Daily writing prompt

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

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To be honest patriotism and being patriotic is a weird idea and concept to me. I don’t know if any other millenials (or any other generation, for that matter), feel the same way. Being patriotic or loyal to the country you were born simply for being born there, seems illogical. I guess, if the country where you were born has anything to be proud of, then it kind of makes sense, but given the state of the U.K. (or anywhere really) recently, is there an awful lot to be proud of, in the grand scheme of things, anymore. So I guess you could say I’m not patriotic.

It used to be that there may be the odd thing to be proud of in the U.K. but that’s changed for the worse even in my lifetime. Take a look at how we treat each other, whether we’re native or immigrant, it used to be we were fairly accepting of other people and we would welcome a lot of different people in regardless of country, culture, ethnicity or anything else you care to mention, but now it seems like we’ve almost be seperated and set against each other, like to be different is to be lesser. We are all so tribal now and it’s bad or wrong to associate with others.

Then theres things like mismanagement and underfunding of the NHS by consecutive governments (as much as I want to the blame the Conservatives for this, I think Labour have done just as bad with the NHS). The NHS is such a key institution here in the U.K. and one that we the people should be fighting tooth and nail to keep. Plus I’m of many, many, people alive today who probably owe their lives to the NHS and to see it being driven in to the ground is beyond alarming and depressing.

It’s not even just the NHS either anymore, infrastucture up and down the country in general feels like it’s falling apart, that combined with the fact that we seem to be paying more for almost exponentially diminishing returns, makes me feel like something just truly horrific is just around the corner. it seems like people are expendable and not worth looking after, or deserving of anything for any hard work or taxes that they pay. Their only worth is as a worker drone and they should be happy with that and be ok with that’s what their life is.

Being patriotic is fine if there’s something worth being patriotic about, but blind patriotism just seems damaging and a little bit ignorant. I think you’ve also got to realise that no country is perfect and there will be critics of countries who have legitimate concerns and/or criticisms, which is totally reasonable. I personally don’t think theres much left, if anything, to be patriotic of in this country anymore, but I suppose I am willing to be disproven, if anyone can suggest anything to actually be proud of.

I realise that this is a nihilistic take but it just feels like any optimism has been sucked out of the topic of wether it’s worth standing up for and being proud of the U.K., especially when realisticly what is there to be patriotic about anymore. Probably best not to go into some of the horrific stuff the British Empire is said to have done in the name of Britain, the monarchy and god, that could be another can of worms entirely.