Patriotism: Trash or Treasure?

This is eactly what I mean Sofia. It's a meritless rhetorical attack. Note that the most common use of the word "groupthink" is when someone is trying to convince us of UFOs.

It's just a roundabout way of contructing an ad hominem. Instead of taking the argument on its merit you just deride it as "groupthink".

Newsflash: groupthink can be right. It sounds uncool but that means nothing.

You are basically accusing people of having a belief because they think it's cool. You also make a point to make it sound uncool.

There is a paradox here. Perc probably still hasn't noticed the irony of his mimicking of this comment yet.

Lola

Thanks for stepping in before I said something I would really be sorry for----you made some really good points as did Setanta but I liked what BBB said most of all. Being able to listen and to actually try to understand the other position is what is always missing or rather most always missing from the participants on the left with the exception of you Lola and Nimh ----I'm certain I have left out someone. The one sided-ness of most positions on this forum is what causes me to resort to "baiting" sometimes just to try and make the other person stop and think. It never has the intended consequence because of the other persons defense mechanisms. You ask why then do I not try another approach----quite simply I have observed GeorgeOB1, and Timber who write much better than I do, use excellent logic and persuasion but only get shouted down by the chorus of blind devotees from the left.

Craven and Setanta acuse me of wrapping myself in the flag(which to them is a double no-no) because I dare to criticize dissent at a time when the nation needs to pull together. To me the very worst and most serious danger to this country is not terrorism or attack from another country but the real danger is the failure of good meaning people to recognize the point where dissent is no longer productive and continue to join with those who are not well meaning at all----those who really want to destroy this country from within. If I am paranoid about those who want to destroy this country from within which I could well be and I hope I am wrong. Then if you will disregard my paranoia for a moment and think about what the voices of dissent tell the unsophisticated of the world and our enemies. It says to them that we are crumbling from within and that if they just survive another week, month or year then we will destroy ourselves and they can just walk in and take over.
Do any of you see that as a real danger or am I paranoid about that also? There is also the very real destruction of the moral of our troops. Have any of you stopped to think about the effect demonstrations have on our troops? You say you support the troops but how can that be when what you say is the most destructive to them? Of course the blind devotees blame the administration and anything but their own destructiveness.

Patriotism is sometimes having the sense to stop bickering and pull together.

When did this happen perc?

What i intended, and about which i ought to have been more clear, was that i don't believe the administration indulges in this "if you ain't for us, you're against us" rhetoric overtly. Certainly, one can accuse Bush of that, but we all know he is a loose cannon, and seems incapable of speaking without a foot in his mouth. That's why this administration uses so many of its employees, who act in very unrelated roles, to explain just what it is Bush really meant. Officially, i don't believe the administration purports that their critics are unpatriotic. Rather, i think they encourage the belief more subtley (hard to imagine subtlety from this group, i know), and prefer that their supporters who uncritically act as cheerleaders level the charge at their critics. In the more well-crafted speaking forays which they occasionally get up for the Shrub, he wraps himself in the flag and appeals again and again to September 11, setting pitfalls for those who would criticize the content. Frequently, he baldly asserts what is by no means certain--that we are "winning the war on terror," that Iraq has become the battleground on which we combat terror, that progress in "nation building" continues apace in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is clever, and therefore probably not his own idea. It immunizes his agenda from criticism in the eyes of the true believers--and you can bet that none of that crew give a damn what the likes of you and i think. They are only interested in keeping a grip on their core support and convincing the waverers. Given the notorious apathy of Americans toward informing themselves thoroughly on issues, it is a very sound doctrine. They not only don't care what i think, they don't want me or anyone like me siding with them, because they count on people holding their beliefs unexamined--they want the likes of me to express doubt, and be shouted down at the lunch counter by those who are emotionally moved by images of September 11, and wounded GI's and Marines on the field of battle, but who do not look any deeper into the situation.

As for the question of dichotomies, i was getting at the point that so many hold their beliefs unexamined, and adhere to beliefs in absolutes of right and wrong. I don't deny your analysis of dichotomy as it exists. I was trying to point up the sad state of political polarization. Whether on the left or the right, many "true believers" simply don't think in terms of dichotomy, or they take the "us v. them" attitude, and excoriate their perceived opponents as evil, venal, stupid, or any number of other denigrating epithets. For such as those, there are no dichotomies, because to acknowledge such would be to admit that an opposing point of view might have some merit, and the total rejection of the opinions of "the other" is the object of their rant, no equivocation allowed.

Hope that muddies the issues sufficiently . . .

What a complete exercise in fantasy, Percy. It reads very much to me like an effort on your part to cast, after the fact, your tendency to attack others as thought experiments with a shock value which will inspire second thoughts in others. I would say that nothing could be further from the truth. It seems obvious to me that you are just as prone to cast aspersions as anyone else in these fora, but you wish now to present yourself as acting in the role of a militant provoker of thought.

As for your appeal to the idea that we all need to "pull together," that presumes that the administration is working toward a goal which we should all desire. This is by no means certain. That we are now fighting the legions of terrorists in Iraq is an idea which supporters of the administration have seized upon and now loudly proclaim, but it is not a certainty. That "rebuilding" Iraq will provide to the muslim world an example which they will wish to emulate is a part of the party line of the current administration, but it is not a certainty. These same caveats can be applied to the economic policies, the environmental policies, to any policies of the administration. You are calling on us to pull together, when many of us are opposed to the direction in which you wish us to pull.

I have never accused you of wrapping yourself in the flag. The most of my comments on patriotism in this thread have been rather benign, and i have tried to state why i believe that patriotism is natural, that in its native state it is a good thing, and that it is susceptible to manipulation by political demagogery (sp?), which turns it into a very evil thing indeed.

In the realm of political discourse such as this thread on patriotism one can find resonance or amplification. A choir is the unified expression of voices resonating with each other; a loudspeaker is the amplification of a single voice (idea) excluding all others. A bell resonates, a cannon amplifies. We listen of the bell or we are silenced by the cannon. When a single voice (idea) is sufficiently amplified, it becomes a speaking that makes it impossible for any other voices to be heard. We do not listen to a loudspeaker for what is being said, but only because it is all that is being said. "I am right" speech that excludes differences is amplified speech; it is speech that silences. Loudspeaking is a mode of command, and therefore speech designed to bring itself to an end as completely and as swiftly as possible. The amplified voice seeks obedient action on the part of listeners with the attendant end to their speech. There is no possibility of conversation with a loudspeaker. Ideology is the amplification of an idea; It is the assumption that since the beginning and end of history are known there is nothing left to say. History is therefore to be obediently lived out according to the offered ideology. When one requests, by loudspeaker, that all must agree (patriotism by fiat) the bells are again melted down to make more cannon to silence those to wish to speak.

Dys, would this:



. . . not an example of the loudspeaker/cannon?

Perception, there is only one political absolute to which i will subscribe. That is that there is never a point at which dissent should be silenced. Extremism in defense of anything is never a virtue.

It was early Summer in the capital city. Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens, many with their entire families, squatted on vacant public buildings and land and set up a makeshift village, at the foot of the seat of power, and in the shadow of important monuments.

They demanded an audience with their government and the passage of certain legislation. To the heads of government and the press, they were agitators with a political agenda that threatened to disrupt and endanger the nation.

After their demands were rejected, the protesters did not leave their encampments. The head of government, refusing to meet with them, called on the national army to disperse the crowds. Soldiers charged with bayonets while tanks and tear gas chased crowds and leveled tents and shacks. Fires burned the camps to the ground. The "riot" put down by our government was WW I veterans demanding the V.A. pay them for benefits promised and never delivered.

In the aftermath, scores were dead, including at least two infants suffocated in the gas attack. The total number killed remains unknown.

THE INCIDENT described above occurred in Washington, DC, on July 28, 1932. The military commanders who executed the removal of the "Bonus Expeditionary Force," as the protesters called themselves, were three of the United States' greatest heroes: Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Patton. Eisenhower later became one of the most popular USA Presidents and defined an era that emphasized order and conformity.

There were no television cameras and satellites to relay images of what happened in the USA capital that summer day. A few newspapers condemned President Hoover's response but the event was quickly put to rest. Since then, there have been no anniversary remembrances and there is no monument in Washington, DC, to the victims. Most Americans have never heard of the Bonus Army and its fate.

To his credit, Eisenhower (who was then aide to MacArthur, the Army Chief of Staff), opposed the action. To his discredit, he simply weaseled--he relayed the orders and then left town.

Patton executed the orders with apparent relish.

(Edit: This forgotten part of our national history is the opening passage in William Manchester's The Glory and the Dream, his history of the United States from 1932-1972. A worthwhile read.)

Set

Dissent should never be forcibly silenced however this is where there could be a reasonable case for the appeal that you all speak of. It should not be from political leaders but if it were from the a voice of the majority as an appeal for unity against a common enemy would you accept it

I reject the idea that I could be cast as the loudspeaker/cannon even in jest----I am not an advocate of forcibly silencing dissent. The success or failure of Society will always be determined by the will of the majority and ultimately for the survival of society the voices of the dissenting minority may sometimes be silenced and justifiably so unless mankind is to be relegated to the trash heap with the dinosaurs

Dys

You neglected to mention what the demonstration was about----that does have a bearing on the conclusion you you wish us to draw. They may have wanted to ban "leggings" for example.

perception is this another example of your reading skills?

Damn I hit the submit button too fast

Ricardo_Tizon started a thread on the Bush visit to the Philippines. There was a group of protesters there asking for the same things those in WWI were asking for--with as little success. The US has a long history of broken promises--even taking back what was given.

"There is also a group of world war II veterans who fought side by side with the Americans as part of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East asking for backwages and benefits promised to them by the US congress which they later took back."

He also mentioned protests over toxic waste left at US bases, the WTO and farm subsidies.

Then there is the Bell of Balangiga, which senators and other officials from the Philippines have asked to be returned, with no comment from the US or the state of Wyoming.

This kind of behavior makes patriotism next to impossible.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13791&highlight=

In Steve(as4100)'s Allied Bombing thread, we began discussing whether one would have the courage to take a stand while actually in the military. I mentioned Siegfried Sassoon, who was decorated for bravery at the Somme in 1916, but decided it was all madness, and, in 1917, refused to return to the trenches. Do you contend then, Perception, that there are situations in which dissent should be silenced, or only that dissenters might volutarily shut up?

I think i'll stick with my statement about dissent, and that extremism in defense of anything is never a virtue.

(Edit: Damn, don't know why i addressed that to Diane, i meant to respond to Perception.)

Setanta, I'm not sure I understand your question. I was sympathizing with the protesters in the Philippines. Was my post unclear?

No, Boss, see my edited comment. I was responding to Perception, but for some reason, typed Diane. As you were, soldier . . .

That is an interesting piece of history, Dys.

Aye, aye, sir.