ok, i have real input, i think. your friend theholycow has a sorta rosey view of a somewhat sinister thing in patriotism. You see, Mr. Theholycow, i really think that you are describing just one side of patriotism and crafting your own interpretation of what it means to be a patriot based on how you feel this country should be headed and how it was founded. Patriotism is "Love of and devotion to one's country" according to Dictionary.com. Why would someone love a country, i mean really all that this country can be is an assemblage of beuacracy, laws and arbitrary borders, i mean, this is the melting pot, the united states' inhabitants are by no means linked by common language, ethnicitym, ideology or any other means. Why should i love the beuacracy? Mr. Theholycow said he doesn't love this administration but i think that this country IS this administration, it makes the calls and appoints the heads of all the little departments and offices who make all the decisions regarding how this place is run, and sometimes who lives and who dies. Oscar Wilde said Patriotism is a virtue of the viscious. Mark Twain said Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. How are those for cliches? anyway, i feel like you, Mr. Theholycow, can love and support all those things you love in your form of patriotism without invoking the P-word. You love freedom, that can be done w/o loving the USofA, you can love certain people that have come from the United States and even certain ideals. But i don't think that by virtue of our geographic location and arbitrary borders did all of these things come about.
Ok, this discussion of liberalism vs. conservatism, democrat vs. republican...yuck. it seems all very boiled down to me. Helping people vs. not helping people. I don't really think either side has discussions about this anymore. Both sides have very common thinking regarding Medicare, Social Security and Welfare, their differences are much more semantic than what is going on in this discussion. The stranglehold of the christian right is a terrifying trend that i think crosses both sides of the aisle. The denial of marriage and choice rights are not an issue of handouts or teaching, they are controlling and dehumanizing.
We shouldn't forget that over 70% of this country believes in the freedom of reproductive choice, the majority of people believe in equal rights for all sexual categories (however the Right will trick you because when they ask the question they say special rights, a term with no meaning). Also most people who are on welfare are on it temporarily and it is a very effective means of smoothing the natural transition between careers for people (the myth of the welfare mother is so pervasive it has succeeded in getting welfare cut massively). The idea that communism has been tried and failed is also kind of off-base and the result of a massive propaganda campaign (called the Cold War). Actually, the Soviet Union had higher literacy rates than the US ever has, it had better Math and Science education for women in their country as well as higher representations of women in most fields (where the US is still woefully behind, i'll chalk that up to the christian right again). Communism didn't fail, mostly because it was never tried - Marx said it was a natural evolution of the sovereign industrialized state, most certainly not russia of the early 1900's. Leninism, Maoism, Castroism, Stalinism, all these things were not communism, and just took the name because it was easy to get people on board. Sorry, total pet peeve of mine.
We also shouldn't forget that the democrats have gotten the majority of votes in the last three elections, count'em 3! It means that Bush's conservatism isn't representative of the people, and it also means that Rosa, you should have more faith for the future. Also if he wins the next election i'll be starting a commune in the Netherlands, and you are all welcome to come and stay with me smoking pot waiting for the apocalypse.
also, as always, you know more about EVERYTHING than i do and i am beginning to think that i should just let you do my thinking for me (i am only being a little bit sarcastic, i am in awe of how well informed you are constantly, about everything.)
as for faith for the future? let's be real, denny, you know that i am probably the most naive and idealistic person any of us knows - you know i think that things are going to turn out well with a little bit of work. i just get frustrated in the meantime.
i heart you, please please come see me or just call up and chew my ear off for a bit?
a few points...theholycowJune 18 2004, 04:25:13 UTC
I agree with pretty much everything you say... I just have a few points on some of it, mostly what you said directly responding to me (of course :o) and some response the the liberal vs. conservativism...
First, liberal v. conservativism... I completely agree that there is really no huge difference beyond semantics in the ideas of the democratic and republican party, however, you seem to be crossing the term democrat and republican with liberal and conservative and they are not in any way one and the same. I haven't gone through and re-read all 14 comments and the original post, but my recolection of the original post is that the rant was more against conservativism than republicanism. While republicans and democrats do pretty well share the same views on social security, medicare, welfare, etc. so labeled "conservative" and "liberal" groups frequently differ significantly in opinion on those matters. While all the terms can be used very broadly, my impression is that the topic of discussion was moral-conservativism, not republicanism.
On patriotism... You gave the dictionary definition of "patriotism" ("Love of and devotion to one's country") but subsequently used two definitions of country, which is the key word in the definition of patriotism! You said, "i think that this country IS this administration, it makes the calls and appoints the heads of all the little departments and offices who make all the decisions regarding how this place is run, and sometimes who lives and who dies" and then later, "You love freedom, that can be done w/o loving the USofA, you can love certain people that have come from the United States and even certain ideals. But i don't think that by virtue of our geographic location and arbitrary borders did all of these things come about." so it seems to me (and I apologize if I just didn't get the point, I just got back from a very long shift at work and may not be thinking completely clearly) that one definition of a country is the administration and the other is arbitrary borders... Now... I agree that it's nearly impossible to feel love for arbitrary borders, but I think you would find great opposition to the idea that one cannot love an area or a particular piece of land... This, however, is not my idea of patriotism. The other definition of the country is that the country is the adminstration, however you contradict this idea later by pointing out the fact that the majority of the country DIDN'T vote for this adminstration. So that definition really doesn't seem to work... My personal idea of what patriotism is (and bear in mind, this is my rosey optimism, and personal idea) is almost more... love of history. Or... pride in the history. As you said, (and I repeat my earlier quote...) "You love freedom, that can be done w/o loving the USofA, you can love certain people that have come from the United States and even certain ideals" and I agree, but that doesn't mean someone cannot take pride in a rich history that was so affected and shaped by those ideals and that freedom.
I suppose when it comes down to it, patriotism really is a silly thing. Why feel pride for a name of a place, or even just the place, that happened to be where great things happened? But if you're going to by a cynic (and just so I don't open myself up to a critique on my use of the word, I'm using it in it's modern definition, not it's philisophical) everything we value is silly; Love, family, money, home, food, etc. I mean... what's a mother and father other than two people who screwed each other, waited a few months, popped out a kid and maybe raised them for the next decade or two? And what's a home other than shelter and storage space? My point is that we attache sentemental feelings to things that, when pared down to a few simple words, really don't seem deserving of the sentement. But it's human nature to feel, and to have emotion... Hence, my rosey view of patriotism.
Also, as for wilde and twains comments, they seem the kind of thing that would be aimed more at nationalism disguised as patriotism (working on the theme of the guy that posted after me), especially coming from two men who so notably loved the places they called home. Try to keep the cliches in context.
Ok, this discussion of liberalism vs. conservatism, democrat vs. republican...yuck. it seems all very boiled down to me. Helping people vs. not helping people. I don't really think either side has discussions about this anymore. Both sides have very common thinking regarding Medicare, Social Security and Welfare, their differences are much more semantic than what is going on in this discussion. The stranglehold of the christian right is a terrifying trend that i think crosses both sides of the aisle. The denial of marriage and choice rights are not an issue of handouts or teaching, they are controlling and dehumanizing.
We shouldn't forget that over 70% of this country believes in the freedom of reproductive choice, the majority of people believe in equal rights for all sexual categories (however the Right will trick you because when they ask the question they say special rights, a term with no meaning). Also most people who are on welfare are on it temporarily and it is a very effective means of smoothing the natural transition between careers for people (the myth of the welfare mother is so pervasive it has succeeded in getting welfare cut massively). The idea that communism has been tried and failed is also kind of off-base and the result of a massive propaganda campaign (called the Cold War). Actually, the Soviet Union had higher literacy rates than the US ever has, it had better Math and Science education for women in their country as well as higher representations of women in most fields (where the US is still woefully behind, i'll chalk that up to the christian right again). Communism didn't fail, mostly because it was never tried - Marx said it was a natural evolution of the sovereign industrialized state, most certainly not russia of the early 1900's. Leninism, Maoism, Castroism, Stalinism, all these things were not communism, and just took the name because it was easy to get people on board. Sorry, total pet peeve of mine.
We also shouldn't forget that the democrats have gotten the majority of votes in the last three elections, count'em 3! It means that Bush's conservatism isn't representative of the people, and it also means that Rosa, you should have more faith for the future. Also if he wins the next election i'll be starting a commune in the Netherlands, and you are all welcome to come and stay with me smoking pot waiting for the apocalypse.
Reply
also, as always, you know more about EVERYTHING than i do and i am beginning to think that i should just let you do my thinking for me (i am only being a little bit sarcastic, i am in awe of how well informed you are constantly, about everything.)
as for faith for the future? let's be real, denny, you know that i am probably the most naive and idealistic person any of us knows - you know i think that things are going to turn out well with a little bit of work. i just get frustrated in the meantime.
i heart you, please please come see me or just call up and chew my ear off for a bit?
Reply
First, liberal v. conservativism... I completely agree that there is really no huge difference beyond semantics in the ideas of the democratic and republican party, however, you seem to be crossing the term democrat and republican with liberal and conservative and they are not in any way one and the same. I haven't gone through and re-read all 14 comments and the original post, but my recolection of the original post is that the rant was more against conservativism than republicanism. While republicans and democrats do pretty well share the same views on social security, medicare, welfare, etc. so labeled "conservative" and "liberal" groups frequently differ significantly in opinion on those matters. While all the terms can be used very broadly, my impression is that the topic of discussion was moral-conservativism, not republicanism.
On patriotism... You gave the dictionary definition of "patriotism" ("Love of and devotion to one's country") but subsequently used two definitions of country, which is the key word in the definition of patriotism! You said, "i think that this country IS this administration, it makes the calls and appoints the heads of all the little departments and offices who make all the decisions regarding how this place is run, and sometimes who lives and who dies" and then later, "You love freedom, that can be done w/o loving the USofA, you can love certain people that have come from the United States and even certain ideals. But i don't think that by virtue of our geographic location and arbitrary borders did all of these things come about." so it seems to me (and I apologize if I just didn't get the point, I just got back from a very long shift at work and may not be thinking completely clearly) that one definition of a country is the administration and the other is arbitrary borders... Now... I agree that it's nearly impossible to feel love for arbitrary borders, but I think you would find great opposition to the idea that one cannot love an area or a particular piece of land... This, however, is not my idea of patriotism. The other definition of the country is that the country is the adminstration, however you contradict this idea later by pointing out the fact that the majority of the country DIDN'T vote for this adminstration. So that definition really doesn't seem to work... My personal idea of what patriotism is (and bear in mind, this is my rosey optimism, and personal idea) is almost more... love of history. Or... pride in the history. As you said, (and I repeat my earlier quote...) "You love freedom, that can be done w/o loving the USofA, you can love certain people that have come from the United States and even certain ideals" and I agree, but that doesn't mean someone cannot take pride in a rich history that was so affected and shaped by those ideals and that freedom.
I suppose when it comes down to it, patriotism really is a silly thing. Why feel pride for a name of a place, or even just the place, that happened to be where great things happened? But if you're going to by a cynic (and just so I don't open myself up to a critique on my use of the word, I'm using it in it's modern definition, not it's philisophical) everything we value is silly; Love, family, money, home, food, etc. I mean... what's a mother and father other than two people who screwed each other, waited a few months, popped out a kid and maybe raised them for the next decade or two? And what's a home other than shelter and storage space? My point is that we attache sentemental feelings to things that, when pared down to a few simple words, really don't seem deserving of the sentement. But it's human nature to feel, and to have emotion... Hence, my rosey view of patriotism.
Also, as for wilde and twains comments, they seem the kind of thing that would be aimed more at nationalism disguised as patriotism (working on the theme of the guy that posted after me), especially coming from two men who so notably loved the places they called home. Try to keep the cliches in context.
P.S.
I'm Eric, by the way. :o)
Reply
Leave a comment