There’s no lucid, sensible, plain English way that those who want to make the nation better aren’t the truly patriotic.
Flip side: the self-proclaimed patriots aren’t conservative; they’re beyond that to all out reactionary.
Meanwhile, they’re believers and in a believer vs the fact-based, the latter will always lose.
Which brings to all the, uh, pro-pro choice votes: let’s see how many of those votes translate into Democratic votes. Judging from those pro-pro choice victories, 2024 should be a blue tsunami. Who knows? Maybe it’ll happen! But I certainly won’t bet on it.
Defining patriotism as blind, unswerving, canine-like loyalty to your country regardless of how your country treats you or how it treats others is a little like asking a wife to remain 100% devoted to her husband regardless of the fact he beats her and mistreats others because, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Also, the term “patriot” has been so abused by conservatives it is simply defined by them as “approval of anything OUR team does.” If you don’t agree, you’re unpatriotic. Sort of like the definitions of a “freedom fighter” and a “terrorist.” They both engage in similar activities, but the labeling is contingent on which side they are on. So if you carry a Confederate flag into the Capitol Building and take a shit on the floor, you’re a patriot. If you march in opposition to a war against civilians, you’re unpatriotic and maybe terrorist-adjacent yourself. I guess what I’m saying is I see those terms as having become so subjective they’ve been rendered meaningless.
Is it the United States as a geographic area defined on a map? Vast and containing beauty so profound it can make your heart ache to see it?
Is it the United States as an expression of your own desires and deficiencies? Strong, powerful, able to work its will without constraint?
Is it the United States as avatar of avarice? Wealthy beyond the dreams of people even a century ago, and yet miserly to the point of delighting in starving the poor to death?
Or is it the United States as an ideal? As the concept of freedom, equality, human rights, and all the lofty ideals we claim to believe in?
Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel, and it is unfortunate that the scoundrels get to define the term way too often.
I once knew a prof whose research had to do with using acoustics to detect damage in composite materials (remember that submersible that went all squish recently? They used this method and we can all see how well it worked out for them, can't we?)
Anyway, he once let it be known that he'd listen to these tapes at home, on his stereo. "Crack!" "Ping!" an early example of ambient "music." In my mind's eye I pictured a big reel-to-reel, some kind of Scandinavian-style leather recliner, and a glass of scotch.
Yeah, it's unfair to bring Billionaire Go Squish into it, I'm sure there are lots of applications now that are less disastrous, but I just couldn't help myself.
Used when you can't find a single other justification, practical or moral, for your position. "Eh, guess I'll have to reach into the ol' toolbox and pull out the 'Patriotism' club."
This is 2023, asking people to read the letters "bit" and not think computers and pronounce it that way is like asking people to listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.
It's a beautiful country, but the real United States is the ideal one. Those ideals would be worth following even if the whole continent was a desert (which I devoutly hope won't actually happen).
I think we're almost past the Genocides 'r us phase of The American Experiment. There's still some indigenous peoples left around but It's been a hundred years since we stole the last of the good land . Thanks to common sense public health standards we no longer have a large poor population jacked to the point of permanent bloodlust through close , casual proximity to heavy metals and dioxins.
“Thanks to common sense public health standards we no longer have a large poor population jacked to the point of permanent bloodlust through close, casual proximity to heavy metals and dioxins.” Surely that oversight can be fixed come the Restoration.
“Dissent is patriotic.” On the first leg of a cross-country motoring jaunt in 2010 my party overnighted in Whitehall, a flyspeck of a burg in southwestern Montana. To judge from its largely boarded-up downtown, the local economy had fallen off. Two or three hand-painted signs exhorted the locals (and where were they, anyway?—the streets were all-but deserted, although the vast clouds of voracious mosquitos at dusk may have accounted for this) to abjure “meth.” A church bore this message outside: “MEANINGFUL RESISTANCE TO GODLESS GOV IS A DUTY! RISE UP O CHURCH OF GOD.”
As we have learned, of course, dissent is only patriotic when that lot ain’t in charge. Otherwise, it’s treason.
Fuck that "Render unto Caesar" shit, pretty soon Caesar's building you a school or a library or subsidizing some kind of job-creating wind energy project outside of town, where does it stop? With your town not being some kind of irretrievable shithole, that's where.
I think it was the terrible magnitude of loss in WWI that transformed the concept of patriotism for the British, and a comparable — but much, much smaller and therefore less pervasive — loss in Vietnam that changed "patriotism" for some Americans.
Since WWI, "for King and country" is understood largely as a cruel joke at the expense of the British people. I was in London four years ago during the week leading up to Remembrance Day (their Veterans Day), and there is nothing like it in the U.S. Everywhere there are red poppies being sold to benefit veterans, and everyone wears them. The grounds around Westminster Abbey are covered with personalized memorials to soldiers who died, noting their regiments and sometimes their names, a physical acre of remembrance. The experience reinforced to me how the geographical isolation of the U.S. has impoverished our awareness of and understanding of history. (Not so for Canadians, as part of the Empire/Commonwealth.) Remembrance Day is solemn, universal, and about people; not about notions of national ideals or honor.
Have you noticed how, since Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial, American memorials have changed to a similar personalization? When Lin's design was introduced it was very controversial, with some veterans calling it a "black gash of shame." But that memorial has evoked a large and deeply felt response, even among the veterans who originally opposed it, and is honored and respected in a way the statue of an anonymous Civil War soldier on a plinth is not. After 9/11, many suburban communities in the NY metro area created their own small memorials with the names of residents killed in the Twin Towers.
The fact that there was any organized rite at an American WWI memorial, and that people showed up, to me illustrates that some Americans share this revision of "patriotism," and I think the fact that the Medal of Honor memorial names two individuals who lived nearby contributes to that understanding. (The bitter side of Tip O'Neill's "all politics is local?")
P.S. To illustrate, attached is a photograph of the WWI memorial in the suburban town where I grew up. The style is very much of its day — lofty, remote, impersonal. When I was four I called it "the lady with no pants on," and that's the epithet that stuck in my family.
"how the geographical isolation of the U.S. has impoverished our awareness of and understanding of history" Yeah. That's why the shitheels try to keep it from view. Things may be changing, though. Your insight on the "personalization" of memorials is astute.
And I appreciate the acknowledgement of Canada's differentiation. The small Canadian town without at least one war memorial from the last century is the small Canadian town that does not exist.
Canada's sacrifice (Vimy Ridge, for example) is what got the members of the Commonwealth semi-independent status; thus on the onset of World War II the prime ministers of the Commonwealth countries could *choose* whether or not to join Great Britain in their declaration of war. (All did, but not without some debate.)
There's a town just outside of St. John's, Newfoundland, still very proud to have hosted a Roosevelt-Churchill summit during WWII, with streets named after them, etc.
The British and Canadians have a much keener sense of the meaning of Armistice Day than we tend to for our repurposed Veterans Day. All but a tiny handful of English churches have grim, poignant memorials to the far-too-many lives cut short during the Great War.
Canada too takes it very seriously, with remembrances everywhere, even hockey players wearing poppies on their lapels. We were in Winnipeg on the 100th anniversary, and happened to be reading in a corner of the hotel lobby. At the eleventh hour of the day, a ceremonial guard entered the hotel lobby and played taps, while everyone stopped what they were doing in observance.
I live in the UK and I wish "for King and country" was understood largely as a cruel joke at the expense of the British people.
Rememberance Day was always a thing (it should be there is a cenotaph covered with local names in every village). For the last 10+ years there has been a huge increase in (forgive the phrase) "flag-shagging". Coincident with our right-wing leaders, Brexit, Unionism (with a capital U) and hagiography of the military dead while impoverishing the families they came from. It's fear of the future all the way down.
Full of wisdom and beautifully put. I appreciate the link to "To be a conservative means to be an asshole and, to the extent that policy figures into it, to endorse whatever policy makes you more of an asshole." I was hoping it would catch on as Roy's Law but no luck on that score yet. In a time when "patriot" means you love guns and want to see Anthony Fauci executed, I can see why young people might be wary of joining a club full of nothing but assholes. "Patriotism" is not supposed to mean "hate of country," and I think liberals have been mistaken not to define it correctly and embrace the idea, especially since liberal accomplishments have universally been to the benefit of all Americans, even to the "patriots" who want them dead.
And the flip side: "more people discovering why it’s better to be a mensch than an asshole."
This is where my optimism is coming from these days. Once you define your political party as "To be with us you gotta be an asshole" it leaves an opening for the opposition to simply say, "Hey, c'mon over, at least we're not assholes!" Which seems to be paying some benefits, because at the end of the day, most normal people really don't want to be assholes or spend their time hangin' with assholes.
I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been embarrassed to be a citizen of the United States. I love our country’s beautiful, diverse topography and many of my fellow citizens, but it’s hard to embrace our history and the current state of our politics and say I’m a patriot. Maybe if we ever move beyond being a military empire and coddling the fascists in our midst, I’ll feel differently, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for things to turn around and we seem to be no closer to that than the day I was born. So I engage in politics because giving up is not a choice but my true connection with America is her forests, mountains, lakes and deserts. I’d rather attend an Arbor Day celebration than another commemoration of the worst behavior humans can commit to in the name of patriotism.
Funny, I was thinking of the Debs quote all through that, and then he used it! But how American a way to think of it, no? I will say it's in the American spirit to synthesize universalist beliefs in a crude and sometimes magnificent but also sometimes counterproductive way. (Think of John Brown. Think of the temperance movement.) To own it as heritage is not to say there isn't a better way.
Yes, thanks for the link. Once you strip away the obvious bad uses of patriotism, what possible good use is left? Anything you might justify on patriotic grounds as "Good for America" could presumably be justified by some other, more humane reason (how can something be "Good for America" if it's not also good for Americans? And if it is, why bring patriotism into it at all?)
About this patriotism thing, unless you're marshalling the country for war, what is it good for? (Absolutely nothing, Huh!). What I mean is that I can't think of a single policy idea that I favor that can't be justified by simple human concern for my fellow humans, no need to bring America into it. I'm for single-payer not because it would be "Good for America", but because it would be good for millions of people who live here. Am I supposed to support the various renewable-energy policies in the Inflation Reduction Act because it "makes American more competitive with China in renewable energy"? Yeah, I can see that as pitch any politician would make to sell the thing, but concern about the impending destruction of the biosphere is quite enough for me, thank you.
The climate crisis is the best argument for universalism as an alternative to, or at least variant of, patriotism. No wonder we've choked it off until it's too late!
Yeah, but I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the facts that a) they were okay with poisoning children's milk supplies and b) they built elementary schools so shoddy they collapsed on top of the kids in them. I criticize Americans' unhealthy elevation of individualism, and this form of communism is just the other end of the spectrum.
Too late for 1.5C, and probably too late for 2C as well, but I figure 2.5C is still probably a lot less like Hell than 3C. Look at me, what a moderate I have become.
was thinking along these lines myself this weekend - my conception of "America" is that its stated values aren't a description but an as-yet-unfilled promise, and the greatest Americans - like Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, MLK - are those who takes those promises seriously enough to hold the country accountable to them.
Thanks for starting a list – certainly this is a worthy project in itself. I have not thought about it too much, but would immediately land on Douglass for sure, and in very short order Duke Ellington, George Seldes, Smedley Butler, Nina Simone...
Yes, King especially felt that "All men are created equal" was a thing to be leaned on, and to be leaned on HARD. Is that still the case today? More people are down with equality as just a generally good thing, and don't need the authority of the Founders to be convinced, plus the reputations of the Founders themselves haven't held up so well over the years.
These days, it seems more common to point back - if you're pointing back at all - to past social movements, and especially the most-respected of them all, the Civil Rights Movement. Advocates of trans rights, for example would be likely to point to earlier struggles for gay rights and civil rights and would probably think it crazy to go all the way back to the Declaration of Independence as a source of support. We just don't need it any more.
Altho, worst coming to worst, in that particular moment death might be sweeter than the suffering described...and of course it would be counted as a patriot's dream coda...
A considerable number of Democratic politicians seem to think this is how you fight against fascism and for democracy: By pointing out, once again, that democracy is an American tradition (as American as Chevrolet!)
But it doesn't do anything for me, fascism is fascism, and therefore bad, no need to bring the Founding Fathers into it, especially considering the problematic definitions they held for democracy.
But whatever, these are desperate times, I'm for whatever pitch gets us more allies, it's just that I suspect this one only pulls in about a dozen people and every single one of 'em is on the payroll of The Lincoln Project.
As usual, it's based on a complete misunderstanding of what makes conservatives: Believing that they're driven by a reverence for this country's traditions rather than hatred of those of us who point out some of this country's worst traditions. Couldn't care less about Thomas Jefferson until a jerk like me points out his slave-rapin'.
I always learn when you tackle one of the Capitalized words. I always looked at Patriotism as one of those naive ideals, the fulcrum of a Frank Capra move starring an all-American boy from a small town whose religious faith in the incantory power of the Founding documents summons the power of We The People to defeat the crooked pols. Growing up 1A during the Vietnam War I saw Patriotism in action, and later understanding what else was in those Founding documents sealed the deal for me. Like everything else in America, Patriotism was a scam to keep the hoi-polloi in line. But watching the collapse of the Great Experiment (a common reference to the idea of America a few hundred hears ago, one I always liked for its emphasis of the fragility of the enterprise) I see that naive idealism as a powerful weapon, if we have the wit and courage to grasp it. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but also the best hope for holding together a Great Experiment. Not a love of King and Country, but an Idea, one capable of being made more perfect if we want it.
I think you're right, Ray.
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay...
but ya doesn't have to call me johnson, Ray
Nailed.
Love It or Leave It lends itself to many potential discussions* with American fascists.
*Loosely defined.
I wonder what Dylan thought about all this?
"They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
There’s only one step down from here, baby
It’s called the land of permanent bliss
What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?"
Funny, I heard the first part in boy Dylan's voice and the last part in old Dylan's.
I was desperately searching for Dylan Thomas
sorry, he's Under Milkwood these days
There’s no lucid, sensible, plain English way that those who want to make the nation better aren’t the truly patriotic.
Flip side: the self-proclaimed patriots aren’t conservative; they’re beyond that to all out reactionary.
Meanwhile, they’re believers and in a believer vs the fact-based, the latter will always lose.
Which brings to all the, uh, pro-pro choice votes: let’s see how many of those votes translate into Democratic votes. Judging from those pro-pro choice victories, 2024 should be a blue tsunami. Who knows? Maybe it’ll happen! But I certainly won’t bet on it.
Defining patriotism as blind, unswerving, canine-like loyalty to your country regardless of how your country treats you or how it treats others is a little like asking a wife to remain 100% devoted to her husband regardless of the fact he beats her and mistreats others because, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Also, the term “patriot” has been so abused by conservatives it is simply defined by them as “approval of anything OUR team does.” If you don’t agree, you’re unpatriotic. Sort of like the definitions of a “freedom fighter” and a “terrorist.” They both engage in similar activities, but the labeling is contingent on which side they are on. So if you carry a Confederate flag into the Capitol Building and take a shit on the floor, you’re a patriot. If you march in opposition to a war against civilians, you’re unpatriotic and maybe terrorist-adjacent yourself. I guess what I’m saying is I see those terms as having become so subjective they’ve been rendered meaningless.
So yours was a refreshing take, Roy. Thanks.
a little like asking a wife to remain 100% devoted to her husband regardless of the fact he beats her
Covenant Marriage?
What do you love?
Is it the United States as a geographic area defined on a map? Vast and containing beauty so profound it can make your heart ache to see it?
Is it the United States as an expression of your own desires and deficiencies? Strong, powerful, able to work its will without constraint?
Is it the United States as avatar of avarice? Wealthy beyond the dreams of people even a century ago, and yet miserly to the point of delighting in starving the poor to death?
Or is it the United States as an ideal? As the concept of freedom, equality, human rights, and all the lofty ideals we claim to believe in?
Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel, and it is unfortunate that the scoundrels get to define the term way too often.
Good point about how words get abused in context. 'Stereophile' and 'pedophile' do not get the same treatment, do they?
That's because no one ever made you listen to a ping pong game on their stereo.
Ya got me there pal.
I once knew a prof whose research had to do with using acoustics to detect damage in composite materials (remember that submersible that went all squish recently? They used this method and we can all see how well it worked out for them, can't we?)
Anyway, he once let it be known that he'd listen to these tapes at home, on his stereo. "Crack!" "Ping!" an early example of ambient "music." In my mind's eye I pictured a big reel-to-reel, some kind of Scandinavian-style leather recliner, and a glass of scotch.
Yeah, it's unfair to bring Billionaire Go Squish into it, I'm sure there are lots of applications now that are less disastrous, but I just couldn't help myself.
We did lotsa destructive testing in the factory. Broke everything. We were a destructive bunch.
Yep. "Patriotism" operates as a condensed symbol, a wholly subjective one, that indicates you are on the "right" side of an issue or dispute.
Used when you can't find a single other justification, practical or moral, for your position. "Eh, guess I'll have to reach into the ol' toolbox and pull out the 'Patriotism' club."
I think there is more at work in that word.
It has always struck me as deferring to the father figure(s). 'Matriot' is never raised, even less so aspired.
I'mo hold out for 'Bitriot'. Who's with me?
Portmanteau of BitCoin and Idiot? The people who lost billions with SBF?
If 'patriot' and 'matriot get long "A" sounds, then 'bitriot' gets long "I". At least in my own personal cranium.
And you'll look sweet
Upon the seat
Of a Bitriot built for two
Steve, Steve...we both know I'd look sweet in any situation.
Good parents, an' all 'at.
I believe in bitrot. Does that count?
Unless it means "trots both ways". Maybe Worriedman can help us out.
This is 2023, asking people to read the letters "bit" and not think computers and pronounce it that way is like asking people to listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.
I don’t think being loyal to Bitcoin is a good idea.
"Bitriot" is what the punters will stage when they find out once and for all how much their fake money is really worth.
I do think "Matriot" could work for Liz Cheney.
Hearted-ish.
Well, I do have other names for Liz Cheney.
I bet you do.
As long as those word aren't hot or correct you should be fine
It's a beautiful country, but the real United States is the ideal one. Those ideals would be worth following even if the whole continent was a desert (which I devoutly hope won't actually happen).
I think we're almost past the Genocides 'r us phase of The American Experiment. There's still some indigenous peoples left around but It's been a hundred years since we stole the last of the good land . Thanks to common sense public health standards we no longer have a large poor population jacked to the point of permanent bloodlust through close , casual proximity to heavy metals and dioxins.
“Thanks to common sense public health standards we no longer have a large poor population jacked to the point of permanent bloodlust through close, casual proximity to heavy metals and dioxins.” Surely that oversight can be fixed come the Restoration.
Can't underestimate the effect!
“Dissent is patriotic.” On the first leg of a cross-country motoring jaunt in 2010 my party overnighted in Whitehall, a flyspeck of a burg in southwestern Montana. To judge from its largely boarded-up downtown, the local economy had fallen off. Two or three hand-painted signs exhorted the locals (and where were they, anyway?—the streets were all-but deserted, although the vast clouds of voracious mosquitos at dusk may have accounted for this) to abjure “meth.” A church bore this message outside: “MEANINGFUL RESISTANCE TO GODLESS GOV IS A DUTY! RISE UP O CHURCH OF GOD.”
As we have learned, of course, dissent is only patriotic when that lot ain’t in charge. Otherwise, it’s treason.
"And Jesus said, 'Render unto Caesar that which Caesar's.'"
Yeah, Son of God doesn't live in THAT house anymore.
Fuck that "Render unto Caesar" shit, pretty soon Caesar's building you a school or a library or subsidizing some kind of job-creating wind energy project outside of town, where does it stop? With your town not being some kind of irretrievable shithole, that's where.
So in that scenario, in re gettin' books from the local library...
Wait for it...
Neither a borrower nor a render be.
I think it was the terrible magnitude of loss in WWI that transformed the concept of patriotism for the British, and a comparable — but much, much smaller and therefore less pervasive — loss in Vietnam that changed "patriotism" for some Americans.
Since WWI, "for King and country" is understood largely as a cruel joke at the expense of the British people. I was in London four years ago during the week leading up to Remembrance Day (their Veterans Day), and there is nothing like it in the U.S. Everywhere there are red poppies being sold to benefit veterans, and everyone wears them. The grounds around Westminster Abbey are covered with personalized memorials to soldiers who died, noting their regiments and sometimes their names, a physical acre of remembrance. The experience reinforced to me how the geographical isolation of the U.S. has impoverished our awareness of and understanding of history. (Not so for Canadians, as part of the Empire/Commonwealth.) Remembrance Day is solemn, universal, and about people; not about notions of national ideals or honor.
Have you noticed how, since Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial, American memorials have changed to a similar personalization? When Lin's design was introduced it was very controversial, with some veterans calling it a "black gash of shame." But that memorial has evoked a large and deeply felt response, even among the veterans who originally opposed it, and is honored and respected in a way the statue of an anonymous Civil War soldier on a plinth is not. After 9/11, many suburban communities in the NY metro area created their own small memorials with the names of residents killed in the Twin Towers.
The fact that there was any organized rite at an American WWI memorial, and that people showed up, to me illustrates that some Americans share this revision of "patriotism," and I think the fact that the Medal of Honor memorial names two individuals who lived nearby contributes to that understanding. (The bitter side of Tip O'Neill's "all politics is local?")
P.S. To illustrate, attached is a photograph of the WWI memorial in the suburban town where I grew up. The style is very much of its day — lofty, remote, impersonal. When I was four I called it "the lady with no pants on," and that's the epithet that stuck in my family.
https://theclio.com/entry/45061
I have to say considering the name you gave it, the photos were something of a disappointment.
Thanks. A somber REBID needed a zinger.
"how the geographical isolation of the U.S. has impoverished our awareness of and understanding of history" Yeah. That's why the shitheels try to keep it from view. Things may be changing, though. Your insight on the "personalization" of memorials is astute.
And I appreciate the acknowledgement of Canada's differentiation. The small Canadian town without at least one war memorial from the last century is the small Canadian town that does not exist.
That's interesting, because I can't think of a combatant country in either world war that had less at stake than Canada.
Canada's sacrifice (Vimy Ridge, for example) is what got the members of the Commonwealth semi-independent status; thus on the onset of World War II the prime ministers of the Commonwealth countries could *choose* whether or not to join Great Britain in their declaration of war. (All did, but not without some debate.)
The eastern provinces got hammered in terms of honored dead.
"not without some debate" is deliciously understated.
In the "History does not repeat but it rhymes" department, the first trans-Atlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland, was in a Vickers Vimy.
There's a town just outside of St. John's, Newfoundland, still very proud to have hosted a Roosevelt-Churchill summit during WWII, with streets named after them, etc.
The British and Canadians have a much keener sense of the meaning of Armistice Day than we tend to for our repurposed Veterans Day. All but a tiny handful of English churches have grim, poignant memorials to the far-too-many lives cut short during the Great War.
Canada too takes it very seriously, with remembrances everywhere, even hockey players wearing poppies on their lapels. We were in Winnipeg on the 100th anniversary, and happened to be reading in a corner of the hotel lobby. At the eleventh hour of the day, a ceremonial guard entered the hotel lobby and played taps, while everyone stopped what they were doing in observance.
I live in the UK and I wish "for King and country" was understood largely as a cruel joke at the expense of the British people.
Rememberance Day was always a thing (it should be there is a cenotaph covered with local names in every village). For the last 10+ years there has been a huge increase in (forgive the phrase) "flag-shagging". Coincident with our right-wing leaders, Brexit, Unionism (with a capital U) and hagiography of the military dead while impoverishing the families they came from. It's fear of the future all the way down.
Full of wisdom and beautifully put. I appreciate the link to "To be a conservative means to be an asshole and, to the extent that policy figures into it, to endorse whatever policy makes you more of an asshole." I was hoping it would catch on as Roy's Law but no luck on that score yet. In a time when "patriot" means you love guns and want to see Anthony Fauci executed, I can see why young people might be wary of joining a club full of nothing but assholes. "Patriotism" is not supposed to mean "hate of country," and I think liberals have been mistaken not to define it correctly and embrace the idea, especially since liberal accomplishments have universally been to the benefit of all Americans, even to the "patriots" who want them dead.
And the flip side: "more people discovering why it’s better to be a mensch than an asshole."
This is where my optimism is coming from these days. Once you define your political party as "To be with us you gotta be an asshole" it leaves an opening for the opposition to simply say, "Hey, c'mon over, at least we're not assholes!" Which seems to be paying some benefits, because at the end of the day, most normal people really don't want to be assholes or spend their time hangin' with assholes.
I’m down with Roy’s Law, or something like that.
I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been embarrassed to be a citizen of the United States. I love our country’s beautiful, diverse topography and many of my fellow citizens, but it’s hard to embrace our history and the current state of our politics and say I’m a patriot. Maybe if we ever move beyond being a military empire and coddling the fascists in our midst, I’ll feel differently, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for things to turn around and we seem to be no closer to that than the day I was born. So I engage in politics because giving up is not a choice but my true connection with America is her forests, mountains, lakes and deserts. I’d rather attend an Arbor Day celebration than another commemoration of the worst behavior humans can commit to in the name of patriotism.
Arbor Day is a good alternative!
All Hail Johnny Appleseed!
Oof.
(Isn't this Genghis Khan?)
This is magnificently written, and I wish I could share its sentiments. But no patriotism for me. Here's the article that, for me anyway, nails it:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2001/11/12/goodbye-to-patriotism/
Funny, I was thinking of the Debs quote all through that, and then he used it! But how American a way to think of it, no? I will say it's in the American spirit to synthesize universalist beliefs in a crude and sometimes magnificent but also sometimes counterproductive way. (Think of John Brown. Think of the temperance movement.) To own it as heritage is not to say there isn't a better way.
Yes, thanks for the link. Once you strip away the obvious bad uses of patriotism, what possible good use is left? Anything you might justify on patriotic grounds as "Good for America" could presumably be justified by some other, more humane reason (how can something be "Good for America" if it's not also good for Americans? And if it is, why bring patriotism into it at all?)
About this patriotism thing, unless you're marshalling the country for war, what is it good for? (Absolutely nothing, Huh!). What I mean is that I can't think of a single policy idea that I favor that can't be justified by simple human concern for my fellow humans, no need to bring America into it. I'm for single-payer not because it would be "Good for America", but because it would be good for millions of people who live here. Am I supposed to support the various renewable-energy policies in the Inflation Reduction Act because it "makes American more competitive with China in renewable energy"? Yeah, I can see that as pitch any politician would make to sell the thing, but concern about the impending destruction of the biosphere is quite enough for me, thank you.
The climate crisis is the best argument for universalism as an alternative to, or at least variant of, patriotism. No wonder we've choked it off until it's too late!
Yeah, but I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the facts that a) they were okay with poisoning children's milk supplies and b) they built elementary schools so shoddy they collapsed on top of the kids in them. I criticize Americans' unhealthy elevation of individualism, and this form of communism is just the other end of the spectrum.
Too late for 1.5C, and probably too late for 2C as well, but I figure 2.5C is still probably a lot less like Hell than 3C. Look at me, what a moderate I have become.
Pro tip: if you push the "option" key and the "zero" key at the same time, you get "º".
That's where I got my degrees.
Thanks, but "option" key? What is "option" key? I got ctrl, fn and alt. None of them do me any good here.
I cannot help your choice of machinery, but can offer this ridiculous workaround:
"Hold down the "Alt" key on your keyboard. At the same time, press "0176" on your keyboard. Release the "Alt" key on your keyboard."
Life's too short...
The number of ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere ticks up one notch just in the time it would take me to do that.
was thinking along these lines myself this weekend - my conception of "America" is that its stated values aren't a description but an as-yet-unfilled promise, and the greatest Americans - like Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, MLK - are those who takes those promises seriously enough to hold the country accountable to them.
Thanks for starting a list – certainly this is a worthy project in itself. I have not thought about it too much, but would immediately land on Douglass for sure, and in very short order Duke Ellington, George Seldes, Smedley Butler, Nina Simone...
Yes, King especially felt that "All men are created equal" was a thing to be leaned on, and to be leaned on HARD. Is that still the case today? More people are down with equality as just a generally good thing, and don't need the authority of the Founders to be convinced, plus the reputations of the Founders themselves haven't held up so well over the years.
These days, it seems more common to point back - if you're pointing back at all - to past social movements, and especially the most-respected of them all, the Civil Rights Movement. Advocates of trans rights, for example would be likely to point to earlier struggles for gay rights and civil rights and would probably think it crazy to go all the way back to the Declaration of Independence as a source of support. We just don't need it any more.
Bitterly & with muich resignation, I add:
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(Wilfred Owen, pub. 1921)
Altho, worst coming to worst, in that particular moment death might be sweeter than the suffering described...and of course it would be counted as a patriot's dream coda...
This century has had its own experience with "froth-corrupted lungs." And it was worsened by some people's very bizarre conceptions of patriotism.
Since Freshman (high school) English I have never forgotten “Gas, boys—GAS! An ecstasy of fumbling…”
A considerable number of Democratic politicians seem to think this is how you fight against fascism and for democracy: By pointing out, once again, that democracy is an American tradition (as American as Chevrolet!)
But it doesn't do anything for me, fascism is fascism, and therefore bad, no need to bring the Founding Fathers into it, especially considering the problematic definitions they held for democracy.
But whatever, these are desperate times, I'm for whatever pitch gets us more allies, it's just that I suspect this one only pulls in about a dozen people and every single one of 'em is on the payroll of The Lincoln Project.
We few, we sappy few...
As usual, it's based on a complete misunderstanding of what makes conservatives: Believing that they're driven by a reverence for this country's traditions rather than hatred of those of us who point out some of this country's worst traditions. Couldn't care less about Thomas Jefferson until a jerk like me points out his slave-rapin'.
I always learn when you tackle one of the Capitalized words. I always looked at Patriotism as one of those naive ideals, the fulcrum of a Frank Capra move starring an all-American boy from a small town whose religious faith in the incantory power of the Founding documents summons the power of We The People to defeat the crooked pols. Growing up 1A during the Vietnam War I saw Patriotism in action, and later understanding what else was in those Founding documents sealed the deal for me. Like everything else in America, Patriotism was a scam to keep the hoi-polloi in line. But watching the collapse of the Great Experiment (a common reference to the idea of America a few hundred hears ago, one I always liked for its emphasis of the fragility of the enterprise) I see that naive idealism as a powerful weapon, if we have the wit and courage to grasp it. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but also the best hope for holding together a Great Experiment. Not a love of King and Country, but an Idea, one capable of being made more perfect if we want it.
Let's hope we do