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Opinion Article

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Here’s a good question: Why do you hate the United States?

I’m serious.

Current polling data shows that more than 6 in 10 Americans do not approve of the job Donald Trump is doing and that about 57 percent actively disapprove. They dislike him so much that they make fun of him and say things like, “He’s not my president.”

Presidential Approval Ratings — Donald Trump

And you hate that.

But it’s America.

You want a wall built across the entirety of the southern border of the United States, no matter how much it costs, no matter how many times you’ve been shown it’s not a cost-effective solution to border security, you’d rather deride any other solution as “open borders” even though it’s not. Yet current polls show that 56 percent of Americans don’t want the wall.

Poll: Majorities oppose Trump’s wall funding demand, call for compromise

You want that wall so much. So you hate that.

But it’s America.

In America, people express themselves different ways, especially when they’re trying to get a point across. They even do things that make you really angry, like kneeling during the National Anthem, to make a point about the way young black men are treated during interactions with police. Sometimes it’s football players on your favorite football team, and it makes you so mad you can’t even enjoy football anymore.

Man, you hate that.

But even your favorite news network tells you that most Americans support their right to do so. Meaning it’s America. And you hate it.

Most Americans support NFL players’ right to kneel: Poll

You hate that people want to do things that don’t directly benefit you with the money you have to give the government out of your paycheck.

You hate that every day the meaning of the word equality seems to include more and more people, making you feel less and less in sole possession of the American Dream.

You hate that you have so few people anymore that it’s okay for you to feel superior to.

But it’s America.

I’ve been examining this odd idea that comes from the right that they have some kind of monopoly on patriotism for some time. The more I examine it, the more I see how little water it holds.

Liberals don’t hate America. Liberals love what America is and can be.

Conservatives wearing red hats with white writing love some strange perception they have of what it was at some point in the past.

In general, though, conservatives do love America. This is true.

But liberals do as well. The thing is, though, it’s a different kind of love.

Conservatives show their love of country with a sort of reverent respect, submission to ultimate authority, in a way that is best expressed by the phrase, “Love it or leave it” In other words, take her as she is, don’t try to change her.

As one loves a parent.

As one who loves their parents unconditionally, through their faults. As an aging parent, but one who you can still see as the titan they were when you were a child. You wish you could see them in all that glory again.

Liberals love America a different way, and in my opinion, a more brutally honest way. Liberals love America as one loves a child. Something to be nurtured, grown, developed. Something that is not perfect, and needs a lot of work to be improved upon. And they are willing to do that work.

When you see liberals out in droves carrying signs, shouting and chanting, you look at them derisively and ask, “Why do they hate America?”

That isn’t hate, my man. It is the greatest expression they can make of how much they love this country. In my opinion, it’s a much stronger expression of love for country to get out and act to work on righting wrongs, improving conditions, standing up against injustice than to blindly wish things were like they were back in the ‘50s before the dirty hippies messed everything up. (I hope that’s as far back as you want to go.)

Maybe you should start to show her a little more love.

O’Leary served 10 years in the US Marine Corps.

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