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defrogRudy Giuliani is on TV again for some reason – though when it’s Fox News, “randomly bashing Obama” is as good a reason as any to put anyone on TV, I suppose.
Anyway, Rudy has been going around talking about how Obama hates America and can’t possibly love it as much as Rudy does, because 9/11.
It’s kind of a bizarre spectacle – it’s like someone entering into the middle of a conversation and offering an opinion on a completely different topic as though that’s what you were talking about all along. Except that a given number of people in the room (or in this case, everyone in the room where he was speaking at the time) fully agree with his opinion, however irrelevant it might be to the immediate topic, and let him have his say because hey, fuck Obama.
Anyway, the subsequent reaction has gone pretty much the way you’d expect:
The only useful comment I’ve read about it is this piece from The Economist, which points out – correctly – that patriotism doesn’t have to be unqualified and unquestioning to be genuine.
More importantly, it makes the point that of course minorities are more likely to have a more complicated view of America precisely because they’ve been victims of discrimination and bigotry, but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of patriotism:
This is why conservatives always come across as disingenuous to me when they play the Love It Or Leave It Patriotism card like this. I don’t mean they’re fake patriots (though some may be) – I just think they’ve put no real thought into it. They don’t love America so much as have a teenage crush on it. The feeling may be real, and it’s hard to tell the difference from True Love, but it’s superficial and completely out of touch with reality.
Which is downright dangerous when someone like Joe McCarthy acquires the stature to wield patriotism like a drunk waving a gun around. Or when you start applying that test to things like, say, history textbooks. You won’t make America a better country by pretending it’s never done anything wrong.
But then I don’t have a lot of use for patriotism anyway. I understand the necessity of it for a job like POTUS. But it doesn’t impress me. And I’ve always resented people using it as some kind of litmus test to determine your worth as a person. It’s both stupid and lazy.
George Bernard Shaw was right.
No one understands you like I do,
This is dF
Anyway, Rudy has been going around talking about how Obama hates America and can’t possibly love it as much as Rudy does, because 9/11.
It’s kind of a bizarre spectacle – it’s like someone entering into the middle of a conversation and offering an opinion on a completely different topic as though that’s what you were talking about all along. Except that a given number of people in the room (or in this case, everyone in the room where he was speaking at the time) fully agree with his opinion, however irrelevant it might be to the immediate topic, and let him have his say because hey, fuck Obama.
Anyway, the subsequent reaction has gone pretty much the way you’d expect:
Liberals: That’s racist.
Conservatives: No it’s not. And anyway, Obama can't possibly love America because he’s a black guy and a liberal, and look how badly we’ve treated them.
Conservatives: No it’s not. And anyway, Obama can't possibly love America because he’s a black guy and a liberal, and look how badly we’ve treated them.
The only useful comment I’ve read about it is this piece from The Economist, which points out – correctly – that patriotism doesn’t have to be unqualified and unquestioning to be genuine.
More importantly, it makes the point that of course minorities are more likely to have a more complicated view of America precisely because they’ve been victims of discrimination and bigotry, but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of patriotism:
The ardent and unclouded quality of love that Mr Giuliani and Mr Williamson find missing in Mr Obama is largely the privilege of those oblivious of and immune to America's history of injustice and abuse. Those least aware of historical oppression, those furthest from its living reality, will find it easiest to express their love of country in a hearty and uncomplicated way. The demand that American presidents emanate this sort of blithe nationalism therefore does have a racist and probably sexist upshot, even if there is no bigotry behind it.
[…] where Mr Giuliani sees a half-hearted allegiance to the fatherland, some of us see instead evidence of education, intelligence, emotional complexity and a basic moral decency—evidence of a man not actually in the grip of myths about his country. A politician capable of projecting an earnest, simple, unstinting love of a spotless and superior America is either a treacherous rabble-rouser or so out of touch that he is not qualified to govern.
[…] where Mr Giuliani sees a half-hearted allegiance to the fatherland, some of us see instead evidence of education, intelligence, emotional complexity and a basic moral decency—evidence of a man not actually in the grip of myths about his country. A politician capable of projecting an earnest, simple, unstinting love of a spotless and superior America is either a treacherous rabble-rouser or so out of touch that he is not qualified to govern.
This is why conservatives always come across as disingenuous to me when they play the Love It Or Leave It Patriotism card like this. I don’t mean they’re fake patriots (though some may be) – I just think they’ve put no real thought into it. They don’t love America so much as have a teenage crush on it. The feeling may be real, and it’s hard to tell the difference from True Love, but it’s superficial and completely out of touch with reality.
Which is downright dangerous when someone like Joe McCarthy acquires the stature to wield patriotism like a drunk waving a gun around. Or when you start applying that test to things like, say, history textbooks. You won’t make America a better country by pretending it’s never done anything wrong.
But then I don’t have a lot of use for patriotism anyway. I understand the necessity of it for a job like POTUS. But it doesn’t impress me. And I’ve always resented people using it as some kind of litmus test to determine your worth as a person. It’s both stupid and lazy.
George Bernard Shaw was right.
No one understands you like I do,
This is dF
