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Four Questions for “I Love America” Progressives
On almost any important policy—taxes, transfers to the poor, abortion, military interventions, etc.—the U.S. is approximately the least progressive of all economically advanced countries. Given this, if American progressives were truly principled, then they should hate America. At a minimum, they should least have serious mixed feelings about the country.
By contrast, if I, as a conservative, lived in France or another progressive country, I don’t think I could love the country. If someone asked me about my love or patriotism for the country, I hope I’d have the honesty to say, “No, I’m actually not very patriotic. France [or whatever progressive country in which I lived] doesn’t deserve my patriotism.”
My first question for American progressives is: “Why can’t you be as honest about your patriotism as I would be if I lived in France?”
For 27 years I’ve been a professor or grad student within a social-science department at a university. Thus, I’ve interacted with lots and lots of progressives. I’d estimate that at least half, and maybe something like three-quarters, favor a one-world government. That is, in contrast to the status quo, they’d prefer a situation where a body like the U.N. governed the entire Earth, and all countries, including the U.S., ceased to exist. My second question for progressives is: “How deeply can you love something if you prefer that it not exist?”
As Jonah Goldberg has recently noted, when progressives say things such as “I love America just as much as you” or “How dare you question my patriotism?” they are usually playing a rhetorical game, one that involves a slippery definition of “patriotism” or “love.” The game begins with a criticism of America. The progressive then explains that, through his criticism, he’s actually trying to improve America. Therefore his criticism, he explains, is an expression of love, not hate, for his country.
My third question for progressives is: “But if that’s true, by the same argument wouldn’t it be true that—when Rev. Jeremiah Wright suggested that God should damn America—he was expressing his love for America?”
Of course, some progressives would say “yes,” however most progressives recognize how ridiculous the above argument becomes when it is examined through the Rev. Wright lens. Most retreat and admit that—although maybe Rev. Wright does not love America—Pres. Obama does not share those views.
But that leads me to my fourth question, “Are the views of Obama really so different from those of Rev. Wright?”
This video shows the main parts of Wright’s sermon. One aspect of the video is very remarkable, yet almost no one seems to have noticed it. This is the reaction of the parishioners. As you can see in the video, the parishioners agree with Wright. Indeed, they agree enthusiastically. Several cheer when he reaches his climax—that God should damn America. Approximately half clap or stand up during the crescendo. As best I can tell, none of the parishioners are bothered by Wright’s words.
As any reasonable person would conclude, those parishioners do not love America. Even if Obama did not attend the sermon, and even if he never became aware of it, he had to know about the anti-American attitudes of his fellow parishioners. Yet he still chose to attend the church for some two decades.
I believe Obama’s love for America is about the same as any other progressive’s—which means at best tepid, if he’s principled.
Published in General
Well, there is more to a country than its form of government: its civil society, the things people value or don’t value, the way they interact with one another, even the physical characteristics of the environment.
Consider George Orwell. He was a socialist, and hence it’s safe to assume that he wanted to see major changes in the structure of government and the economy. But he also wrote this:
When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids biking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning – all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?
But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillarboxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches in to the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantlepiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.
And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillarboxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side of the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.
…which I think demonstrates a real affection for his country. And I can’t imagine Barack Obama writing anything parallel about the US (even assuming that he had the literary ability), as I argued in this post:
What are Obama’s True Feelings about America and Americans?
Obama is anti-American. It’s obvious and none of us should have to doubt it. Listen to him for crying out loud. This is not a close run thing and only the lying left wants to pretend that it is otherwise for their own reasons. The progressives want someone like Obama very badly so that they can continue their long term project, the destruction from within. The presidency is the most effective post for doing this. That’s all there is to this. The day I heard Jeremiah Wright’s rants I knew what was going on. This guy believes in “liberation theology” which we all know is a big lie. It isn’t theology and it only liberates the scum of the earth who teach the people to support slave masters all over the world. This is the face of evil in the modern world. This is why they make common cause with our enemies. This is why they demean and try to damage our allies. It’s simple — it’s simple.
The claim that Obama and the progressives make for their love of America reminds me of the claim an abusive husband makes for how much he loves the wife he has just beaten. He doesn’t mean it, he only makes the claim as a stratagem to allow him to continue to dominate and manipulate her into doing his will.
Whether he knows it or not in his conscious mind, deep down he hates her for what she is. He wants her to be weak and pliant. He doesn’t want her to have any friends. He wants her to break contact with her past. He imposes all kinds of restrictions on what she can do, and then blames her for not doing anything.
The longer he controls her, the more likely it is that she will end up dead, either by his hand or her own. Her only escape is to leave him and find a decent man who understands why she is worth saving.
I don’t think this statement is entirely accurate.
After all:
You love your country because it is yours, not because it is good.
Tim,
The Rabbi tells a story. A guy walks into a retaurant and asks the waiter “Do you have Sea Bass, I love Sea Bass”. The waiter tells him he does. The waiter goes back to the kitchen. The cook pulls a live Sea Bass out of the tank, smashes it over the head, guts it, frys it, and the waiter puts it on a plate and starts to go back out to the customer. As he’s walking it back to the customer he thinks “Heck of a way to treat something that you love.”
The point of the rest of the sermon is that love is about giving not receiving. You love someone because you want to give to them not receive from them. The guy loves to eat the Sea Bass he doesn’t love the Sea Bass.
Regards,
Jim
I can only address your first two questions, but I think a good defense for progressive patriotism can be attempted. Now, to your first interrogatory. You are not in the position in which you imagine progressives to be. Imagined courage & real courage are not quite the same. It is one thing to ask others that which you have done–another that which you might or would… I would say, prudence, a conflict between what they have inherited & what they think best, as well as, possibly, a fear of being considered unfit or unworthy or alien might suffice to explain the position you imagine without recourse to something truly reprehensible.
My defense for prudence & justice requires two admissions on your part. (i) The Founders were very progressive & quite given to hiding their political activities, not just talking very politically. No free press at the Constitutional Convention, which was not convened to write a constitution for a country or a union of states which did not want it. No publication of proceedings even by the members, until the next generation. & lo & behold the people who were present there were most honored & acquired the most power in the new political form, which is certainly progressive judged by political science & the simple fact of changing a country’s constitution…
(ii) Lincoln lied about his opinions about slavery almost always–maybe he was ever honest, but when? He used the opinions about slavery generally held among people whose support & votes he needed & acquired. He refused to ever say honestly what were the implications of equality under the Declaration & what great changes would come. He profited from the narrowness of mind of many of his constituents. Political prudence required that he be dishonest & misleading & mistrusting of the people whom he proposed to lead into their most terrible war. He never stated something honest & elaborate about equality even after the Emancipation proclamation. It does not seem to be possible.
These are the two biggest examples of American men who wanted to reform their country & whose patriotism is undoubted, however great the changes they proposed to make, however secretly. Perhaps this does not apply to the Progressives, but why not?
Finally, your second interrogatory. Let’s begin by accusing the libertarians & conservatives as well: How about the people who complain freedom is lost or prostituted because of high taxes or the NSA or the welfare state & that America should return to what they think or know she was a few centuries in the past? Can they love America truly & deeply? (Anyway, if libertarians believe individualism is the thing, then surely, patriotism is meaningless or the servant of state violence!)
Love of country probably allows for some changes to the country & makes allowance for all sorts of imperfections. To some extent loving America because he was born American & loving her because he think her cause is just are different things for Mr. Obama, as for any other American. I admit that there is a massive problem progressives & libertarians must face, because they do not admit there is a natural limit to political rule or that political rule is natural to people. But even if they do not believe America is or should be forever, they may still say they love America now both because it serves a great future of human freedom & harmony & because in that future, the best of America would be preserved–America would be globalized & bring together all of humanity, just like the Founding refused to make special provision for Christians or Englishmen or whoever else. This belief is, I think, wrong, but I am unsure it is incompatible with any modern patriotism. (As opposed to ‘my country, right or wrong’ patriotism.)
This is why it has been so dangerous to let liberals control and define our language. When words can mean whatever the speaker wants them too, we lose the ability to communicate. And liberals can say that they “love” America.
I’ll second this. Love of country is different from love of the state. Tim, wouldn’t you say there is plenty to love about California despite its politics?
Because progressives’ “love” is a lie.
Some chicks (like Barry) meet a Man (like America) and start dating (like Citizenship). They get to know each other and decide to marry (winning the Presidency). Then the chick does nothing but bitch and complain to Him and all Her Friends about Their significant other and does everything to change Him when there was always plenty of fish in the sea (nations on planet earth) to live with.
It’s time America said,”I want to see other Presidents.”
If I were a North Korean I would have a seriously hard time loving my country merely because it was… mine. Come on, Zafar.
This really is a fools game. Does Scott Walker love Wisconsin? Arguably the home of the progressive movement with a long tradition of Democrat governance, if he loved it why would he reform it?
The Conservatives in Canada were challenged on their love of country a few elections so. If they loved it so much why were they trying to change it?
The question is whether the policies and ways of governing leaves the country in better shape than when he came to power. I think not, it will take years and much pain to reverse the harm he has done. The same thing can be said about the Bush years.
No, this is a mindless approach. This is the cultural attribute that prevents many immigrants from assimilating after they settle in the U.S. Those who arrive and love the American ideal, as expressed by the founders, and leave behind the country of origin, have little difficulty assimilating.
Newt Gingrich had the best answer to this kind of “gotcha” question when he was asked about the patriotism of commie congressman Ron Dellums – I’m sure he believes as fervently in his vision of what this country could be as I do in mine. I stand second to none in having a low opinion of the feckless trimmer we have in the WH, but going down Rudy’s road will not do us any good.
You make a good point that wanting to reform something doesn’t mean you don’t love it.
But I think Obama actually hates America and everything it stands for. In his mind, it stands for racism and imposing a white, Christian, western world view on the rest of humanity. To him, reforming the US means it needs to be brought down a peg or two, and he’s just the man to do it.
You can say you admire a country for its many good qualities – but loving it is another matter. I admire Switzerland, I don’t love it. Despite its many flaws, I do love India.
If we are being honest, love is not something you can decide to bestow after rational reflection. It doesn’t work like that.
If another country came along that expressed the ideals of the US’s founder better than the US itself does (hypothetically certainly possible) would you suddenly love that country more than America? Forgive me if I’m sceptical. I don’t see the crowd that shouts USA!USA!USA! ever shouting anything else, no matter what.
There are many countries with truly awful despotic governments – but all of them, I dare say, have populations that love their country.
Take Iran, for example. Do Iranian exiles in Tehrangeles hate Iran because the Mullahs now run it, or do they love Iran despite hating the Mullahs? Did Solzhenitsyn hate Russia?
You are not convincing me. You must look at the specifics, for example, take the premise of this post presented in its first paragraph. The U.S. remains the least progressive(leftist) advanced nation and remains so because it is still the truest example of its founding ideal of any nation. But that can change, and we have people(groups) working diligently on that ‘transformation’. If this were to happen, I could start looking for alternatives.
I think you’ve misinterpreted the history and the man. Lincoln said he’d save the union by any means–through the continuation of slavery or its abolition. Do you have reasons to doubt that? (Maybe you do; I’m not an expert.)
I assume Lincoln was honest in his priorities, but in any event, the shots fired at Fort Sumter rendered completely irrelevant Lincoln’s plans. When union via compromise became impossible, Lincoln was liberated to impose union via brute force–and as a side effect, emancipate the slaves. If that’s a fair summary, then your tu quoque argument loses its power.
(Not to mention those conservatives who are uncomfortable with endorsing everything Lincoln did. On certain days, I’m one of those.)
Misthiocracy, great list in post 4. Did you put that together? Or is it available somewhere? Would like to read more.
I question the (apparent) assumption that love (in this case of country) is rationally bestowed on worthy objects. I don’t think that’s how love works.
This assumes that a nation’s fundamental character can’t be changed when taken over by fascist dictators. I think it can be.
The sort of nation that hangs gays, jails apostates and openly threatens to annihilate millions of Jews? I have a hard time seeing how anybody could love that – no matter what it once was.
It’s just a question of definitions. Most of us just use standard uncomplicated definitions for this.
Obama hates America and Americans. We are learning to hate him in return. He’s teaching us what hatred is in all its nuances. Some of us are able to recognize this earlier than others.
If somebody asked me if I loved America, I’d ask him/her what we can do to contain the corruption at the IRS and what we can do to bring the reach of government down to a scale where it doesn’t have so much abusive power over its citizens.
Hey Zafar and Majestyk, I think you are both right. It just depends on the circumstances and whether you want to look at the middle ground or the extremes.
I disagree; I think it’s pretty clear that the phrase was assembled not for its meaning but as a tactical weapon. A la Alinsky.
“How dare you question my patriotism.” is a simple and highly effective technique that a. puts the other side on the defensive, and b. takes patriotism and intentions off the table as debating points, both now and in the future.
(See? It worked.)
I agree with Zafar on this one. Our love of country is actually like our love of family. No family is perfect. Many have shameful episodes and secrets. And yet we love it because it is ours, and we are part of it. Part of loving a country or family is wanting it to be better, and to make sacrifices to that end. How else to explain the labours of the German anti-Nazi resistance, or of the Soviet dissidents?
The passage quoted by david foster from Orwell’s “The Lion and the Unicorn” is a brilliant example of this phenomenon. Orwell was a strident (and usually misguided) critic of many aspects of British public life. And yet, he could write that moving paean to his homeland. By the way, “The Lion and the unicorn” was written for the primary purpose of persuading Orwell’s comrades on the British Left to suspend their distrust of Churchill, and back him in his determination to defeat Hitler.
I wonder how much of his country a person can dislike still love it. Did Frederick Douglass still love America when he wrote the following?
I like to think that he still did.
I don’t know if we can ever really know if Barack Obama loves America. I doubt, though, that he swells with gratitude when he envisions the terrible sacrifices his countrymen have made throughout history to nurture a sanctuary for liberty. I doubt he experiences the affection that wells up inside me when I think of the immigrants who came over here and made lives for their families and descendants. And I doubt that he much appreciates our extensive collection of hard-headed individuals clinging to their guns and religion.
Perhaps, but it takes a lot to change a nation’s fundamental character. And the older a nation, the more difficult it gets – look at China and India. And Iran. All with tumultuous histories which trend despotic, at least two with truly cataclysmic invasions. They all seem to revert to type after a while, however, even if newly packaged (Communism, Islam, Representative Democracy, Free Market….).
I’m not saying that these things aren’t significant in and of themselves – I just don’t think they can actually make China not Chinese, or Iran not Iranian, or India not Indian.
I get that the tribal aspect of patriotism is at odds (in theory) with a nation that perceives itself as consciously built on ideas and ideals rather than more organically by history. But I don’t think that the American, or Iranian, or Chinese Revolutions changed human nature. I think love of nation (however it’s culturally defined) is that basic a human urge.
So is the tendency to valorise one’s own nation’s totem ideas and ideals. (Liberty? Islam? Confucian Values?) Truly, America is not the only country to do this. And it certainly isn’t the only country where people question their political opponents’ love of country because of differences over how these values are expressed. My feeling is that this happens quite a lot, in fact it might be universal.
Okay, serious mistake about France in this. No one–no one–in power, or anywhere near it, in France believes this:
“I’d estimate that at least half, and maybe something like three-quarters, favor a one-world government. That is, in contrast to the status quo, they’d prefer a situation where a body like the U.N. governed the entire Earth, and all countries, including the U.S., ceased to exist.”
You have marginal communists and weirdo leftists here like everyone, but find me an actual French person who is anywhere near power who has said anything like this. You can extensively consult the deliberations of the National Assembly. The idea of a “one-world government with no France” will not get you elected in France. Not even as the leader of the most far-left, wacko, radical communist party in France. That idea didn’t even work in the actual Soviet Union–it became “communism in one country” and then “The Great Patriotic War.” France’s far-left is a step ahead of ours in that they remember that much, at least.
The problem with the idea above is not that it exists in France, it’s that it exists on American university campuses–where they think, “Oh, and in places like France, they’d like that,” as opposed to thinking, “France insisted on a fully independent nuclear deterrent because they didn’t trust that we’d never end up with kids like that on our university campuses.”
It seems they were right, unfortunately. Believe me, no one in France is “progressive” like that. That is truly an only-in-America phenomenon.
I love my country. I think the best thing we could do for our educational system–seriously–is to get every one of those kids to visit another country and try that idea on them. “So, my idea is that your country shouldn’t exist.”
Frankly, I’d recommend they bring the military with them. That statement will pretty much everywhere I’ve ever been be considered something between “quite rude, but we’re civilized, so we’ll ignore it,” and “cause for violence.” I could get away with saying it because men don’t naturally think “hitting women” is a good idea, but strongly recommend that no male of any age say that overseas in any way that might be mistaken for “serious.”
Underestimating the power of nationalism is a mistake on the order of underestimating the power of religion. Both are only-on-American-university-campuses mistakes. I hope.