PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

I like America. I like what it stands for (particularly -- to some people's horror -- it's free market system). There are many things I don't like about America, but it continues to be a novel event in the history of nation states and has influenced the world in a variety of very positive ways. (Leftist will of course be cringing at this point and the whole list of cliché rebuttals will have risen in their feeble heads like a toxic vapor in a swamp of arrogance and envy).

"Patriotism" is a broad subject and can be observed or interpreted in a variety of ways. I'm not what you would call a "flag-waver" but I like the American flag because symbols are important and the American flag symbolizes America – diverse, innovative, rebellious, eccentric, and dynamic. I don't, however, shed tears over the country's national anthem and actually find such excess a bit cheesy.

So, I have my reasons for liking the country I'm from and can therefore probably be called patriotic on some spectrum.

There are others now who I think can be called unpatriotic. I think we can accurately "question their patriotism," not as McCarthyites weeding out treason but as a reasonable appraisal of people and institutions who don't really like us, who side with our enemies, and who privately wish us and our country ill-will.

This essay at FrontPageMag.Com touches on these issues quite well, particularly in regard to Barack Hussein Obama and his attempts to distance himself from his own incredible lack of patriotism. It is quite fair to question a man's patriotism when he has so clear a track record of not really liking the country he's from (it can also be seen as odd if the man is a millionaire Harvard graduate – but we see that kind of thing all the time).

Some Excellent quotes from the above linked essay:

"I don't know any true patriot who questions the right of Americans to dissent on any issue, whether we agree with them or not."

"The Left's patriotism-deficit has less to do with dissent than a  very real and ingrained hostility toward America."
"Its recitation of our national saga runs from slavery to Wounded Knee, to the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, to segregation to My Lai and Abu Ghraib -- excluding everything else. Liberals love America; they just can't find anything positive to say about it, other than Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks."

[...]

"Liberals will defend to the death your right to agree with them. When it comes to dissent from political correctness, they are censors nonpareil. The Left controls higher education more completely than any other aspect of American life. Not only is anti-Americanism rampant on the college campus, so too is a uniformity of opinion enforced with an iron hand."
"Campus speech codes are based on the fascist notion that the expression of certain ideas must be punished. A recent example of the academic totalitarian mindset was the firing of an African-American administrator at the University of Toledo for writing a letter to the editor objecting to homosexuals being compared to blacks."
"The left believes in a "patriotism of dissent" for itself, and itself alone -- not on the college campus, not in front of an abortion clinic (which, thanks to the likes of Ted Kennedy, are insulated from protest by speech-suppression, buffer zones), and definitely not when the opinions expressed are alleged to be offensive to certain minorities. Hate crimes laws are the left's most daring adventure in censorship."

[...]

"Patriotism is one of those concepts that's difficult to define in 25 words or less. "
"But I can tell you what it's not. It's not "America has been killing people on this continent since it was started." It's not "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military." It's not "America is the greatest sin against God." It's not "America is the No. 1 killer in the world" and "God damn America." "


Yeah, really...

# posted by Promethean Antagonist @ 12:31 PM