Nobody lives in "the greatest country in the world,"
which is a phrase, not a nation.
Nobody and Plato's hologram.
Wouldn't a good nation cherish its skeptics,
partly because politicians and other
propagandists don't?
No one's more patriotic than a dictator:
fallacious reasoning, sure, but
nonetheless worthy of a cautionary pause.
Often I listen to a voice in me
that recoils from appeals to patriotism
because they feel like extortion.
hans ostrom 2014
