Charger Opinion

Individuality--something worthy of pride?

Wes Garner, Charger Staff

Let’s look at patriotism for a moment. Do you truly express patriotism?

Everyone bought a flag, a t-shirt, the coffee mug, and the “Power of Pride” bumper sticker.

But what does one have pride in? Has anyone really done anything worthy of pride? Maybe, for about a month after the 9/11 incident, kids around the school wore nice clothes, the little yellow pins, and even wore patriotic colors. But really, what is a month out of twelve, forty-eight, or maybe even your life. Plus, isn’t pride one of those seven deadly sins?

Fairly recently, New York Representative Charles Rangel made a move towards to the reinstituting of selective service. Rangel proposed a bill that would randomly select both men and women between the ages of 18 and 26 for military service, regardless of whether or not they are in college.

His motive is based on the idea that this draft (if instituted) would awaken parents and other relatives not to the idea of war, but the fact “...that if those calling for war knew that their children were likely to be required to serve -- and to be placed in harm’s way -- there would be more caution and greater willingness to work with the international community in dealing with Iraq,”

This statement sounds like more of a lure than an antidote for war. Later, he stated that all Americans should have some part in serving in the military, that is, all Americans between ages of 18 and 26, regardless of whether or not they are in college. Rangel is forgetting that this is an age of individuality.

This is also an age where individuality is commercialized and is more overdone than genuinely expressed. This false sense of “individuality” gives way to a very violent protection of “individual rights” presented by the “individual.”

One should fear the potential of the raging “individual” who is placed in a situation that forces him to do something that is not his own will. Especially when this rage is fired by an obviously unlawful bill.
Rangel’s opinions are not my target.

Let us face the facts. Most of us have willingly fallen into the trap of commercialism. This time, patriotism has been the trap. It is pretty sad when what drove our forefathers has now become nothing but a price tag.
Even if we bought the stuff, have we gone on with that proud feeling in our heart? We most absolutely did not move on with anything but the common thoughts of ourselves that we think every single day. It seems to me that the “pride” is not in our country but ourselves.

We are individuals and nothing can stop us from being that way, not even an attack on the thing that helped express our individuality.

~Article prepared for web by Steven Linger and Joy Wheeler~