Age, education, political affiliation and patriotism

6 comments July 4th, 2008

 

Gallup is out with a fascinating — and, in some respects, surprising — new POLL on attitudes among Americans regarding patriotism.

The principal results of the survey are that Americans rank these actions in descending order of patriotic importance: 1) Voting in elections; 2) Serving in the U.S. military; 3) Saying the Pledge of Allegiance; 4) Supporting U.S. policies around the world; 5) Protesting U.S. policies you personally oppose;  and 6) Wearing an American flag pin.

Among the more interesting of the survey results is that relatively superficial displays of patriotism, like reciting the Pledge and wearing flag pins, are of far greater importance to the oldest and least-educated of respondents than to younger and better-educated folks.

Overall, when asked how much wearing a flag pin indicates that a person is patriotic, 40 percent of respondents said “not much” or “not at all,” and fewer than one-third said “a great deal.”

So much for the relative importance of the foolish media fuss of a few months about whether Barack Obama wears a flag pin frequently enough.

It’s encouraging to see that protesting U.S. policies with which you personally disagree is generally seen as more patriotic than wearing a flag pin.

My biggest disappointment with the poll is that it didn’t include any of what I call the “more-patriotic-than-thou” questions, which invariably produce amusing results.

For example, two years ago, Fox News gave us this report on one of its polls:

“Two out of three people (66 percent) say they think they are more patriotic than the average American, up from 57 percent last year (June 2005). One in five says they are as patriotic as others (20 percent) and 13 percent less so.

“Republicans (78 percent) are significantly more likely than Democrats (56 percent) to say they are more patriotic than other Americans.”

Big surprise there, right? To hear some Republicans tell it, their party invented patriotism while everybody else was plotting the downfall of our country.

But really, how stupid is it that most Americans think they’re more patriotic than most Americans? Obviously, they can’t all be right about that.

Of course, too many Americans, regardless of party, seem to regard patriotism as a competition.  (”I love America more than you do?” “Like hell you do! My goosebumps at the sound of the National Anthem are bigger than yours.” “Yeah, well the flag on my porch is bigger than yours.” “So what? I wear a flag pin in the shower. Do you?” “You wanna take this outside, pal?” “Any time, buddy.”)

As for me, I don’t consider myself more or less patriotic than most Americans.  I just want to wish everybody a happy Independence Day, whether or not you wear a flag pin.