The Virtue Of The Vicious

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious" -Oscar Wilde

As a product of the e-mail generation I've become accustomed to deleting "chain" e-mails. They used to piss me off, but now I just view them as one of the little annoying prices we pay for our modern conveniences. Until today that is, when I received one from someone on my "friend's" list (soon to be amended) that made me very, very angry. I'll attempt to reconstruct it here:

I HOPE I DO NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED...

SLEEP LAST NIGHT?
Bed a little lumpy...Toss and turn any...Wish the heat was higher...Maybe the a/c wasn't on...Had to go to the john..Need a drink of water...???Scroll down...

Yes.... It is like that!Count your blessings, pray for them,Talk to your Creator and the next time when...the other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, or you're sitting and cursing the traffic in front of you,or the shower runs out of hot water!, Think of them...Protecting your freedom!

Aside from the obvious punctuation and grammatical errors, the above infuriates me so much because it is a great example of this new brand of patriotic bullying and neo-christian guilt. I can't drive two blocks without seeing ten car magnets that demand I support the troops. I can't turn on the television without seeing an American flag waving or grief-stricken families crying beside the ground-zero monument in New York. It's emotional arm-twisting and it has to stop. Why? Because it's bullshit, that's why.

The troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are ALL VOLUNTEERS. There was no draft. They chose to do this. It sickens me to think about all the young lives being thrown away, but don't demand that I support it. I don't. I never will. A lot of people are becoming very rich as a result of these conflicts, and guess what...Not a single one of them is pictured above. They are all tucked safely behind desks at the corporate offices of Haliburton and Blackwater. These poor kids are not protecting your freedom, they are protecting your governments financial investments.

Who the hell is my "Creator" and why should I be talking to him/her/it about this? The only creators I have are my parents and they can't really provide me with too much insight on these matters (although they can provide me with a free, delicious meal once in a while). So don't try and scare me into falling in line with your superstitious bogey-men either. Besides, if there really is a god (there isn't) do you really think he/she/it would approve of our war-for-profit scheme?

To those of you that have been perpetuating this particular chain mail I just wanted to let you know that yes I "broke" it and yes I deleted it. I also slept just fine last night. Thanks for asking.