Everywhere you look, there are people disgusted with the constant war rhetoric of the United States. In the past weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest President Bush and his hawkish plans for war with Iraq, but while such protests lead others to question their patriotism, it in fact makes them more American.

The current situation in many ways mirrors that of the peace movement during the Vietnam War. While many would say the peace movement of the 1960s and 1970s was nothing more than a blip on the political radar screens, there is a definitive resurgence of anti-war sentiment. Many of our parents took part in the protests of those turbulent years; are they less patriotic for having done so?

As much as more conformist groups would like to admit, the framers of our country were protesters of their government. They saw a system that was corrupt and malfunctioning and sought to change it for the better. The 250 people who were arrested in New York City Feb. 15 probably see themselves in the same light. Would the commanding faces of Mount Rushmore disapprove of such efforts? I, for one, could not imagine a Benjamin Franklin or a John Adams adhering to the rules of a government they deemed unjust and immoral.

Americans are growing uneasy as world opinion seems to be turning more and more against them. Britain, our closest ally, even boasted over a million people in London’s streets to protest what they see as U.S. imperialism. Are they wrong? Webster’s Dictionary defines imperialism as extending a nation’s authority by acquisition of territory; is that not what the United States is doing in Afghanistan, and what Bush plans to do by occupying Iraq?

What might the great thinkers of history say about our so-called patriotism? Voltaire said, “It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.”

George Bernard Shaw wrote: “patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”

If patriotism carries with it such ethnocentric virtues, I want no part of it.

None of this means that hippies are taking over; the “flower power” train has not yet left the station, but an ethical response is reacting to Bush’s warmongering. People are feeling compelled to voice their opinion, to exercise their rights in an attempt to prevent what they see has an unjust war.

It would be wrong to think protesters are in anyway un-American because they are using their First Amendment rights. We cannot take a fundamental liberty and turn it against a citizen.

Jeff Brubaker is a junior history major from Weslaco.