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October 29, 2007
Sigh
I fear David Samuels is right, and I just really don't get how patriotism works.
October 29, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
OK, let me explain: if you criticize Republicans, that's criticizing the troops and unpatriotic. If you criticize actual troops, that's criticizing traitorous liberals and therefore patriotic. If you criticize the Republican approach to health care, you are attacking helpless children and unpatriotic. If you seek to deny health care to helpless children, you are enforcing moral standards and therefore patriotic. And so on....
Posted by: calling all toasters | Oct 29, 2007 7:21:23 PM
Samuels is right and you blew it, Ezra.
Although I think the graph should have been made even better with the following changes:
- Change the purple bar for New Zealand into a stupid looking Kiwi.
- Germany to be represented with a swastika.
- OECD - get rid of it. Who are these guys?
- United Kingdom - some bad British teeth
- Australia - a can of Foster's
- Canada - a hockey stick with an asterisk (that cites Bjorn Lomborg's skepticism that it's statistically meaningful)
- Japan - mushroom cloud
Posted by: Quiddity | Oct 30, 2007 1:08:16 AM
Patriotism is easy, except you first have to love your country.
Think of patriotism to your country as you do loyalty to your family members. You give them more consideration than you do others because they are your family. There is a bond of loyalty that is above most everything.
Similarly, patriotism is loving your country and giving it more consideration than other nations for exactly the same reasons and producing the same bonds of loyalty.
Hope this clears things up for ya'
Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 30, 2007 10:38:56 AM
ElV, Democrats love their country like New Yorkers love the Yankees-- demanding the best out of them, have no problem getting pissed off at Steinbrenner, accept that Joe Torre needs to be let go when his time is up, and have no problem booing when someone does something particularly egregious. You ever hear someone who hates the Yankees say, "they really need to improve their pitching. Maybe if they made a few trades and got a better line-up" ?
Republicans love their country like Pittsburghers love the Pirates-- continually willing to fork over hundreds of millions for new stadiums over and over and over again, without question, and get angry if anyone questions this exploitative arrangement or criticizes the performance of the team, particularly when the team underperforms year after year.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 30, 2007 12:42:16 PM
Here is the acid test, Tyro and it's a 'YES' or 'NO' question:
Do you give your country more consideration than you do other countries simply *because* it is your country?
If you can answer with an unqualified "yes", then I will be proud of you and will never question your patriotism If, however, you answer "no" of give some nuanced harangue full of conditional responses, then you're busted.
Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 30, 2007 12:53:59 PM
ElV, I am more concerned about the bad pitching of the Yankees than I am about that bad pitching of the Mariners. So yes, in that sense, I do give them more "consideration." I care about the issues and problems of my own country a heckuva lot more than the shortcomings of other countries.
What I call "more consideration" is "higher demands/expectations." What you call "more consideration" is a childlike/weak-willed "willing to cut more slack."
This is something non-Yankees fans will never be able to understand.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 30, 2007 1:01:40 PM
What I call "more consideration" is....blah...blah...blah...blah...
I thought as much. You just can't do it, can you?
Do the people in your family understand that you'd throw them all under the bus, but in a 'thoughtful' and 'nuanced' way explaining the whole time why your 'reflective' and 'conditioned' position is the correct one....all while the wheels squash brains out of their head?
Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 30, 2007 7:59:32 PM
So, according to El Viajero, Tyro is not patriotic and doesn't love his family. As such, he treats all people with the level of consideration due from any human being to any other human being regardless of relationship -- as strangers, in other words.
Therefore, he'd throw them under a bus.
In short, El Viajero takes it as a given that people outside of one's family or country exist to be abused and killed, and are not even owed the negative right to not be thrown under a bus.
That's not how ordinary folks regard matters.
Posted by: Julian Elson | Oct 31, 2007 12:11:06 AM
In short, El Viajero takes it as a given that people outside of one's family or country exist to be abused and killed...
Julian,
In all honesty, I believe your desire to trash someone has forced you to make an absurd arguement, and not in good faith.
The point is, family takes precedence. They get more consideration than strangers. That's what makes them "family" and *not* strangers.
To a patriot, your country also takes precedence and your country also gets more consideration than foreign countries.
It's just that simple and yet, I sometimes believe that it would break the jaws of liberals to utter such declarations of loyalty.
And then they all wonder why they have constantly, over the years, have fought the label of "un-patriotic". Mystery solved.
Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 31, 2007 9:17:04 AM
Not only that, Julian, but ElV is too stupid and illiterate to read and understand any answers anyone gives to him.
Someohow, he expects that patriots should give more "considerastion" to their home country, but when people crtiticize their own president -- giving him consideration they don't give to presidents of other countries -- he gets all offended and throws a tantrum that the criticizer isn't being patriotic!
Yankees fans give their team more consideration because they go to Yankees Stadium to watch games, not Shea stadium. They'll also talk so much trash about Steinbrenner it would make a sailor blush. That's loyalty and patriotism. And it's something that, frankly, losers just don't understand.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 31, 2007 10:15:29 AM
In all honesty, I believe your desire to trash someone has forced you to make an absurd arguement, and not in good faith.
Coming as it does immediately after "Do the people in your family understand that you'd throw them all under the bus," this demonstrates a lack of self-reflection and capacity for doublethink that is (I think) completely unprecedented. Congratulations on reaching new heights of inanity!
Posted by: Tucker | Oct 31, 2007 3:58:27 PM
Someohow, he expects that patriots should give more "considerastion" to their home country...
You are correct, Sir....and that is, indeed, the bottom line.
You either DO, or you DON'T. There is no room for the usual nuanced and qualified answers. black or white....one or the other.
Posted by: El Viajero | Nov 1, 2007 12:13:24 AM
You are correct, Sir....and that is, indeed, the bottom line.You either DO, or you DON'T. There is no room for the usual nuanced and qualified answers. black or white....one or the other.
Evidently ignorant of the distinction between patriotism and nationalism, not mention jingoism, chauvinism,ect.
I wonder if consideration for one's family would extend to being an accessory to crimes committed against those outside the family?
Posted by: WB Reeves | Nov 1, 2007 1:19:05 AM
Interestingly enough, when I took the Oath of Allegiance, I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It was awhile ago, so maybe I don't remember the part about swearing I loved my country like I love my mother. It appears the affirmation ceremony has changed since El Vialador now shows up to judge if your patriotism is at an acceptable level and allegiance is a yes or no proposition.
"My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'."
Posted by: Chesterton thinks you are a fraud | Nov 1, 2007 3:19:31 AM
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