This isn't patriotism

[Jenn! 918]

Don't know if this has been posted, but it seemed timely with some of the threads lately:

By Geoffrey Nunberg, GEOFFREY NUNBERG

September 9, 2006

'WE WERE not Democrat or Republican on that horrible day. We were not liberal or conservative. We were Americans, by God!" As it happens, those sentences appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Sept. 13, 2001, but you could see the same thing everywhere you looked in the days and weeks after 9/11.

For a moment, it really did look as if everything was going to be different. "Sept. 11 made it safe for liberals to be patriots," George Packer wrote in the New York Times, as many of them found themselves hanging flags and making other unfamiliar gestures.

Thoughtful liberals denounced the "one-eyed left" — as Todd Gitlin describes them — who called the attacks payback for American crimes.

Thoughtful conservatives recoiled at assertions by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson that the attacks were God's punishment on abortionists, feminists, gays and the ACLU.

It couldn't have lasted. "America Unites," read the banner at Fox News in the days after the attack, but what it really meant was "Welcome aboard." For the last 30 years, after all, conservatives have treated patriotism as their own gated community.

"Patriotic liberal" may not be an oxymoron, exactly, but it's an unexpected collocation, like "dour Italian." On Google, it's outnumbered by "patriotic conservative" by 20 to 1. So the right took the liberals' tentative displays of patriotic feeling as an admission that they had seen the error of their America-blaming ways — a sign, as David Brooks put it in the Daily Standard, that "the most reactionary liberals amongst us are capable of change."

Yet liberals were hardly "rediscovering" patriotism; most of them had been deeply devoted to this nation all along. Even before the attacks, a large majority of Democrats described themselves as "very proud" or "extremely proud" to be an American — not quite as many as Republicans, to be sure, but still vastly more than the citizens of long-established nations such as Britain, France and Japan. Such unanimity isn't usually the stuff of which wedge issues are made.

BUT SINCE the Vietnam War era, liberals have been wary about the displays and avowals that have always given American patriotism its singular character. "It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it," Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1840. And Europeans ever since have marveled at our enthusiasm for showing our flag and expatiating on our national virtues — not just for the edification of foreigners but as a reproach to other Americans whose undemonstrativeness suggests a want of proper patriotic devotion.

It's a curious characteristic of American patriotism, in fact, that most of us think we're more patriotic than the next guy. In surveys, Americans greatly exaggerate the "patriotism gap," dramatically underestimating the proportion of their countrymen who say they're extremely patriotic. In a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, two-thirds of us — and 80% of Republicans — claim to be more patriotic than the average American. In short, we like to think that patriotism is a lot more exceptional than it actually is.

So it's no wonder that patriotic gestures are so often laced with partisan belligerence. Wearing an American flag in your lapel, the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan said approvingly a few years ago, is "a sign that says, 'I support my country, and if you don't like it, that's too bad.' "

And since 9/11, Republicans have taken with high zest to depicting Democrats as lacking in patriotism.

True, Republican elected officials tend to avoid the p-word itself. Sometimes the charge is made obliquely; during the 2004 campaign, Vice President ####### Cheney volunteered on at least 30 occasions that he wasn't challenging John Kerry's patriotism, often repeating the point so it wouldn't be lost on anybody. But President Bush and other Republican officials have made the message clear with language like "undermining troops in the field," "making politics the bottom line in the war on terror," "encouraging our enemies" and the recent "Defeatocrats."

And Republicans have been able to slough off Democratic suggestions that real patriotism might not include passing wartime tax cuts for the rich or slighting domestic security needs. How could Republicans be unpatriotic when the rhetoric of patriotism is theirs alone to deploy?

Still, it's striking how formulaic and awkward that rhetoric is coming to sound. It may be a wholly new type of war that we're watching on TV, but the score often sounds as if it were taken from "The Green Berets" — or maybe from "Watch on the Rhine," to listen to the administration's recent talk about "fascism" and "appeasers."

Rhetorical gestures take on new meanings when their connection to reality frays. Rebaptizing sauerkraut as "liberty cabbage" during World War I was a hysterical overreaction to a real enemy; rebaptizing french fries as "freedom fries" during the buildup to the Iraq war was a bratty swipe at an ally with reservations about the Iraq invasion, not to mention at the Roquefort-sniffing "liberal elite" that shared them.

You hear the same disconnect in the way people use "appeaser," "defeatist," "aid and comfort," "America-haters" and the like. The terms are meant to conjure up the spectral targets of patriotic bile in earlier eras — traitors, fifth columnists, subversives and radicals who harbored alien allegiances. But it takes a febrile imagination to see those shades in the Democrats whose subversion is confined to doubting whether throwing more dog tags at Iraq will give terrorists in London or Madrid second thoughts about mounting new attacks.

POLITICAL ATTACKS that sounded sinister in the McCarthy years now sound merely outlandish, as conservatives try to explain liberals' lack of patriotism as just another one of those blue-state lifestyle traits, like an aversion to Lynyrd Skynyrd or macaroni and cheese. Writing shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the National Review's John O'Sullivan explained that liberals' anti-Americanism was the reaction of snobs who believed that "the patriotism of ordinary people is something simplistic, vulgar and shameful," which is why liberals are more comfortable taking the side of "medieval Islamists" than of "a hard-hat construction worker or a suburban golfer in plaid pants."

You can't trivialize love of country more than that. If liberals are capable of bailing out on patriotism simply because it's tacky, how strong a hold could it have on any of us?

But then patriotism has never been so low-maintenance as now. Time was when "supporting the troops" obliged you to buy war bonds or go out on scrap drives. Now you merely have to slap a bumper sticker on the back of your Hummer. And even for the able-bodied, it's enough to support the troops from afar — you don't see conservative young women out in the streets handing out white feathers as emblems of cowardice to men who aren't in uniform.

The less it costs to proclaim yourself a patriot, the less someone else has to do to be accused of being unpatriotic — it's enough that he questions the wisdom of a policy or leaves his lapel pin on his other suit. That isn't how it was going to be.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/o...story?track=rss

[peezey 0]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

[keltic 1]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

[keltic 1]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

funny... i didnt say anything about dumbya... no need for insults or condescension

i would think that if you really support your statement, that it would apply no matter who the president is... i was just checking to make sure that i understood...

so, by your assertion, if by some freak of nature ralph nader were to become president and managed somehow to declare war, the country should not question him in any way?

Edited January 9, 2007 by keltic

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

funny... i didnt say anything about dumbya... no need for insults or condescension

i would think that if you really support your statement, that it would apply no matter who the president is... i was just checking to make sure that i understood...

so, by your assertion, if by some freak of nature ralph nader were to become president and managed somehow to declare war, the country should not question him in any way?

perhaps you can state then what other war has the above allegations?

tis obvious where you were going. again, thanks for playing.

[keltic 1]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

funny... i didnt say anything about dumbya... no need for insults or condescension

i would think that if you really support your statement, that it would apply no matter who the president is... i was just checking to make sure that i understood...

so, by your assertion, if by some freak of nature ralph nader were to become president and managed somehow to declare war, the country should not question him in any way?

perhaps you can state then what other war has the above allegations?

tis obvious where you were going. again, thanks for playing.

again, no need for condescension... i am not your inferior... it doesnt make your evasion of my question look like anything else than evasion

i wasnt "going" anywhere, i was asking for clarification... dont put something into my words that is not there... i have no hidden agenda... bush is not the only president who has waged war... nor is he the be-all-end-all... if i meant him alone, i would have specified... i wanted to know if you would still back your beliefs no matter who the president is... stop thinking in terms of republican/democrat or bush/antibush... think in terms of the country and its constitution... they were around long before bush was a twinkle in anyones eye & will remain so long after he is gone... so there is possibility of discussing the laws and ideas that this country were founded on without referencing only bush... that is a cheap way out of discussing the real point... dismissing me doesnt make my question any less valid... we obviously have different political viewpoints on some things... i dont care to try to change your mind... i was trying to understand you... perhaps a mistake on my part for doing so

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

funny... i didnt say anything about dumbya... no need for insults or condescension

i would think that if you really support your statement, that it would apply no matter who the president is... i was just checking to make sure that i understood...

so, by your assertion, if by some freak of nature ralph nader were to become president and managed somehow to declare war, the country should not question him in any way?

perhaps you can state then what other war has the above allegations?

tis obvious where you were going. again, thanks for playing.

again, no need for condescension... i am not your inferior... it doesnt make your evasion of my question look like anything else than evasion

i wasnt "going" anywhere, i was asking for clarification... dont put something into my words that is not there... i have no hidden agenda... bush is not the only president who has waged war... nor is he the be-all-end-all... if i meant him alone, i would have specified... i wanted to know if you would still back your beliefs no matter who the president is... stop thinking in terms of republican/democrat or bush/antibush... think in terms of the country and its constitution... they were around long before bush was a twinkle in anyones eye & will remain so long after he is gone... so there is possibility of discussing the laws and ideas that this country were founded on without referencing only bush... that is a cheap way out of discussing the real point... dismissing me doesnt make my question any less valid... we obviously have different political viewpoints on some things... i dont care to try to change your mind... i was trying to understand you... perhaps a mistake on my part for doing so

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

[Reynaldo 0]

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

What do you get out of this, Charles?

You are right, Bush doesn't deserve bashing, he deserves to be impeached.

But why do you people defend him? I don't understand...

And quoting facts is not partisanship....

ETA: Or do you want to argue that he lied in front of the congress to lead the USA into a useless expensive war?

Edited January 9, 2007 by Reynaldo

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

What do you get out of this, Charles?

You are right, Bush doesn't deserve bashing, he deserves to be impeached.

But why do you people defend him? I don't understand...

And quoting facts is not partisanship....

ETA: Or do you want to argue that he lied in front of the congress to lead the USA into a useless expensive war?

quite simply i'm waiting for him/her/it to prove that their statement was not aimed at bush. that would be like me stating any president who has oral sex in the oval office is a bum, yet deny that any such comment is aimed at clinton, as only one president is known to have done that (others might be suspected, sure).

he won't be impeached, that's wasting time. so get over it.

[keltic 1]

I think questioning your government and demanding accountability = patriotism/Americanism, and the Founding Fathers would agree. It's very dangerous when patriotism is defined as getting in line with a president, an idea, or a party.

it is during wartime. live with it.

so, then, that means that as long as the president can manipulate the ppl and congress to declare war, then he is above any questioning? if thats the case, then we will always be at war

ah yes, work in a bushjab. thanks for playing.

funny... i didnt say anything about dumbya... no need for insults or condescension

i would think that if you really support your statement, that it would apply no matter who the president is... i was just checking to make sure that i understood...

so, by your assertion, if by some freak of nature ralph nader were to become president and managed somehow to declare war, the country should not question him in any way?

perhaps you can state then what other war has the above allegations?

tis obvious where you were going. again, thanks for playing.

again, no need for condescension... i am not your inferior... it doesnt make your evasion of my question look like anything else than evasion

i wasnt "going" anywhere, i was asking for clarification... dont put something into my words that is not there... i have no hidden agenda... bush is not the only president who has waged war... nor is he the be-all-end-all... if i meant him alone, i would have specified... i wanted to know if you would still back your beliefs no matter who the president is... stop thinking in terms of republican/democrat or bush/antibush... think in terms of the country and its constitution... they were around long before bush was a twinkle in anyones eye & will remain so long after he is gone... so there is possibility of discussing the laws and ideas that this country were founded on without referencing only bush... that is a cheap way out of discussing the real point... dismissing me doesnt make my question any less valid... we obviously have different political viewpoints on some things... i dont care to try to change your mind... i was trying to understand you... perhaps a mistake on my part for doing so

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

i saw the highlighted part, and i DID answer you... i was not referring to ANY specific president... i can not change history and make what has happened with bush disappear... i will not lie and say that i think he is a good president... but that doesnt mean that i live only for taking shots at him either... im talking about the concept itself... this country will go on and there will be other presidents in the future... im not talking solely on the past...

and in regards to condescension... i was merely trying to discuss something with you... i have not dismissed you nor referred to you as anything lesser than myself... just because i dont wholehearted agree with everything you say doesnt mean i am condescending to you... i have not insulted you or your intelligence... there is no animosity in my posts asking you a question... yet you have accusations towards me and have tried to put words into my posts that werent there (ie, i didnt refer to ralph nader himself as a freak of nature... please reread my post... do you not think that it would be QUITE the surprise and statistical anomoly for him to pull enough votes to win? the most he has pulled in the past was somewhere around 5%, correct? that is a long way from 51%)... and the general tone of your posts are very condescending...

and since you are so intent on getting the answer to your question (which i have provided), how bout answering mine which was asked several posts before and in each of them after?

[keltic 1]

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

What do you get out of this, Charles?

You are right, Bush doesn't deserve bashing, he deserves to be impeached.

But why do you people defend him? I don't understand...

And quoting facts is not partisanship....

ETA: Or do you want to argue that he lied in front of the congress to lead the USA into a useless expensive war?

quite simply i'm waiting for him/her/it to prove that their statement was not aimed at bush. that would be like me stating any president who has oral sex in the oval office is a bum, yet deny that any such comment is aimed at clinton, as only one president is known to have done that (others might be suspected, sure).

he won't be impeached, that's wasting time. so get over it.

i am a she... you could check my profile if you really wanted to know, instead of the condescending "him/her/it"... and regarding your analogy, i do not think that clinton was the only president to have indescretions in the oval office... i think that would be very naive... i think he was the only one caught

i dont have to prove anything to you... i asked a question and you can answer it or not... nevertheless, my question is still simply what it is... a question... and no matter how hard you might try, you can not make it into anything other than what it is... a question regarding clarification of your beliefs about USCs not having the right to question their president if we are in a state of war... obviously you believe that now, while you support the president that is currently in office... my only curiosity is if you believe the same even if it was a president that you didnt elect or support... it doesnt matter WHO the president will be/is/has been for that question

Edited January 9, 2007 by keltic

[Reynaldo 0]

quite simply i'm waiting for him/her/it to prove that their statement was not aimed at bush. that would be like me stating any president who has oral sex in the oval office is a bum, yet deny that any such comment is aimed at clinton, as only one president is known to have done that (others might be suspected, sure).

he won't be impeached, that's wasting time. so get over it.

Well, he lead your country to war on the wrong purposes, and without any intelligence.

After that, he wasted thousands of Innocent American lives by letting this stupid war to continue.

And now, even though everyone is telling him that is a bad idea, he still insists on continuing this atrocity...

Those aren't partisan remarks, those are facts.

Directed to him or not, they are still facts.

He might still be the president, and it is still up to him to lead America for two more years, but that doesn't change the fact that he is a war monger, a liar and, lets face it, really stupid.

Edited January 9, 2007 by Reynaldo

[Alex+R 0]

see the highlighted part? still no answer? that says it all. you were just trying to be a bashbot. so much for you not having a hidden agenda. while you're on the topic of being condescending, is not your post such? and why refer to ralph nader in the same sentence as a freak of nature? dodge things all you want, you still can't specify what other president has those particular allegations against him. ergo, it's bushbashing. so much for your nonpartisan statement above.

What do you get out of this, Charles?

You are right, Bush doesn't deserve bashing, he deserves to be impeached.

But why do you people defend him? I don't understand...

And quoting facts is not partisanship....

ETA: Or do you want to argue that he lied in front of the congress to lead the USA into a useless expensive war?

(L)

Charles, I would think of "Bush-bashing" being a bit more like "what about a president who makes a lot of mistakes when he makes public speeches" or something not related to his policy. You can't call criticism of a president "bashing." Where do you draw the line? You need to think things through a bit before you use the "bashbot" label of which you are so fond.