Patriotism: Trash or Treasure?

I've been thinking about blatham's post following mine. Something to do while walking the dogs, in additions to singing and talking to the neighbours, doncha know.

I realized that I've been trying to work out what I would fight to defend. Not what I would talk about fighting to defend, but what would I actually take personal, physical action to defend. And I was wondering what would cause me to feel a need to personally defend a place. Part of what came out of that walk was the realization that I don't believe anyone is a patriot unless they are taking a personal risk to defend whatever it is they feel patriotic about. It's a bit 'All Quiet on the Western Front', but I realized I feel pretty strongly about it.

I'm not quite sure all that you mean, Beth. But I think patriotism has to do with a willingness to work hard and put your effort and money where your mouth is. It's also about being willing to take dangerous chances, if it comes to it. But I'm not sure I agree that it would have to be actual physical battle. (and maybe you didn't mean this) But yes, I think real patriotism means willingness to personally sacrifice if necessary.

I do mean actual physical battle.

It's been interesting working on teasing this out for myself.

I'm not sure what I care about enough to physically defend other than people I love, so I'd think that by my own definition, I could not be a patriot. I might determine that I need to physically defend my country to protect people I love, but I don't think that is patriotism.

More dog-walking thinking time is going to go into this for sure.

I've wondered this too, of course. One of my school chums, an American by birth, went off to Viet Nam, but when he returned he admitted it had been for a notice of romance, a notion completely disabused in that experience.

As well as I can read myself, it seems most likely that I would drop my pacifism where liberty and human safety were in peril. But I suspect such perils to most likely come from within, or from a short stretch south.

Dlowan

After reading the above soul searching and bouts of introspection, it is evident that your thread has been extremely productive as well as entertaining. I know I profited from it because it forced me to analyze and refine my view of a subject I had always taken at face value. I have learned how to deal with the horrors of war and the sadness of the victims it leaves behind but it seems I will never learn how to deal with the cynicism and suspions many in the world have for the leaders and soldiers who must fight the wars.

It is all too easy to second guess and monday morning quarterback the actions taken to fight the wars that we have been involved in----all I ask is for you all to ask yourselves what action you would have taken before you condemn the soldiers and their leaders---empathy and compassion but not sympathy---that's all.

perception,

It's not the soldiers I condemn. It is for them as well as those at home and in Iraq that I am concerned. It's the leaders who started an unnecessary war that continues to take innocent lives, that I condemn. These soldiers would be home with their families had Bush not decided he wanted to play god. It's very sad to think of those who will never get to live the lives they had and could have lived.

The real story of the term "political correctness"
The real story of the term "political correctness" is not very clear. Allegedly, it first appeared in Allan Bloom's 1987 bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind. The one certain thing is that in eighty percent of the situations, PC-ness is associated with male chauvinism, or to be more precise, the lack of PC-ness results from sexist and chauvinistic behavior. Hence, much of the PC discourse is exceptionally anti-male-oriented and, in propaganda-style, speaks about women being oppressed by their male counterparts. In slightly more general terms, PC-ness concerns problematic issues over race, gender, sex and ecology whereby one part of society accuses the other part (also known as the majority) of being brutal murderers, insensitive exploiters, or horrendous oppressors.

Citation:

http://www.istudentcity.com/feature/051001_political_correctness.asp

AND another source:

Animal Farm by George Orwell:
Early on in this conversation Rebecca put forth that she and her Berkeley cabal had essentially coined the term "politically correct" and it's original, idealistic intent to educate the ignorant. Oh, poor Snowball. The Squealers among us have taken that term, run with it, and turned it into a tool of our own making.

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:g7kF2PBkx-4J:home.earthlink.net/~lssd/public/lssd0001.
htm+who+coined+term+political+correctness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

I am not quite sure how you got to condemning soldiers, either, Perception - but I am grateful for your post.

I would often feel very bad for soldiers sent to what I consider wrong and evil wars - but I would not condemn them for obeying orders, unless they were the sort of orders that soldiers obeyed in My Lai or Auschwitz and a thousand other places like that - and even then I don't get myself lulled into a stupid sense of superiority about how I might have acted in similar circumstances. I admire the courage of anyone, in any job, who risks life and limb, and puts themselves in amongst the worst sights and experiences.

I wonder if you see challenges to unthinking patriotism, such as I have made, and immediately assume this is a sort "tip of the gestalt" code for a whole range of other beliefs - which people may, or may not, hold? This is why, as I have said ad nauseum, I started this thread, because I just could not comprehend the degree of reaction to such a challenge. This thread has, indeed, been very interesting in that regard - though it has stubbornly refused my attempts to chivy it in a direction I had hoped to see included amongst the other directions it has taken. LOL.

Having said that, I suspect that such assumptions are made throughout political debates - here and elsewhere.

Percy, you're sick--you cannot give up the attempt to color what others say and do in a light you consider negative. Because people cry out against a bastard like Bush making war unnecessarily, it is not axiomatic that they condemn soldiers. In suggesting that, you are practicing exactly that type of demagogic warping of definitions which is used to pervert patriotism into an evil thing.

I don't like weapons, but don't think that I'm a pacifist in the pure sense.

At the time, I had my physical examination for the Forces, 'they' usually asked as first question, if you weren't willing to defense your liberty, life and family.
So, I didn't become a conscientious objector (one of the few social workers, who was conscripted) but joined the navy (and became there [later] one of the few warrant officers, who didn't shoot).

Hmmm - I am not sure that defending one's loved people/things is all that difficult to trigger - it may well be where a threat is far off and unreal - but, when things are up close and personal (I admit I am not quite sure what type of situation ehBeth is imagining) reaction seems pretty fast and instinctive - at least they have been in my case - and I am not at all physically aggressive in normal circumstances....

perception - i grew up in an army town, with a military university. Empathy, compassion and respect for enlisted men and women is something i have plenty of. i have virtually none for their leaders - unless they are leaders who have served actively and have given proof that they are willing to put their own lives on the line.

As I've said before, maybe here, definitely IRL - the only war that really makes sense to me is generals in boxing rings duking it out. Let the old men have their wars - but let them fight their own battles.





psssst - try not to be mean about my dogs, k?

Yeah I love the idea of "political" leaders "duding" it out. Unfortunately the that's never gonna happen so we're "stuck" with what we have now.

Your dogs????? wow I seem to have missed the circumstances of certain relationships here----somebody clue me in. I sometimes get the awful feeling I have "crashed" a family picnic and believe me that is not a feeling I cherish.

heh ;-)

perhaps we should have a separate thread about who all here is the boyfriend / wife / daughter / father / flatmate of whom - cause there's something of all of that going on around here ;-).

it's true ... its like a family picnic - a masquerade picnic!

You need to occasionally pop in to some of the other threads, perception.

Bailey and Cleo (Cleo is the graduand in Setanta's current avatar) live with me. Setanta visits them, and me, when he can. Bailey and Cleo are also hamburger (who you may have spotted on your Brian Mulroney thread) 's grand-dogs.

Bailey and Cleo and Setanta and I just came back from a trip around Lake Michigan - the grand finale of which was a get-together in Madison, Wisconsin where they/we met timberlandko, swimpy, patiodog and sozobe.

Life IS a picnic when you're a little dog!


(hamburger and Bailey and some gooooood canajun cheese)


oopsie edit

just to elucidate further ... not just am i anastasia's ex-boyfriend, i am also blatham's bastard grandson and walter's secret teenage lover.

Way to go, Perception! We've seen a small handful of members of the opposition whose statements and opinions are so outre, it hurts to read their posts. In fact, I seldom do. Congradulations on exceeding all previously established boundaries.

wow - you met two swimpy's?! or did you just meet swimpy twice ...?

grrrrrrr

well, technically i met swimpy more often than i met sozobe, but what you caught (you brute) was me multi-tasking as i upload, edit, and re-size the pix from that trip (i was just looking at a pic of swimpy when i posted that)