I see that for some people, some dissent is patriotic and some is just evil thuggery.
Well to be honest I’m just a little ambivalent, as I have never believed the “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” crowd. I didn’t believe that phrase then, and I don’t believe it now. Furthermore, I have never believed that questioning someone’s patriotism is disallowed. Of course it is. Questioning someone’s patriotism IS a form of dissent, for goodness sakes. Maybe that questioning is fair, maybe it’s not, but it’s just a question. Ditto dissent; maybe any given dissent is patriotic, maybe it’s not. Just for the record, my rule of thumb is that when there are great issues at stake, it’s rather unpatriotic to question the other side JUST for disagreeing with you. Now, if while they’re doing it they’re calling America an evil place and slamming people who are pretty obviously sacrificing their lives for their country, sure, I think that’s unpatriotic.
I suppose if there are people screaming that President Obama is a scumsucking communist hellbent on destroying the country and doing his best to harm the world, there’d be some call for calling that unpatriotic. Short of that, I don’t see how dissent is really either patriotic or unpatriotic, it’s just dissent, and perfectly allowable.
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Agreed. But, you have to admit there is a serious double-standard on this tactic.
If the left doesn’t like something (Iraq war for example), they can call Bush “Hitler,” shut down freeways, protest all they want.
If the right exercises their right to protest, well ….Nazi storm troopers!
Mind you, I don’t think this double standard is necessarily the worst thing in the world. Life isn’t fair. But, surely, it exists, no?
Again, I think we should be having civil, constructive debate on the merits of this proposed health care reform, not these sideshows or political power plays. But, I am naive as one of our crankier commentators has noted.
–HB
If I think that Obama is a Blame America First socialist wanna-be who not only doesn’t support the constitution but actively wants to remake this country into a nation that does not follow the constitution (which he is sworn to uphold) am I allowed to say so?
Why wouldn’t you be allowed to say it?
Am I allowed to say I think such sentiments are ridiculously over the top, corrosive, destructive, and serve no good purpose for the country? I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to say that too.
I will give you this, I’ve always thought that partisanship ends at the nation’s shores and so I do give certain people more grief than others when it comes to those things. A lot of the “anti-war” people the last 8 years really made me sick. But, I’ve kinda given up being mad about it.
Indeed, I lost some friends over it. In some cases, I don’t regret that, in some I do.
But, I guess I was just naive. People say what they say, they believe what they believe. We have elections, and those who are elected are never perfect and can never please everybody. Expecting people to be anything other than flawed is always a fool’s game. And that’s really got to start with me.
I had an interesting conversation with my Chinese sister-in-law as she visited from Shanghai on this topic. She was wondering whether people opposing Obama were attacking the country (which is how they would be seen in China). I pointed out that there’s a difference between interfering with Obama’s exercise of his Presidential powers under the Constitution, which would be “attacking the country” versus opposing his policies through legitimate democratic channels, which would be “loyal opposition”. Loyal opposition would also include “hoping he fails”, if “failure” is defined as his inability in getting policies implemented that you disagree with.
Note that to my mind, war is different from most other policies. War is a very binary thing, and once a policy of war is pursued and troops are in the field, the question of whether starting the war was justified becomes a matter for historians. After troops are in the field, the only policy choices are whether the nation’s interests are best served by victory, “stabilization”, or defeat. Those who opposed the start of the war then need to present why they think defeat is better for the country.
And if they think the war was started under false pretenses, they need to present evidence and push for the impeachment of those responsible. But even if they’re successful, the policy choice matrix doesn’t change.
Unlike war, virtually all domestic policies like health care, education policy, tax policy, etc can be tweaked and even repealed completely without causing a calamity. Wars cannot be.
Foobar: Yeah, once a decision to go to war is made, I feel exactly that way about it.
Especially if that opposition is all about screaming about what an evil, awful country your own nation is. Which certainly not all “anti-war” people were or are, but failing to acknowledge that contingent is foolish. Or the contingent who actually rooted for our failure, and I -knew- people like that.
When it comes to domestic policy, I see more grey areas. Is it possible to oppose the government on, let’s say, health insurance reform, simply because you hate America and you want it to perish? I suppose that’s possible, but it seems hard to do that. I mean, you can say the proposed policies are really really bad, but, to be “unpatriotic” or whatever, wouldn’t you have to be saying you oppose (or favor) those policies because America is a bad country and you want its people to suffer? I guess it’s possible to have that notion, but…
“I oppose Highway Reconstruction Bill HR#1342, because America is evil and doesn’t deserve this pothole repair initiative!”
I don’t see that such reasoning can’t exist, but… ;-)
I suppose if there are people screaming that President Obama is a scumsucking communist hellbent on destroying the country and doing his best to harm the world, there’d be some call for calling that unpatriotic.
I don’t see anything unpatriotic about that statement. It is entirely criticism of Obama, his motivations and intentions.
I’m still confused about patriotism. I don’t think of myself as a patriot. There’s some really great things and about America and some things I think are really shitty. I don’t think America has a special place in the world. It is just another country.
Now, I have no wish or desire to see the country come to harm. I do wish to see the dictators (the people and systems) that prop up North Korea or Iran come to harm.
So, I’m not a patriot I suppose. Still not sure exactly what that entails.
This isn’t supposed to be trolling by the way. This is not meant to bait anyone.
I have denounced myself to flag@whitehouse.gov
Dean:
I suppose you can think my opinion of Obama is anything you want to think, and you can certainly say whatever you like.
I stand by my analysis of the man and his policies, and I see strong evidence that more and more people in this country are coming to see it my way. In other words, MY view of Obama is the currently GROWING view of the man and his policies. We’ll see how it ends up, but so far it’s been a steady stream of people in this country essentially saying “Geez, he really IS a blame-America-first socialist wanna-be who wants to remake this country into something other than what the constitution says it is.”
I think that’s a pretty basic, factual statement about the man and his policies.
I certainly don’t think it’s “over the top” or “destructive” or “corrosive.” In fact I’m disappointed that you choose to react that way.
What I think would be “over the top” or “destructive” or “corrosive” would be if I were to, say, call him a Nazi, or call him a Stalinist, or routinely compare him to the world’s most despicable despots. Or if I were to claim that he was pursuing his policies due to misplaced revenge for how his father was treated. Or if I were to claim that he is congenitally stupid. Or if I were to constantly accuse him of having brain damage due to drug use.
You know, if I did any of that stuff the LEFT did routinely about Bush for the past 8 years.
I am starting to wonder if you can see the difference between my position on Obama and the general Nutroots blind hatred of Bush.
There is a difference. Not only do I think my comments are supportable and reasonable (and fit for polite company) I think the fact that they are becoming a MAJORITY opinion of the man pretty much vindicates me and indicates that it is in fact YOUR REACTION to my opinions that is “over the top” and “destructive” and “corrosive.”
Josher71,
If you don’t see anything exceptional about American then, yeah, I can see why you don’t understand patriotism.
I, OTOH, see America as an aberration in history. A strange wave in the ocean of time that is going right when everything else is going left. Where oppression and might-means-right has been the status quo for all of human history, then along comes this queer (and I mean that in the classic sense) nation that says, “No, we the people have rights, and you that govern us only do so by our consent!”
America may be just another nation in the world, but the world is a better place because of it.
Josher: Well, I’m not sure where the confusion is. If you’re not patriotic, then, you’re not. So if I question your patriotism, have I done something wrong? I’m not sure I have.
Of course, there’s a trick in there, which is that sometimes if I question your patriotism, I’m actually saying your patriotism runs in a negative quantity, i.e. you’re anti-American. But really, that’s not the same thing, although sometimes we use the word that way.
In any case, many of us esteem patriotism as a high value. So, if you lack patriotism, well, our reactions vary from feeling a little sorry for you, to wondering what your motives are when you say certain things. Depending on the context.
I’ve occasionally questioned the patriotism of some people. Usually, it’s been people who claimed to be proud patriots but then appeared to act in a manner that strongly belied it.
Cosmic: Did you know that when I was 20 years old, the Libertarian Party was America’s third largest AND fastest-growing political party?
But then that became the Reform Party. Now I think it’s the Green Party.
By the way, were you around when the left was running around screaming that just because disaffection with the Bush administration was growing, and his poll numbers were flagging, that proved everything they ever said about how he was a closet dictator usurping all our precious civil rights in his crazed quest to lie us into a war for oil in the Middle East?
One of the things I long ago noticed about such growth is that it appears to always involve a group of people who are with the movement on a small handful of issues, many of them really rather short-lived issues–and that these people usually formed the majority of the supposed growth.
But hey, it rallies the troops right? :-)
You know, at one point, I was growing at a rate of 6 inches a year. Alas, somewhere along the line I seem to have stopped short of 20 feet.
:-)
It occurred to me that maybe this is deliberate provocation.
“Hey, how can we tweak those right-wingers to make them foam at the mouth and discredit themselves?”
I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that it might have.
That struck me as disturbing.
Dishman: Honestly, I don’t think so. Especially because really, most right-wingers aren’t foaming at the mouth. The ones foaming are mostly the ones who always foam.
And, many on the left really do believe they’re standing at the ramparts of freedom protecting the world from evil right-wing thuggery. That’s nothing new either, and I think that’s also obvious when you watch it all in the media.
Dean,
The largest third party in the U.S. is the Constitution Party.
From Ballot Access News 12-01-08:
They’ve been the largest 3rd party in the U.S. since 2000.
Though, strangely, Wikipedia makes contradictory claims about the size of the party. It uses the above information to source the claim that the Constitution Party is the third largest party in the U.S., but makes an unsourced claim it’s the fifth largest. Given the above data is a little over a year old, and is from an independent source, I’d go with it.
Kev: VERY interesting! If I recall right, the Constitution Party used to be the U.S. Taxpayer Party, and the U.S. Taxpayer party was started by a group who splintered off from the Libertarian Party because they decided that the social liberalism of the Libertarians was too much for them.
If I have that right, then the Libertarian Party still ultimately wins! (Uh, I’m not sure what they win, but it seems like they must have won something…)
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