Patriotism is the refuge of tyranny. Devil's advocate series no 14.

1. Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

2. I would make some adaptations about what Leo Tolstoy said regarding this. 

3. He said patriotism means plundering. 

4. I would say patriotism is the first excuse to plunder 

5. The state uses patriotism to ask ordinary people to impoverish themselves for the splendour and the decadent life of the elite, the aristocrats. 

6. The elite leverages on the blind support of ordinary for their interests. 

7. That is why somebody said, to say someone is patriotic is an insult and a disrepute. Deserving of odium, contempt and public revulsion. 

8. Because it can mean that person is a plunderer. 

9. In Malaysia, only 1 party unashamedly uses patriotism for it nefarious and víle ends. 

10. That political party is UMNO. Patriotism is used to justify plundering, theft and everything it wants . 

11. Patriotism to UMNO is no longer restrictions to love and loyalty to the country and to other socially accepted parameters chosen by UMNO

12. But more importantly, its love and loyalty to UMNO and it's leaders. 

13. Sure, the ordinary UMNO people get their 10 minute-fame at the PAU cracking jokes and making rhetorical speeches, but that's about it. 

14. They get free lunches and perhaps entertained by concerts. 

15. Giving credence to the saying originating since roman times, bread and circuses make people happy and contented. 

16. Coincidentally, maybe the Romans learnt the trick from the Malays who taught them shipbuilding. 

17. But the plunder and the sakau are being carried out by UMNO leaders, elite and neo feudals. 

18. Hiding behind the much heralded slogan of PATRIOTISM. 

19. The proposition asking us to be patriotic is a proposition fraught with dangers 

20. We ought to be weary and circumspect of it. We are asked to look the other way, while people and leaders asking us to be patriotic plunder, steal and do all nefarious and vile deeds , carry out harmful policies that suppress and oppress and so on 

21. Let me give you a recent example. One that looked innocent on the surface but actually has deeper bad implications. Silly, oppressive and bad economics . 

22. The case of BYD refused license to open up CKD plant in T.malim. 

23. It's patriotic because the refusal protect domestic player like proton and Perodua. 

24. Syabas and takbir say the petai eating Malay supremacists. A patriotic move, BYD is from China anyway. The car seats maybe pig skinned. Haram! 

25. I am asking people to be rational. BYD isn't competing with makers like proton and Perodua. 

26. It's competing with makers of range Rover, Audi , VW, Honda, Toyota, Ford and even Mercedes. 

27. The refusal is oppressive, repressive, irrational and economically unduly constraining 

28. Because the refusal deprives people from getting access to a reliable brand with low maintenance. 

29. But we are told to be patriotic. 'ita so goot ' Awang San. Hait! Jolly good. Jawohl! 

30. In Brazil, BYD was blacklisted because of its labor practises, not for it's manufacturing and technology prowess. 

31. What happened to BYD in Malaysia is an example of tyranny hidden behind patriotism. Indeed, patriotism is misused for other purposes too. 

32. Racial patriotism leads to the imposition of master race on other races. Recently , it also led to the attribution of superman qualities onto Malays by intellectual fraud. 

33 . Economic patriotism justified economic grab and predation of businesses owned by non malays 

34. It has led to the unchecked expansion of central command economic measures or ' solution' 

35. A supervisory body consisting of politicians and 'gas chamber' komandants give licenses, monopolies and untendered contracts to picked and chosen individuals . 

36. Religious 'patriotism' has led to bigotry and outright tyranny. 

37. It has led for example to the maniacal claimed to be evangelical, destruction of temples. 

38. In the name of fairness and justice, I have asked this question. 

39. Many suraus were also built on government trespassed land; will these be mercilessly demolished? 

40. Patriotism to king has been borrowed to enforce authoritarian and dictatorial impulses.