We Americans constantly praise our allies as patriots and our political opponents as traitors. But we do it to and for each other for vastly different reasons. This is because everyone has their own definitions of what patriotism means to them. So, what is patriotism and what makes someone a patriot?

A few things are stereotyped as being patriotic and cited as the go to ways to symbolize your patriotism. “If you don’t do these things, you aren’t patriotic” is the feeling. That includes but isn’t limited to:

• Brandishing an American flag on one’s house or car
• Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
• Standing for the National Anthem
• “Supporting the troops”, veterans & police
• Not criticizing the above things in any way

The first four things are just fine. If those bring you pride and feel patriotic, that’s great! Nothing wrong with it. However, I think being an actual patriot is about much more. This includes but isn’t limited to:

• Criticizing your government, country & society in an attempt to push it to be better.
• Voting
• Protesting
• Paying your taxes
• Standing up for people’s rights, even if you disagree with the individual people in question
• Supporting all who serve our country. Not just the troops and police, but teachers, social workers, athletic volunteers & coaches, journalists, etc
• Supporting your community by volunteering, looking out for your neighbor, staying engaged with local issues, driving slowly through residential neighborhoods, etc

One thing you’ll notice about the two lists is the first list are things you do to try to show others your love of country, and the bottom list is actually putting your money where your mouth is in your actions and what you fight for by demonstrating your love of country.

That’s what patriotism actually means. It’s not limited to these superficial things to give the impression and virtue signal to people around you that you “LOVE MURICA” more than others, but to actually sincerely do and say things to show that you love the country and the people in it. Whether it’s public service like the military or being a teacher, voting (something people fought and died for our right to do), protesting the government or helping your neighbor, actually doing things to demonstrate love of country is much more meaningful. No amount of endless American flags on a pick up truck will change that.

Criticizing the country is an extremely patriotic thing to do, arguably one of the best things to do, because it is the exact spirit of America to push ourselves to be better and better that has made us what we are. Although our history has many ugly, awful black stains like slaughtering indigenous people, slavery, discrimination and much more, we also have done so many things to improve who we are economically and socially. From the inventions we’re famous for, like the phone, flight or the internet, to the railroad system, innovations in science and medicine, regulations to defend against harmful corporations, social progress like LGBTQ rights and steps towards equality in the genders and races and much more. With each one of these things, through each generation, we rejected how America was and pushed it to be better for what it could be.

Today, we love much of our current life that was put in place by generations of people before us, but we have lost the spirit of progress and pushing America forward, which is how those people helped get our country to where it is in the first place. Valuing certain aspects of the past is great, but channeling the forward thinking, adventurous mentality they had to progress us further, is better.

Often times, however, if you criticize America, people accuse you of being unpatriotic. Like hating America if you didn’t support the Iraq War, to saying “Happy Holidays” to the ridiculous drama surrounding kneeling for the anthem, and everything in between. Frequently you’re told to “Just leave America if you don’t love it here.” But this isn’t applied consistently across the board.

When Reagan ran in the 80s, his slogan was “Let’s Make America Great.” This said that America was not great at that time in order for it to become great. No one said he hated America and he was then elected POTUS. When Trump ran in 2016, he ripped off Reagan’s slogan and changed to the now infamous “Make America Great Again” proclaiming that we were once great, but are no longer. Much of Trump’s rhetoric was about how awful America is compared to what it used to be. The political right didn’t call him unpatriotic. Matter of fact, they whole heartedly agreed and he was elected POTUS. However, when people like Kaeperick say “America isn’t as great as it could be” he is demonized by the same people as someone who hates America, he should leave, he’s a traitor, etc. This is dumbfounding level of inconsistency. “If you agree with my areas of criticisms of America, you’re a patriot. If you have different areas of criticism, then you’re a traitor!”

There’s an analogy that I quite like to show how silly this is. Say that someone had a teenage child and they did something bad, like lie, cheat or steal. The parents wouldn’t immediately banish them forever, but they also wouldn’t (well, shouldn’t) make excuses and enable the behavior. They love the child so much, they know their child can be better. They’re disappointed, and they’d let the kid know it! But they’d also explain that they know the teen is capable of so much more. The parent would discuss the bad behavior with the kid, explain why and how they need to do better. They want to shape the kid to become a great adult as they grow up.

If we saw a parent do this, we wouldn’t think for one second that they don’t love their kid. Matter of fact, we’d recognize that you do these things when you love your kid. When we criticize America, it’s no different. We aren’t doing it because we hate America, it’s because we know that America can be so much better. It doesn’t mean we need to “love America or get out!”

Speaking of leaving America. A true patriot doesn’t threaten to leave when a monstrous President is elected or an immoral law is passed. A true patriot stays and fights to protect against this President instead of just abandoning everything for their own self interest. (There are obvious exceptions here for other countries whose status is far different than ours here in America – fleeing may be a matter of life and death.) I am sick and tired of hearing from people on both sides of the aisle who claim to love America yet threaten to leave it every time a monster is elected. (Spoiler alert: more monsters are on the horizon.)

Similarly, when we discuss much needed tax reform in America, sometimes massive companies will threaten to leave the country. I say to them: “Good. Go. Every single one of you.” They will not threaten to hold hostage your services, jobs and products over our heads because they are forced to pay their fair share of taxes. Their wealth is partially created and sustained because of Americans, the workers, the consumers, the infrastructure, the regulations and our markets. To threaten to leave America over taxes all while claiming to be patriotic is complete nonsense. The next time a company does this, let’s call their bluff. After all, the precious “free market” that they often worship as a deity will just fill the hole with an American based company who actually loves America, right?

Wearing a facemask is a great example of a small inconvenience to you to attempt to help your fellow neighbor. It is one of the most current patriotic things you can do every day without much effort at all.

Fighting for people’s rights that you disagree with is another important thing to being a patriot. You have to put aside the difference of opinion and stand behind the rights even when, especially when, you disagree with the individual person. There’s many examples of where we forget to (or knowingly) do this, only doing it when convenient.

If you believe in the First Amendment you believe in it for everyone, not just your side. I’m not a big gun fanatic, but I respect people’s rights to own guns (with some regulations) and think that should be honored. I believe certain violent offenders deserve to be in prison, but also deserve to have their voting rights retained during and after incarceration. I also believe a large chunk of people in jail/prison need to be removed (say, for petty drug crimes) because their rights are being infringed upon, as well. You have to be able to say all of these things even for “bad people” that you don’t agree with, or you don’t actually believe in human and American rights.

Supporting the troops is another obviously patriotic thing to do. I agree. However, if you truly support and love our servicemen and women, you should want to do everything you can to keep them out of harm’s way, as much as possible. For our troops, this means things like resisting sending our troops off to endless wars, actually fully funding the VA to offer them care when they return, better opportunities to get them jobs to get into the work force, etc. Resisting sending them off to wars unless absolutely required is the best thing. We don’t do a fraction as good of a job as we should taking care of our veterans we already have, so if we actually care about harmed combat veterans, we should do everything we can to prevent making more of them.

Supporting our police can be patriotic as well. However, if you truly love the police and want to thank them for their service, we should reform our criminal justice system to take things off the plates of cops, like dealing with the homeless, drug overdoses, or responding to calls of autistic children who don’t need arrests, but care. We send our police in to do jobs that they shouldn’t need to, and because of it their work and lives are harder than what it needs to be with the trauma they experience. The end result is they end up policing citizens way more than necessary, creating animosity and hate on both sides. We do all of this while we claim to support, appreciate and love the police. Do we, really?

The common theme to all of this is one thing: the people. If you actually love America and consider yourself a patriot, you can’t just love a symbolic piece of cloth, a song, or war. It really means doing everything one can to serve the community, push our society to be better, consistently fight to uphold rights, and leave our country better off than when we found it. Anything less is just superficial and hollow.