I love this crazy country. I am as patriotic as the next guy… unless that guy is running for president, because those guys are, to hear them tell it, the most patriotic of us all… which makes it all the more ironic when they also say that America is now ruined because of Obama, and they have to fix it… I mean, isn’t that sort of a contradiction?

The thing is… Hello, ‘thing’, I haven’t seen you around for a few days… that you can love something and still have expectations. You can still ask questions. You can still voice an opinion that isn’t entirely positive. Loving something blindly is like driving your car blindly. It doesn’t really matter how good a driver you are if you refuse to look at anything.

It is all well and good to proclaim that the country in which you happened to be born is the best country on the planet. We are sort of hardwired that way. But when you let the emotion become so deep-seated that you stop looking at the details… that is where it becomes blind love, and that is when you stop thinking things can get better.

We might well be the best country in some ways. But can we ignore studies that say we are falling behind in some areas? When our infant mortality rate reaches levels below that of some third world countries… when our educational system isn’t keeping up with the rest of the world in teaching math and science… when millions still have no health care, but people scream about socialism and how evil it is without having a real plan to fix the problem… are we doing ourselves a disservice?

Hey, I love my kids too. I think they are the best kids on the planet… (even though I am sure a few billion other parents out there might argue the point)… but when they are having problems in some class at school, we try to help them understand the subject. When they are having problems with another kid, we try to teach them ways to get along and compromise and talk through the problems.

The thing… (sorry, this isn’t one of my ‘things’, this is just an expression)… about blind love… or blind obedience… or blind faith… (not the band, the unquestioning belief in some religion)… is that it stops us from ever looking for ways to improve that which we love… or obey… or have faith in.

Love doesn’t mean: ‘This thing or person is perfect’. It means: ‘I care about this thing or person, and, while I love them just the way they are, I still want them to reach for ever higher goals, become even better, and never stop growing’.

I suppose that the other side of this coin is when people expect too much from those they love, and put too much pressure on them to be better… (I’m talking to you, tiger moms)… and end up making that person a miserable wretch who spends the rest of their life in therapy… but that is a topic for another post.