While flying, I always find myself crossing my fingers that no one will end up sitting in the seat next to me.  It’s happened several times, and it’s pretty nice to have more elbow and leg room.  This situation happened yet again this week, but my hopes were soon dashed as I saw a man and his kids coming towards me while I was seated.  The man was wearing jean shorts, a camouflaged hat with the word “Kansas” on it, and a shirt that had an American flag and some slogan about how awesome the U.S. is.  After getting his two daughters seated in the row in front of us, he plopped down in his seat, turned to me, and asked, “You ever flown in one of these freakin’ tiny planes before?”  As he turned, he dropped his cell phone on the floor and let out a loud, “Shoot!”  Only he didn’t say “freakin’” and he didn’t say “shoot”.  Keep in mind that this all took place directly behind his kids.  He also wreaked of alcohol. The rest of the flight, the man would occasionally speak to me, dropping F and S Bombs the way most people use the word “the”.  He also sat with his legs spread almost completely apart causing me to shift my body towards the window for the entire duration of the flight.  Once he was able to use his mp3 player, he turned it on and conked out, subjecting the whole front half of the plane to a combination of his snoring mixed with the Lynard Skynard blasting from his earphones. 

At first glance, most people would likely label him as “undereducated” or “redneck”.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I couldn’t help but wonder if he was a living embodiment of what the modern day “American” has become.  If you think about it, what segment of today’s population proudly displays pro-U.S. propaganda on a regular basis?  If I had to answer that question, I would say there are two types of people: 1) past or present members of our military and 2) the type of people who act like they could recite every line of every episode of “Blue Comedy Tour” (Sidenote: I am sitting in an airport on a layover as I write out this post.  As I wrote that last line, a man with a mustache, mullet, jean shorts, and a shirt that said “Drink. Pee. Repeat” just walked by as if it was on cue).  Now, I’m not criticizing anyone of being pro-America.  If anything, my point is that it’s sad that we, as a nation, seem to have lost our sense of patriotism — and there could possibly be an inverse relationship of the degree that one is vocal about it and one’s IQ. 

One of my favorite writers, Chuck Klosterman once wrote that he once sent out a mass email asking about patriotism:

I gave everyone two potential options for a hypothetical blind date and asked them to pick who they’d prefer. The only things they knew about the first candidate was that he or she was attractive and successful. The only things they knew about the second candidate was that he or she was attractive, successful, and ‘extremely patriotic.’ No other details were provided or could be ascertained.

He then wrote

Just about everyone immediately responded by selecting the first individual. They viewed patriotism as a downside. I wasn’t too surprised; in fact, I was mostly just amused by how everyone seemed to think extremely patriotic people weren’t just undateable, but totally fucking insane. One of them wrote that the quality of ‘patriotism’ was on par with ‘regularly listening to Cat Stevens’ and ‘loves Robin Williams movies.

Keeping this in mind, it’s really no wonder that President Bush was re-elected, and I’d be willing to guess that it is this group of people who largely account for the 1/3 of the population who still approve of his job in office.  Hopefully this new election will change some of that.  I think a lot of us are hoping to get this country back on track.  And maybe we’ll all be more patriotic as a result.

P.S.  I have a sinking suspicion this post could rub some people the wrong way.  I promise I meant all of this in the best way possible .  Nevertheless, feel free to throw in your two cents in the comments.  I’d be curious to know if others share my thoughts or if I’m just completely insane.