Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Obama’s Patriotism

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

lyzurgyk — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:28:25 -0000

Proud and enthusiastic patriotism isn't the problem. The problem is unbridled capitalism manipulating patriots.

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

Robert Light — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:34:45 -0000

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain.
Sorry to sound a bit facile about it, but being both patriotic and reasonable is not inherently inconsistent. That is, unless you hold that every bit of government comes at the expense of personal liberty - which I think is nonsense and which Charles Kesler eloquently discusses here in a recent speech he gave on limited government:

From a certain point of view—let’s call it, for shorthand purposes, the libertarian point of view, or the view associated this year with Ron Paul—every dollar that government spends comes at the cost of freedom. The premise of this view is that government and freedom are opposites—that all government is oppression. By this way of thinking, limited government is simply limited oppression, differing in magnitude but not in kind from tyranny. Interestingly, this notion does not come originally from any libertarian thinker or friend of freedom. It comes from Machiavelli, the great analyst of open and hidden power, of force and fraud. From Machiavelli’s point of view, there’s no difference between just and unjust government, which are the same phenomenon called by different names. All government, whether considered to be just or unjust, is oppression. Just government is the kind we happen to agree with and profit from, and unjust is the opposite kind.

Against this view stand the American Founders and the greatest statesmen, who have always sharply distinguished between just and unjust—or between free and tyrannical—forms of government. What is the Declaration of Independence but a great meditation on the difference between the absolute despotism contemplated by King George III and the freedom that the Americans hoped to enjoy under their own form of self-government? The Declaration does not proclaim that just government is merely less oppressive than unjust government—as if the American republic and, say, Nazi Germany were separated only by degrees of tyranny. Our ancestors thought that republican governments like ours were good because, grounded in human nature and operating by law and consent, they affirmed human liberty. Though fundamentally devoted to the protection of our natural rights, such governments, especially at the local level, might also provide instruction in morality, because republican habits and customs are needed to shape a republican citizenry who can keep government limited, and who have the character to make liberty something good and enduring

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Read the whole thing here: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

"Q" the Enchanter — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:49:00 -0000

The reason patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels is that it works brilliantly; American jingoism does little but give their ilk aid and comfort.

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

David Stearns — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:21:29 -0000

I agree that the jingoism of the Limbaugh variety is rightly regarded as dangerous and toxic to rational thought. But it saddens me to some extent that that mind-frame has completely co-opted the term 'patriotism.' I'm currently living in China--a country more infected with unquestioning, government-led group think than anywhere else I can think of-- and the experience has definitely made me more proud to be an American than I can ever recall being. Of course, I don't always have to feel proud of my government (I rarely am) to be proud of my country, but that is to a large extent what I love so much about the place. Is there any room left in the concept of 'patriotism' for the deep appreciation of the freedoms and independence of thought that the states are at least supposed to embody, and that they do embody in their finer moments?

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

Jonathan King — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:24:35 -0000

Living in Berkeley CA, I've had recent exposure to well above my minimum daily requirement of patriots, thanks to the influx of red-staters who came here to chastise us for trying to boot out the Marine recruiting office downtown. The fanaticism they brought to their loud insistence on the "heroism" of their thoroughly duped offspring for having signed up for this war was unsurprising, but terrifying nonetheless. I saw it again last night in the eyes of the hideous Wolf Blitzer on CNN, who spoke repeatedly of the "anti-Americanism" of Obama's pastor with such contempt and disgust that I had to laugh.