Taking Advantage of Your Country

So many people have joined together, contributed to charities, or have bought patriotic merchandise in response to September 11. But you probably don’t know about the low-down dirty thieves who are trying to take advantage of the situation. Technically they are Americans, but they lack patriotism. What is patriotism? Stated in Webster’s Dictionary patriotism is: “Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.”

Let’s be honest, some Americans lack true patriotism, but most of us aren’t parasites either. Our country was attacked, huge buildings were destroyed, and many people died. Most of us responded by contributing money, getting upset, praying, and buying a flag; not by thinking: “How can I take advantage of my country when it’s in a crisis? An obvious way to make a profit because of a national crisis is by selling flags. So many companies took advantage of this due to September 11 so that just about every American had some kind of flag. Some people even had a flag bumper sticker on their car, a flag t-shirt, and a flag poster.

But reacting positively and buying a flag does not necessarily make you a patriot. Many people have used their flag to boast or bought a flag due to peer-pressure. If everyone else on a block has a flag except one person and this person happens to have middle-eastern heritage, he/she might be subjected to insults or even labled a terrorist. I think those that already had a flag before September 11 and that still have it can truly be called a patriot. Too many people all of a sudden turn into a patriot in the middle of a crisis (usually because of fear) and then hate or don’t care about their country when there is peace.

Patriotism and buying/selling flags is not that big a deal. However, most people agree that making a bogus death claim in the family due to the bombing and getting money for it is evil. One man lied about having a brother who died in The World Trade Center Building while he was in a conference meeting. The man got away with about 2,500 dollars before he was caught. Several people have done this, men and women alike. Around thirty people have been discovered doing this.

Another strange issue is all the donations made to Red Cross. Blood, money, food, and clothing donations were vastly wasted. People didn’t realize that the money they contributed wasn’t used as intended. Most people who gave money expected it help save people that were dying in the WTC somehow, but it didn’t. The money did not even cover medical bills or property damage, so what good did it do? Also, blood needs to be donated and stored in advance to do anything. Donating blood during a crisis doesn’t help. “The American Red Cross collected hundreds of thousands of blood donations after Sept. 11 knowing that the blood could not be used for victims of the terrorist attacks” (from http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1111-03.htm on April 18, 2002). For some reason people decided to send tons of food and clothing, some of the donated packages were stored in wherehouses and didn’t go anywhere, but a lot of this was thrown away because too much of it was donated and it was considered to be useless garbage. People were not naked or starving to death due to September 11! We should all make sure that our efforts to help our nation are not in vain.

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