Patriotism, it is the act of having love and pride for one’s country. In the United States of America there has been a wave of patriotism ever since September 11th, 2001, some of which could be considered extreme. After that day Americans started to act a little kinder to one another, a little more helpful, but we also started looking around for one of “them”, one of the terrorists. We knew what to look for, Middle Eastern tan, preferably a turban as well. That is all it took. Foreign people were alienated due to fear of a terrorist attack and even hate. People wanted vengeance for the onslaught on the World Trade Center and some would do anything to get it no matter how wrong or illogical it sounded. President Bush took the American publics thirst for vengeance and turned it to his advantage. This led him to destroying the rights that we are given by the constitution by passing the Patriot Act and starting a war for his own profit. This act infringes on the rights given to us as citizens of this country (Charen 229). The extreme patriots stopped asking for explanations and just took our political leaders by their word. Yet, this country was founded because of people not wanting to accept tyranny, wanting to know why our leaders make the decisions that they do, and even placing safeguards such as the United States Constitution in order to protect the people from abuse and corruption that our leaders might partake in. The people of this country need to start asking “why” again, why do our political leaders make the decisions that they do, why do we need to give up some of our constitutional rights in order to protect us from terrorism. Blinded by extreme patriotism the American people were led to fear, war, loss of constitutional rights and can even lead to the destruction of the American society as we know it.