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What “New York Values” Means To Me
I suppose “New York Values” is kind of a Rorschach blot, with people reading into it whatever they like, but to me it means this: I think that if the four hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001, had hit anywhere but Manhattan, New Yorkers wouldn’t feel so strongly about it. In fact – and this is just my gut feeling – if the only one that had reached its destination that morning was the one that hit the Pentagon, the majority of New Yorkers would have said, “Eh. Just a bunch of warmongers anyway. Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
Let’s not forget that many people sum up that day as the day the Twin Towers were attacked, as if that were the totality of the horror that was inflicted. I have actually had conversations that went like this:
“The Pentagon, too, remember.”
“The what?”
“The Pentagon. It was hit, too, and Flight 93.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, that, too. Boy, that Flight 93, that was something.”
Published in Culture, General
FWIW, speaking as a devoted Yankee fan, A Rod is not considered one of us. :)
In 2012, Obama beat Romney 81%-18% in New York City.
To put that in perspective, Romney beat Obama only 58-38 in Salt Lake County, Utah. Obama’s biggest win in any state was in Hawaii, 71-28.
So NYC is vastly more left-wing liberal than Salt Lake City is conservative, and is significantly more left-wing than the “bluest” state.
I think that this is what Cruz means by “New York values.” The people of New York City are overwhelmingly left-wingers. This necessarily means that their views are overwhelmingly at odds with conservative values.
The actual incident I recalled was with Raul Ibanez. As a longtime Mariners fan (Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson, Randy Johnson, Ichiro) it rubbed me the wrong way. I used A-Rod as more recognizable name in the retelling. In short, I hate the Yankees and the Yankees could not care less.
Maybe, just maybe, the conventional wisdom about trying not to ruffle any feathers during a campaign is a lot of hooey. A remark that loses votes with one crowd might attract votes from another. It’s working for Trump.
I should have made it clear that I would not have counseled Ted Cruz to use this line of attack because it would mainly serve to alienate many of the people he needs to keep on his side. And it would generate some sympathy for Trump, which is a magic trick if ever there was one. I was simply offering — as I wrote — what “NYC values” means to me. And yes, I do know a lot of New Yorkers. But they are awfully insular, and they do not, taken as a whole, reflect the larger country; nor are they, taken as a whole, great champions of the military. Ironically, hitting the Twin Towers was about the only way to get New Yorkers on America’s side, at least for a couple of weeks. Fortunately for the rest of us, the Islamists were stupid enough to think that striking a blow at lower Manhattan was striking a blow at the essence of what it means to be an American.
I doubt that, even today, most Americans realize that the Philippines, as well as other places, were attacked on Dec. 7th, 1941. There is a big difference, however. All four of the airliners were aimed at American targets, and all four were loaded with innocent men, women, and children. Even New Yorkers knew that. What I am saying is that I suspect that New Yorkers are more likely than most others to use the phrase “Twin Towers” synonymously with “9/11.” If that’s cheap rhetoric I will stand by it.
The American Pacific Air Command was not an American target? The destruction of the entire American B-17 fleet was not an American loss? One hundred airman were killed. They were not American casualties?
There was no American who did not know about this attack in December 1941, yet the day of infamy was soon remembered as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
No different than the recollection of September 11 as the attack on the World Trade Center.
I’d suggest you stop operating on your gut and suspicions and rorschach insults and start using your head. It would value to your cheap rhetoric.
And I would suggest you remember that Ricochet is supposed to be a place free of insults.
It should have otherwise been clear, but let me spell it out here: All of the targets on 9/11 were concentrated in the continental United States, and in fact all within a few hundred miles of each other, not on the other side of the world. That’s what makes it so galling to me that so many people reduce the greatest attack on American soil to the loss of the two towers. Incidentally, our entire B-17 inventory was not destroyed at the time; we had over 150 by then. I’d also recommend using a verb in your last sentence.
Your post questions the patriotism of 20 million people based on a handful of people whom you have encountered, and you are complaining about insults? Are you kidding?
I live in Massachusetts, but know very few hard core liberals; I went to college in Alaska, met very few conservatives while there, and many of the Alaskans I encountered were far and away more liberal than anyone I have ever met in Massachusetts. Needless to say, the people I have known in both Massachusetts and Alaska are probably not representative of those places. And the people you know from New York may not be representative of New York. Knowing 10 or 100 New Yorkers does not make you an expert on what New Yorkers are like.
Ted should have tied those values not to New York but to New York’s former Senator Hillary Clinton, as I suggested in my post. He missed an opportunity, and New Yorkers unfortunately do hold a grudge.
Well said, Pencilvania.
I just listened with great care to Trump’s actual remarks defending “New York values.” First, he listed William F. Buckley as a conservative in response to Ted Cruz’s assertion that not a lot of conservatives come out of NYC. Yes, WFB was a great conservative, but he is not “a lot.” Trump, however, probably regards being able to name one conservative (possibly the only one he’s ever heard of) as a killer refutation of the idea that there are lots of left-wingers there. And I suspect most of his supporters are just dim enough to agree.