I noticed an interesting trend this past week.  On tax day, and the days leading up to it, something strange happened.  And I’m not talking about the “tea parties” that occured across the country.  Rather, I refer to the spate of articles that cropped up on CNN, FOX News, and other media outlets that touted paying one’s taxes as the epitome of patriotisim.  Most of the articles I came across were full of partisan acusations that the “tea parties” were nothing more than pouty republicans expressing themselves – poorly.

It’s time we stopped pointing fingers at each other. So long as people continue to bicker like a couple in the midst of a Hollywood divorce (I mean really. Who gives a damn who gets the Tupperware?) nothing will improve. That’s the trap, don’t you see? If the pundits and politicos can make us bicker, they know we’ll be too busy getting pissed at each other to get pissed at THEM. Divided, we are weak. UNITED, we are STRONG.

I understand what Vice President Biden meant when he suggested for weather Americans that “…It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”  And to an extent, I agree.  As citizens, we have a responsibility to fund those programs which keep us safe and secure.

But our elected officials have a responsibility as well, one that they have been sorely neglecting.  If paying one’s taxes is an act of patriotisim, then proper stewardship of said revenues becomes a sacred trust, and it then follows that gross mismanagement of the peoples money borders on treason.

I know what patriotisim is. Sometimes, it’s serving your country in uniform, be it for 2 years or 20. Sometimes, it’s standing up for what you believe in, like, say, Freedom of Speech. Sometimes, it’s standing up for what somebody else believes in – like, say, respecting someone else’s Freedom of Speech. (As a twenty-year veteran of the military, I get mighty pissed off when I see somebody disrespecting our flag. Burn a flag in front of me, and I’ll try very, very, hard not to wrap you in it. But at the same time, I will defend to the death your right to burn it. As much as it means, the flag is just a symbol. A symbol of a set of principles which were espoused in 1776, and codified in 1790. And amongst those principles is freedom of expression. Burning the symbol of your country is perhaps not in the best taste, but it most definately is an expression. The Supreme Court even says so.)

I’ll tell you what patriotisim is not: It is not accepting the partisan bickering that we, the people, have had to put up with for so long. It is not hollow claims that it’s our “patriotic duty” to pay our taxes, and be happy about it while we’re at it. And Most Esteemed and Honorable Senators and Congressmen, most of all, it is not advocating increased taxes to fund your pet projects when you have the spending decipline of a five-year-old. Do not, I repeat, do NOT ask me to pay more taxes until you people learn how to use what you already have, responsibly and with regard to the (fiscal) welfare of the national interest. It’s time our elected officials and our media pundits behaved like statesmen and professionals, rather than the petulant spoiled children they currently emulate.