An interesting point, but...

Brindrod's Guano Shovel Co.

The argument is that Carlos Delgado as a non-US-citizen (his words, not mine) should be ashamed at the hypocrisy he's demonstrating by refusing to reverence 'God Bless America' at games when he plays for an American company (Major League Baseball) and makes mega US bucks in return.

Last time I checked, Toronto, home of his team, the Blue Jays, was in Canada, so wouldn't he be getting Canadian dollars? Granted, Major League Baseball is an American corporation, but still, isn't that like saying that someone working for, say, Toyota, has to be gung ho/patriotic for Japan?

I don't see Delgado as a hypocrite. He's rather quietly protesting a war he doesn't agree with, not really doing so in a boorish way (Canadian hockey fans booing the US national anthem springs to mind) really, and that's his right. 'God Bless America' isn't, after all, even our national anthem, and therefore does not require the standard attention of the Star-Spangled Banner, even for American citizens (which, unless he's become a Canadian citizen, Delgado, as a native of Puerto Rico, is).

It's fine to be patriotic. It's not to be crazily patriotic. It is every American's right to protest, so long as he or she isn't injuring anyone by doing so. I know one person who feels so strongly that 'God Bless America' should be our anthem that she sits during 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. I think she's a bit cracked, but hey, it's her right.

Non-Americans, incidentally, are not required to reverence anyone's anthem but their own, although most avoid making a disturbance during another's out of respect. I'm not sure the majority of Americans could recognise--unless they're watching the Olympics--very many other national anthems, beyond, maybe, 'Oh, Canada!' and 'God Save the Queen'. And I know a lot of kooky Americans these days who would boo and hiss during 'La Marseillaise'. Okay, not personally, fortunately, but still, I saw a 'Boycott France' sticker on someone's car just yesterday.

Politics does strange things to people's heads. And this war, even more than most, seems extremely polarising, both in and out of country.