In the News
There's an epidemic of items in the news and in the blogosphere about patriotism. Here are some choice items:
Obama Will No Longer Wear An American Flag Pin
FOX News Poll: Nearly 1 in 5 Democrats Say World Will Be Better Off if U.S. Loses War
America's Identity Crisis (The Opinionator -- a New York Times Blog)
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 10/04/2007 06:14:00 PM
15 Comments:
You have a story there about how unpatriotic the Dems are compared to the Pubs. Meanwhile the neo-centrists of the GOP's current incarnation want open borders so big-donor corporations can fire American truck drivers and hire ones from the "global labor market". There's a disconnect here.
Teresita --
Dems ARE unpatriotic because they do not objectively love America. They prefer opinions of the smart set at Davos to ordinary working people (and are open borders / La Raza / pandering politics party #1).
Meanwhile, business is switching to Dems because Dems are far more Open Borders than Reps. McCain's implosion, Fred, Romney, and even Rudy being forced to mouth even if they don't believe it, anti-Amnesty/Open Borders measures, has torpedoed for now the replacement of US workers with cheap, compliant Mexican ones.
A recession if it comes (and it likely will) presents a huge choice: vote Reps and have labor restricted (lesser open borders) or vote Dems and get handouts (if you're the correct race -- i.e. Black and Mexican) while wages are lowered radically through a flood of immigrants.
Nevertheless, Dems clearly don't love America and are in fact ashamed of it.
The Fox Poll is validating something I've felt for some time that many on the left (probably more than 20%) are actively rooting for our defeat in Iraq.Which by extension means they are rooting for the death of American soldiers .Which means by extension they are traitors, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. I wonder if they're sending actual medical supplies or other material aid to our enemies like the New Left did during the Viet Nam war. They are "patriots"
like those were "patriots" who chanted "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win".I'm no Latin scholar,but doesn't "patriot" derive from love of the fatherland.I guess its okay if the fatherland is Woodstock Nation or The Internationale.
There have always been variations on the theme of patriotism. The term "little Englander" once meant anti-imperialist who sought a return to a time before Britain acquired her empire. To some degree the idea of "isolationism" was the concept of an America living separately from the stream of world history, which was full of wiley entanglements. Today some believe America should be part of a world order with "legitimacy" vested in the United Nations and governed, to all intents and purposes, by a transnational, enlightened elite.
Wretchard, just to be crystal clear, you're quoting Fox, the NY Times, and AP ... NOT the blogosphere. In other words, one of the lying electronic MSM, one of the lying paper MSM, and another entity made famous for its proselytizing faux photoshopping.
If it was three or four of the Pajamas Media blog/editors, I'd be concerned. Or at least interested.
But this is just more hysterical jumping the shark pseudo-news because American news organizations desperately do NOT want to talk about what the real news is: we're winning in Iraq.
I'm surprised that you're falling for it.
Kagan in the WSJ today said that Fox is not rightwing, merely old-fashioned. In that it views itself as a National, i.e. American broadcaster, not an "international" one. Like CBS, CNN, etc.
What happens when an elite no longer believe in their country, think it worth fighting for or dying for?
The elites are replaced or the nation is subjugated into slavery.
Senator Obama should not have politicized his choice of whether or not to wear an American flag pin.
I don't wear an American flag pin either, but my disinclination to wear such a thing has nothing to do with any political opinion I may or may not have. I simply don't feel like wearing one.
From my point of view, the true all-American reason for doing something or not doing something is one of the following.
I feel like it.
or
I don't feel like it.
"We're winning in Iraq."
That for some self-described 'patriots' would be the worst possible news. Suppose one believed in an un-America; one that ceased to be what it was. One with no borders; no nuclear weapons; no foreign interests; no carbon footprint. Suppose that were your nation. Then a victory in Iraq would be a triumph for your nation's evil twin. An alternative patriotism makes no sense without an alternative country.
Inside every country, but especially America, is another vision struggling to emerge. Recently I read a letter from non-Persian Iranians who were opposed both to the current Islamic regime and the old Persian regime of the Shah.
Raoul Salan, leader of the OAS, attempted to kill General de Gaulle over Algeria, yet considered himself a French patriot.
Ana Montes, a senior DIA analyst who spied for Fidel Castro and provided it with information that enabled it to arrange an attack on a Special Forces base in Latin America regarded herself as a patriot. She said at her sentencing:
My greatest desire is to see amicable relations emerge between the United States and Cuba. I hope my case in some way will encourage our government to abandon its hostility towards Cuba and to work with Havana in a spirit of tolerance, mutual respect, and understanding. Today we see more clearly than ever that intolerance and hatred -- by individuals or governments -- spread only pain and suffering. I hope for a U.S. policy that is based instead on neighborly love, a policy that recognizes that Cuba, like any nation, wants to be treated with dignity and not with contempt. Such a policy would bring our government back in harmony with the compassion and generosity of the American people. It would allow Cubans and Americans to learn from and share with each other. It would enable Cuba to drop its defensive measures and experiment more easily with changes. And it would permit the two neighbors to work together and with other nations to promote tolerance and cooperation in our one `world-country,' in our only 'world-homeland.'
Monte's speech is remarkable precisely because it is so ordinary. Her views would probably place her in the mainstream or even to the right of those in the radical set.
One could object of course that Montes was the vilest possible sort of traitor. But there would be no shortage of those who would counter-argue that this judgment was merely a prejudice; a form of bigotry: that Montes was not a traitor, but on the contrary a "true American".
The corruption of speech seems harmless at first, but gradually the results are lethal.
Alexis: Senator Obama should not have politicized his choice of whether or not to wear an American flag pin.
Okay, but could this be the reason Hillary is ahead of Obama by a jaw-dropping 33 points? (Hat tip Metuselah on EB)
Obama and others do not wear American flag pins because nations states are founded by and run by narrow, selfish interest groups. In their enlightened state Obama, Couric and the others have moved beyond the confines of national self interest and pledge their allegience to the international community, brotherhood of man, gaiea, or some other lofty abstraction.
Dissent in the US is a sacred right. True patriotism speaks truth to power. True patriots do not wear American flag pins because the flag is a symbol of the power of government, and government "gone wrong" is the antithesis of American ideals. Running blindly to this moral high ground is where the Leftie patriots go all wrong.
They are exactly right so far as their argument goes but when you strip the governmental institutions of power from the American republic you end up standing naked before...God. Yegads! The whole system is based on the notion that the inalienable rights of man come from God.
Like it or not American ideals move along a direct path from Abraham the Patriach to Abraham the President. If the "true" American patriot has already tossed God under the bus then were does he go for the truth to speak to power?
Abstracted allegience works only in academia where tenure protects you from having to interact with and compete in the real world. For the rest of us, aspiring politicians included, allegience must be sumsumed to institutions and community.
Dawkins and Hitchens be damned. C.S. Lewis got it right in the Abolition of Man.
The dysfunctional UN is the perfect foil for exposing this intellectual shallowness of the Left and why, in the long run, postmodern collectivism in the USA at least is doomed to the trash heap.
It seems to me that it comes down to either drawing a line in the sand and judging, or being determined that all men are created equal and all things are equal -- and not judging.
I refuse any stance that says the Middle East and/or Islam are my equals and I am not allowed to judge things like honor killings, female genital mutilation, and beheading civilians.
Equally, I'm not thrilled when I'm told I *have* to put myself on an equal footing with a thugocracy like Cuba and "learn" from them. Just ain't ever gonna happen. And there's no way the touchy-feely multi-culti's of Berkeley and the State Department can make me.
Wretchard wrote:
Suppose one believed in an un-America; one that ceased to be what it was. One with no borders; no nuclear weapons; no foreign interests; no carbon footprint. Suppose that were your nation. Then a victory in Iraq would be a triumph for your nation's evil twin. An alternative patriotism makes no sense without an alternative country.
That calls the ultimate nihilist anthem of leftism to mind: Imagine, by John Lennon.
As to Obama's flag lapel pin, I wrote about it last night.
Symbols are important. They are not meaningless. Does Obama take off his wedding ring when he has a fight with his wife? Does he remove his wedding ring as a protest against the empty symbolism of the ring, instead explaining to every Obama girl how he loves his wife and is committed to his marriage? Wouldn’t that explanation work better if he kept a ring on his finger?
Equally, taking off a flag pin when he wore one before is symbolic communication. It makes a statement of un-Patriotism. How postmodern of him. What an empty suit.
Montes only got 25 years for being a Cuban spy inside DIA for 16 years. The sentence seems a little short of the mark.
This world-country Montes talks about, perhaps that was the thinking behind a friend's question after 9/11: "What did we do to make them so mad at us?"
I always thought it was more the result of having spent a little too much time in the marriage counselor's office.
Everything doesn't reduce to kindergarten solutions. The history of mankind is the history of war. The way out of this Garden of Sorrows has traditionally been through Salvation, through Religion, through God and a better life beyond this one.
But of course for those who hold these world-country views, God is usually dead. So there's no way out, this is all there is. "Imagine there's no heaven," as it were.
Voltaire wrote about this mental condition, and someone named Pangloss was involved iirc. "This is the best of all possible worlds." But, that was a comedy, wasn't it?
Scarlett O'Hara at least appeared in a Tragedy when she moaned "Tomorrow is another day."
Liberals are just embarrassed to be Americans, because America is responsible for all the vile things in this world - McDonald's, Disney, Hollywood, God, war.
Obama's not a lightweight - THAT's the vote he's going for.
And since they despise my patriotism, I don't really hesitate to question theirs.
On that one thing I agree with the other Pangloss. This is the best of all possible worlds. However, it isn't Heaven.
I vacillate between the Standard Model and the Diamond Sutra, but neither is complete.
Whether this is the best of all possible worlds, Voltaire's conclusion is Buddhist - tend your garden. Like Chauncey Gardner.
You don't go to Life with the world you want, you go with the world you got.
Amen.
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