Two weeks ago, when I posted a blog entitled “Why I Don’t Celebrate July 4,” I figured I’d get some heated responses.
But they were uglier than I expected. (You could read them all here.)
Many told me to leave. Said one: “Get out of my country, you fucking cunt!”
Another said: “We will take back our country and you will be invited to leave.”
“Fuck you, faggot,” said yet another.
One called me a “Jewboy,” and a couple referred to my last name as a well-known Jewish name and hinted darkly at conspiracy.
Then there were those who threatened me with bodily harm.
“I'd love to set off an M-80 up your liberal ass,” said one.
“Maybe we need to take the flags and use the ones with those sharp points to eliminate you and your family from existence,” said another.
A third said: “If there's a God in heaven, you'll be impaled and detonated this very day by a celebratory pyrotechnic display gone horribly, wonderfully off course.”
Seeing that this didn’t happen on July 4 is, I suppose, another argument in the atheist column.
Rest assured, I won’t be deterred or intimidated by this ugliness.
But it does serve to confirm the depths of intolerant and anti-democratic sentiment that patriotism can plumb.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his article “National Review Applauds Poverty, Blames Debt on Progressivism.”
Follow Matthew Rothschild @mattrothschild on Twitter