The armed protest organized at a Phoenix Mosque in the U.S. by an ex-Marine and the “leave our country”, “no place for violent Moslems in America” rhetoric of the rest of the organizers go on to show how the very idea of American patriotism is complicit in promoting prejudice against Muslims and minorities. I was just going through the event page of the protest and I am honestly beyond disgusted at the amount of vile, racist, Islamophobic hate speech patriotic Americans are spewing on that page. It’s not really a surprise when Americans wars to “protect freedom” have killed four million Muslims and patriotic soldiers kill Afghan civilians for sport. But let me ask you, which democracy is it that you are trying to protect that involves imprisoning children? How does torture and abuse of inmates protect human rights? How do systematic economic sanctions that kill a million children uphold ideals of freedom and equality that America is supposedly built on? The harassment of peaceful citizens by inviting people to gather outside a mosque after Jumma prayer and asking them to engage in a ‘Draw Muhammad’ contest to disrespect believers goes on to show that such Islamophobia cannot be divorced from American patriotism espoused by imperialist wars. American patriotism effectively represents and reinforces the social hierarchies through exclusion of the “terrorists others” from American citizenship. You believe your own constitution allows you the right to harass and target innocent citizens and call it free speech, then clearly your constitution believes that a privileged few deserve more freedom and equality than the rest. Thank you, dear America, for teaching us how democracy works.