Patriotism: Trash or Treasure?

For your edification.

John Adams used the "XYZ Affair" (an allegation that Revolutionary France was trying to get us to pay tribute) to jam a bill through Congress called the Alien and Sedition Act. He then used it to lock up newpaper editors. He not only was not reelected, he wasn't even a candidate in 1800.

During the Civil War, Lincoln, at the institagation of the radicals in Congress (god, i crack up everytime i use the term "radical" to describe Republicans), suspended habeus corpus. It was promptly put to use to arrest and imprison critics of the Administration. To his credit, Lincoln reacted by quietly (so as not to stir up the radicals) ordering Federal officers, such as Marshalls, to make no arrests without a warrant cleared by the White House. The Congress also formed the Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was used as a star-chamber to attack any military officers who did not hew the party line.

These two examples of extremism in alleged defense of liberty point to what i and others have tried to tell you. Silencing dissent takes away precisely those freedoms which we claim to defend. And it never works, it just makes for deeper bitterness and resentment, and it sets the stage for a government unrestrained by any of the protections we claim to cherish.

Well in my case it was not an avoidance of criticism or a defense of Muslims. It was an avoidance of a broad stereotype for me. The case in question was a very offensive on in which a handful of Muslims were to celebrate 9/11. The article was posted in what, to me, was the context of "look at these savages again" and my participation there was along the lines of:

a) the reported celebration did not take place.

b) the Muslim community condemned the group harshly and advocated measures that were harsher than any of us were advocating (they wanted the bastards to have legal sanction leveled against them while we were all saying it was their right to do so).

And lastly I was countering something I said Au was doing, in that he was digging up any article of any atrocity perpetrated by Muslims and portraying them as uncivilized.

In that thread I sharply criticized the group, they were making a ridiculous and offensive joke of their faith. I know some people advocated "understanding" and such but the only understanding I advocated was that extremism is contagious.



I don't recall saying it was inappropriate, I don't think it is. Some do, and that's because it's become a code word of sorts. It's most often used by people who dislike Muslims.



Dunno if you are talking by me or by others. If it's the "by me" questions it's because Lash taught me a lesson. That owning a forum means each of my comments is taken in a different light taht I had enjoyed in the past.

Setanta wrote:

"Ashcroft would like to curtail many of those same freedoms and protections which we claim we are fighting to preserve".

How do you know what Ashcroft thinks and wants to do?

You further wrote:

"You also continue to ignore the point that many have made in this thread, that political demagogery can be used".

You are correct--I have ignored it and I hereby acknowledge your concerns about the dangers of extremist patriotism and fully agree with you and other participants. I didn't realize that would become an issue with you.

You further wrote:

"I'm opposed to absolutism, and to none so much as political absolutism, also known as dictatorship".

There is a hint of inference here that I want to clarify---Did I say anything that would indicate that I advocate any action that would allow a dictatorship?

Concern is neither PC or unPC.

Take the word "nigger". (I was going to use Moslem, but have fumbled upon a better example.)

First of all, because of PC, I feel compelled to share the fact that I hated this word in the 70's, as a teen, and excoriated everyone who dared mention it in my presence--before it was unPC--because it is a stupid term used to intentionally insult a person due to nothing else but the circumstance of birth.-------OK-- Because of PC (social peer pressure on a wide scale), important pieces of literature were banned from schools, and some spoke of erasing the word from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and other literary masterpieces. "Nigger" has entered the realm of "****" in newspapers, now appearing as N*****, as if it is unspeakable, even when QUOTING someone (which, IMO, is the only legitimate use.)

I think it is in the better interests of society for the word not to be given such power. Isn't "nigger" exactly proportionate to spic, mic, hymie, cracker, Hebe, pollack, dego... Yet, are these words equally treated? There is an imbalance to PC, which sets up tiers of value, and squashes debate, IMO. Who gets to decide the N word is worthy of extraction from use, but hymie or dego is OK? Who are they?

Perception, have you been following Ashcroft's speeches trying to save Patriot and trying to get Partiot II? That is how i know what Ashcroft thinks, or what he purports to think. Personally, i suspect he wants even more police state powers than he admits to. I also suspect that if he could get away with it, he would impose his personal religious agenda on law enforcement. I consider him the most dangerous man in government in this country--which, given my opinion of Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Rove and their ilk, is saying a lot.

I'm glad to see that you are willing to recognize the potential danger of demagogery, and i had no intention of implying you favor a dictatorship.

although W.A.S.H (white anglo saxon heathen) has not hit the P.C. verbage (and i admit to it readily) I retain the right to find it offensive.

Although i am very white in appearance, the ethno-religious description for my group would be BIC--Black Irish Catholic.

Hey Sofia, wanna head into the corner? You can flick your BIC . . .

Sofia,

In that example I agree, santiation run amok. But that's not what's being complained about by most anti-PC arguments.

It's not the "don't say the bedroom has a 'view' because it offends blind people" type, nor is it the "he's not a carjacker, he's a non-conventional commuter" type either.

It usually comes in the form of "what's wrong with calling a male black man a 'boy'? Is he a girl?".

In your example I agree wholeheartedly, as with anything it can be overdone. I call "PC" a myth but overdoing the desire to remove offense certainly exists. But it's a paradox, overdoing the desire to counter the desire to avoid offense also exists. So round and round we go.

Hmmm-- You're toying with me. You know I have indeed in the past hatched campaigns to steal your affections.

I'm just moderately skeered of that tiny dog in the hybiscus hat.

<shhh. Don't tell her.>

<she's verra verra protective of her fella - trust me, i've learned>

Eeeeep!


<runs away quickly>

I consider the term PC intellectually valueless. It pretends to something objective (an arrow to uninspected assumptions or sacred fixed ideas) but, in both its origin (by Dinesh D'Souza in an Esquire article excerpt from a book he was soon to publish) and in it's common use, it is code for 'liberal ideas'. D'Souza particularly was talking about universities (moral relativism, multi-culturalism - an irony for this author, ivory-tower foolishness, etc) but he spread the term more broadly and that was picked up by voices in the right who continued it's promulgation.

If anyone knows of an earlier instance of this term, I'd be happy to correct the above statement.

I've been thinking that the term PC is somehow, well, less loaded here, as it can mean so many things.

If I simply heard "Is that really P.C.?" - out of context, on the subway - my first guess would be that someone was asking if a particular item had the PC (President's Choice) label. If I heard "Is he P.C.?" - my instinct would be to wonder if they were wondering if someone was Progressive Conservative. P.C. does NOT mean politically correct to me - unless someone specifically spells out that that is what they want me to understand it to mean. And once they've said 'politically correct', it still has no particular meaning to me. As with almost anything related to politics, or its language, the meaning is in the head of the speaker/writer.

I've been reading along, all along, and I've been mulling that the whole Patriotism/Nationalism thing simply means something far too loud for me. I love being a Canadian. I am very glad hamburger and mrs. hamburger came here to live. I am always very pleased to return here after trips elsewhere. But my love is primarily a quiet love - it is not something I generally talk about with people - it somehow sullies the emotion for me.

Setanta talked earlier about people having a bond with a particular area. I feel that very strongly when I head toward my hometown. While the city itself is not that meaningful to me, the landscape feels right to me. It is rugged and strong, sometimes harsh and dangerous. I often hear myself heaving a huge sigh when I get closer to the shield. I need those rocks and water. A soft, dry landscape does not ease my soul the way the Great Lakes and the Canadian Shield do. It means Canada and home and safety to me. I love that.

ehBeth

Yes, I understand this. For me, of course, it is the Pacific Northwest and specifically the valley where I grew up. I love to travel, particulary by car, and see new geographies and climates and vegetation, and to meet folks from other cultural groups and locales. But the 'coming home' is always comfortable. We are lucky in having a safe and pretty stable place to which we can return, unlike many of our parents, and unlike too many in the world right now, driven out of their home areas by (usually) war and its consequences. Yet those wars are allowed by (if not caused by) patriotic fervor.

once there was a time i thought colorado/new mexico was the very meaning of life, the highest mountains and the most beautiful desert. the ranchers and the farmers, the peach orchards, the 1,000's of acres of wheat, and then came the others, the "focus on family values" the neo-cons, and they came from california and chicago and dallas and they said "this is nice let us live here and plant our lawns is blue grass and make us the land we came from" and the farms were gone, the peach orchards where sold off to make solid republican land tracks of pastel skinner boxes of ultra conformity, 50's era chevy and ford pickups traded for volvos and saabs parked in 3 car garages with complaints of my John Deere parked in the roadway. and i am very very sad.

<nods>

i can imagine that ...

nothing is more frustrating but mostly just sad than when they even take your landscape, your urbanscape away from you.

i like change and marvel at new things, yet at the same time i feel an ever deeper ... grudge, sometimes, panic, sometimes, sense of irretrievable loss, sometimes, at how they are changing my world around me ... replacing empty lots with yuppie housing, eighties squats with new offices, working-class neighbourhoods with trendy ones and trendy ones with bourgeois ones ... pieces of farmland into landscaped parks ... train lots with grass growing in between the tracks into uniform, efficient white warehouseboxes ... windy, dusty quaysides with old cars, livingboats, barely surviving diners and left-over cranes into a fancy expansion of the station and a new fast-road to bring commuters to newly built mirror-glass offices ...

nothing's the same anymore. they're taking my home away from me.

they take it away from you and make it ugly, or bland, and theres nothing you can do about it ... cause its the natural way of things, and all the rest considers this prettier, cleaner, newer - and for new generations this is what they'll miss, later.

<stares>

Oh dear Dys! That IS sad....

There is certainly a sense of "rightness" about coming back to where we were brought up - if we had some good experiences there.

When I am away, I miss the extraordinary clarity of the sky and the light, (dinna realise how clear it was until I went OS), the rude, noisy, colourful birds, yellow grassy hills, the scents (different each season but with an over-riding eucalyptus), the cheap and fresh and varied fruit and vegetables and other foods, good wine within my budget, the ridiculously blue sea and beaches with real, golden sand (England has PEBBLES!), and lots of other things...

But, there are lots of things I miss about other places when I am here....teleportation is, indeed, the answer - to bring yet another thread here - and, had I been whelped in other places, I would find them the most comfortable.....

Nonetheless, the call of "place" is very strong....

Here's a link on PC. http://academia.org/lectures/lind1.html

deb, me eyes are leaking for i cry for my for courntry

I'm one who needs to flee my home. My home is the place Dys describes as the new Colorado. It's to the city with me......New York, where I find those with whom I have most in common. I truly love this city, the opportunity to watch and be a part of people, most of whom are smart and active, doing things. But not just mindless things, as is true of many in my home city, but activities that require thought. Thought that requires some struggle to understand something difficult but gratifying. Providing a sense of purpose. I'm very sad that the world trade center is gone. It was an important landmark to me. When I flew into the city, I say the twin towers and I felt I was at home. Now.........it's gone. At first I experienced it as a castration. But I don't feel humiliated any longer. I feel sadness and a remorse that the world is still so full of hatred and there's still so much to be done.