitting on a porch, baring his soul to anyone who will listen.

Other countries often criticize the US government - but in my experience, they f***ing love America. Over intersession I went to Spain, and one day I toured the local gym near my host family's house. The owner was an bald, obese, tracksuit-wearing, Spanish-speaking Albanian named Toni who personally taught every class his gym offered, from "body pump" to "Thai Chi" to sword fighting. What I remember most from that day was seeing this outrageously talented jack-of-all-trades leading a group of beautiful Spanish women through some questionable yoga "poses" to a remix of "Summer of '69" and "Born in the USA,” and my God did I feel the rockets' red glare. And before my girlfriend reaches for a ball-point pen or filet knife, I assure you my pleasant sense of astonishment had nothing to do with Cristina, Sofia, Consuelo, Laura, or Gabi.

Thanks to hands down the sh*ttiest remix I've ever heard, I once again felt at home in a strange land.

When you think about what America means to you, make a mental separation between the "United States" and "America". Then think about the America part until you admit that you love it, because deep down, we all do.

So the next time you see a dumbass like me wearing slightly too many stars and slightly too many stripes, don’t assume he’s a slack jawed Neanderthal who spends his free time coloring outside the lines and seeing how many baby carrots he can fit up his nostrils until his brain hurts and he can no longer do long division. Maybe he's a normal guy who is just proud of his homeland, and all that it represents.