About Patriot Savant

"That flag is our flag. We served under that flag. We got up and stood reveille formation, we stood taps, we fought under that flag. We've seen men die for that flag, and we've seen men buried under that flag. No Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft or Tom DeLay is going to take that flag away from us."
- Wesley Clark, 26 July 2004

"The bombs–the political bombs–may be bursting all around us as they try to distort the truth. But when I look up, that flag is still there, and it belongs to all Americans!" - John Kerry

Patriot Savant believes in reminding Americans that the flag is everyone's symbol, including the left. Especially the left. We recognize that "patriot" means "someone who loves their country", not someone who supports the right – a group increasingly intolerant, irresponsible, and betraying the Founders' principles. We believe that we can and should bear our country's symbols, symbols the right unjustly claims for its exclusive use. We believe the flag is the symbol of the nation, not its nationalists.

We believe that the right's conduct during the war in Iraq, wherein anyone who disagreed with the administration was labeled a "traitor", to be shameful, and their accusations false. We do not believe that a difference of opinion consitutes treason; we believe that the right to hold different opinions, and to express them, is one of the fundamental rights upon which this country was built.

We lament that the right took the flag from us, saying it was theirs. They told us it belonged only to "real Americans", and that only they were the real Americans, and we weren't, so we didn't get to use it.

But we lament even more that we let them. Like little children spurned, we crossed our arms and said "Fine, we didn't want it anyway," and we taught ourselves to disdain its public display. Public display was an embarrassment, jingoistic and shameful. It was for the "America, right or wrong" crowd, the xenophobic crowd, the ignorant fist-shakers. But this is untrue. It's our national symbol. Our national symbol. It's not their exclusive domain. It represents the whole country, its spirit, its beliefs, its people. We are that people. It is ours too.

We believe we can and should reclaim it. We can take it back and show them that we are just as patriotic as they are, that our beliefs do not make us unpatriotic, that we belong.

We do not believe the flag has to mean "America, right or wrong". We believe it means America, right and wrong. Knowing that we must promote the former and combat the latter, combat the latter because we want to see this country ever improve. Because we love this country, just as much as they do.

We believe that we are patriots, and that the flag is ours, and we will take it back.

"They are trying to take our patriotism away from us. They are trying to say that this flag belongs to Tom DeLay and John Ashcroft and George W. Bush, and it's not true. And on my watch... they will never get this flag, because I've saluted, I've fought for it, I served under it."
  - Gen. Wesley Clark