Some people often cringe when they hear the word "patriotism."

They hear the word and associate it with mullet-headed morons singing "Born in the U.S.A." They think of the American flag used as thoughtless ornamentation on massive, black trucks. They think of ideologically cynical businessmen who follow the American dollar instead of America itself.

What they don't know is the word has been stolen. It has been stolen by flag-waving, false patriots who have perverted it into their own blended brand of neoconservative, corporate, bumper-sticker patriotism. What they don't know is in this great country the word "patriotism" once meant something vastly different.

It stood for change, enlightenment and even justice. It's time for us to take patriotism back and reveal these red-white-and-blue frauds for who they really are.

Fake patriots silence dissent. These big-mouths will shout down real patriots in a conversation, bullying them with the volume of their voice. So, when a hypothetical war is brought up, they'll be the ones to stand up and demand unwavering loyalty to the troops.

We've seen firsthand where their kind of patriotism gets the U.S. - nowhere. All this talk of honor and bravery is to hide the fact that these people have a love affair with ignorance and death. After all, it was their kind of patriotism that got those very same troops killed.

Yet they still say dissent is unpatriotic. Sadly, dissent was the very patriotic action needed to save our troops and keep them out of harm's way.

True patriotism enriches the country, it doesn't harm it. Take, for example, the founding fathers. Flawed human beings though they were, they still appealed to higher ideologies than those available at the time. The status quo said obey the king, and they, being radicals, decided not to.

They fought against the status quo. They fought against the evils of traditional politics and bravely discovered the freedoms we now enjoy in the modern age. They dissented.

In other words, America was founded on liberalism. America was founded in a liberal age - the age of reason. It was founded by freethinking patriots, unafraid to change the wrongs they saw in the world.

Ironically enough, fake patriots don't want us to think. They want us to accept. Fake patriots want to cling to the oppression of the past, just like they wanted to cling to King George III in the Revolutionary War.

Luckily, history isn't on the side of the fake patriot. Newness has been the backbone of American society from democracy to the space shuttle. Newness liberates us from the antiques of history, including tyranny. History is progressive. History evolves.

This evolution is fueled by progressive minds who don't mind working for the future instead of the past. They do the right thing for the country - they do the patriotic thing. Instead of ignoring harmful flaws and calling it patriotic duty, they stand up and loudly proclaim what is wrong with the country.

When they see an inadequate government, they change it. When they see Jim Crow laws, they change them. When they see economic depression, they change it. When they see a bad war, they change it. When they see poor health care, they change it.

Change is the driving force of this country.

Yet, once again, fake patriots are there to make sure things don't change. They want to keep the corporations wealthy and the underclass poor. They want common Americans to happily wave their flags to distract them from their real patriotic duties of thinking constructively about their government. Then they manufacture a lie that says if you question America, you're unpatriotic.

When people question America, it's not because they hate America and they're unpatriotic. It's because they love America and want it to improve. If someone sees a loved family member falling into a destructive lifestyle, they do the right thing and try to help them out. If they kept their mouth shut and said their family member was "doing tremendously well in life," who knows what would happen?

It's the same thing with America. To put a muzzle on freedom and say "It's OK, you don't need to change," is the very opposite of patriotism. It's conceptual fascism that makes us prisoners of our own flaws.

So I have an answer for those who say, "Don't badmouth America! I'm a patriot!"

Well, so am I. But the difference between my patriotism and yours is mine doesn't destroy a country.

Isaac DeVille is an MSU English junior and State News columnist. Reach him at devillei@msu.edu.