The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing

Hoover Institution's Policy Review Online ^ | Dec '02 | Lee Harris

[baseball_fan]

snip...

America-bashing is anti-Americanism at its most radical and totalizing. Its goal is not to advise, but to condemn; not to fix, but to destroy. It repudiates every thought of reform in any normal sense; it sees no difference between American liberals and American conservatives; it views every American action, both present and past, as an act of deliberate oppression and systemic exploitation. It is not that America went wrong here or there; it is that it is wrong root and branch. The conviction at the heart of those who engage in it is really quite simple: that America is an unmitigated evil, an irredeemable enormity.

This is the specter that is haunting the world today. Indeed, one may even go so far as to argue that this America is the fundamental organizing principle of the left as it exists today: To be against America is to be on the right side of history; to be for it is to be on the wrong side.

But let’s pause to ask a question whose answer the America-bashers appear to assume they know: What is the right side of history at this point in history?

...snip

[MikefromOhio]

Hey Liberal...

Click on this link here....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103363/posts



And shove it. We don't WANT liberals here. This is a CONSERVATIVE site.

[Darksheare]

Saddam repeatedly violated the 1991 surrender agreement, repeatedly funded terrorism, repeatedly and systematically murdered his own people, and most certainly did have ties to AQ.
Saddam was forking out roughly 28,000 dollars to the families of Hamas homicide bombers.
Saddam also tried to assassinate G.H.W. Bush, but Saddams secret police were so completyel;y inept at their task that they got caught.
You see, they'd tried to put dynamite in the flower boxes on the building GHWB was in, but somebody saw the wires and dynamite bundles sticking out of the boxes and blew the whistle.

[MikefromOhio]

I see this in your future....

[Visiting Liberal]

Please name the Democratic Senators or Representatives that have blamed the attacks of 9/11 on America itself. Please include the time, place, and context in which they made such absurd statements.

Please do not include any instance of a Senator or Representative suggesting we take a hard look at ourselves to figure out what went wrong and how to stop it in the future. That's the patriotic thing to do, the right thing to do, and calling that America Bashing is delusional.

I resent the blanket statement because, quite simply, it isn't true. Liberals do not hate America. You're currently talking to an America-loving citizen who happens to dislike our current government. I am living proof you're wrong.

So you don't like someone displaying the flag?
There are all weather flags, and if you have a light shining on it, it may be left up at night.

I know that. My point was that the people displaying their faux patriotism here don't know it. People here display flags that have been so thoroughly abused it's just sad. You almost seem to be intentionally misunderstanding my comments so that you can dislike me, while I'm trying to engage in an honest discussion. Please try to remember there's a live human being behind this keyboard, and you could try to treat him with some courtesy.

[chb]

Actually, as far as internal America-bashing goes, we inherited a lot of it from the British. There's a reason that Koko's little list (in Mikado) includes an entry for 'All those who praise with enthusiastic tone/Every century but this and every country but their own.'

[Visiting Liberal]

Not sure what your point in showing me a photo of our soldiers is. Did you think I'd respond with automatic revulsion? I have nothing but respect for people who are willing to literally die for their country.

[Fair Go]

What frightens me is the passion and the hatred that comes with anti-Americanism. The facts are there to be distorted so long as they advance the anti-American cause. It is OK to be anti-American, even if it puts one on the side of the Saddam Husseins.

[Sam's Army]

Why, it's Phil Donohue! Thanks for stopping by!

[rogue yam]

Do your own homework, kid. You are a liar and you hate America; that is why you are attempting to disrupt this site. I can see through your wickedness without even trying.

[baseball_fan]

I move the previous question. Can we get your take on the actual article?

[Visiting Liberal]

I understand that this is a conservative site. I'm sorry if my presence bothers you. Feel free to report me if you want to.

I'm here because this is where conservatives are. And while I know this is practically unheard of in this day and age, I think conservatives and liberals ought to spend more time talking to each other, and less time screaming at each other. I've tried to be polite throughout this thread, and I fully understand I'm not gonna win any converts here.

My hope? That you'll all try to understand me a little, and maybe think twice before you call me or other people who share my opinions "America Bashers," "America Haters," or the like.

How about "People who disagree with me?" Heck, I'd even be fine with "People who are just plain wrong."

[fr_freak]

I'm genuinely curious about this: What exactly have the liberals you've witnessed done or said that makes you think they hate America?

First, you'd have to begin with defining what the USA is and for that, we can look to its roots. The Founders were primarily well-educated Christian men who firmly believed in limited government and the necessity of Judeo-Christian morality as the cornerstone. They were all considered liberal for their time, but would be considered extreme right-wing if they were alive today.

The difference between what we call Conservative and Liberal today is based primarily on those founding principles - Conservatives believe in them and liberals despise them. Let's stick to limited government, for example. The Founders wrote the Constitution as meticulously as they could to limit the power of the federal government and hold supreme the rights of the sovereign states and, most importantly, the people. Much of the social safety net that exists in this country today (Soc Sec, welfare, public housing, food stamps, etc.), which is less a true safety net than it is a set of shackles and chains, is blatantly illegal under our Constitution, yet that same set of social programs constitute the cornerstone of liberal political philosophy today: that government should intercede in and solve all men's problems, even though the true roots of American political culture forbid this explicitly.

Now, to the degree that our government, as usually motivated by conservatives, follows the original founding principles, liberals hate it. The government (and all who favor this view) is called evil, racist, sexist, oppressive, etc. when it refuses to be a nanny for many people at the expense of other people and in violation of our Constitution. To the degree that our government casts our founding principles aside and meddles in the affairs of its citizens, lashing them with heavy taxes on everything to redistribute their money into social programs that keep participants in an endless cycle of poverty, and regulating every activity men engage in, down to the very things they do in their own homes, liberals applaud the government. So, it is quite reasonable to say that the modern liberal detests American culture and political philosophy.

The most unfortunate aspect of the modern liberal is that his hatred of government in the above sense too often translates into hating all things associated with it, such as symbols like the flag, the military who defend it, others who speak in favor of it, etc. The Vietnam War was a perfect example of this. It may have been reasonable for someone to take the position that the war was wrong, but the tremendous anger into which this opposition mutated spilled over onto the men who fought it and the flag they fought under. I believe this is because the modern liberal does not take his political position asthe result of a well-though conclusion, but as an emotional state, almost a religious belief in its utter, unshakeable faith, and thus any challenge to that belief is met with fanatical fury. Marxism, for instance, is essentially a religion because, though it has never been proven to be possible and has often proven to be deadly, its adherents still carry full faith in it as if it were the Bible itself.

To sum up, liberals generally say they don't hate America, but when one lists every essentially element of American culture, values, and political heritage, liberals reveal that they hate all or most of them, and so one must conclude that liberals only like the parts of America inasfar as those parts diverge from America, which is why multi-culturism is so popular. An equivalent example would be if I went to live in Mexico and said that I love Mexico, but only the parts where they eat hamburgers and hot dogs, sing country music and speak English. The question is then, do I really love Mexico?

[MikefromOhio]

tell you what...

Go read anything by Louis Farrakhan. Go read anything said by Cindy Sheehan. Those people have AMERICA and what it stands for. THEY are LIBERALS. You know, you should REALLY know what your proclaimed side stands for before you come here to try to talk to the "other" side.......

Hell go to DU for all I care. And when you come back, you will either agree with them (which is, I am sure what you will do) or you will come back to FR and be a CONSERVATIVE.

[freedumb2003]

Does a mother who corrects her child's misbehavior hate her child?

Quite an ego you have there. America is not a "child" to be admonished, much less punished, especially by someone whose value system (liberalism) is antithetical to all America stands for.

[Visiting Liberal]

I move the previous question. Can we get your take on the actual article?

Fair question. My take? Interesting central point (the conflation of world-wide America-hatred and a sort of neo-Marxism that will supposedly emerge after the "multitude" strikes the American state down).

Where the author loses me is when he deliberately equates that attitude with the American left. This seems to be an intentional supposition that the hatred non-Americans feel for our country, and the American left's distaste for our current right-wing government, are the same thing. They aren't.

With that, I have to leave. If my account still exists, I'll be back tomorrow. ;)

[RobbyS]

American success is a contradiction of almost every leftish principle, but American republicanism has been rejected by both left and right since our Revolution.

[RobbyS]

European radicalism spring from that radicalism of the French revolution. We may have treated OUR tories badly, but they began with a blood bath and have been bloody-minded since. Effectively the end of their civilization came to an end in the Great War. They have never recovered.

[P.O.E.]

Don't mean to intrude, but for reference try Black Book of Communism for documentation for number of dead.

The "intellectual origins" for America-bashing indeed are important, since it is the tools of mental manipulation under the guise of thought that drive many of the America-haters, the anti-capitalists, the rewriters of the meanings and intentions of the the founding and early years of this great country of ours.

[Brett66]

Respect for the deep structural laws that govern the historical process — whatever these laws may be — must dictate a proportionate respect for any social order that has achieved the degree of stability and prosperity the United States has achieved and has been signally decisive in permitting other nations around the world to achieve as well. To ignore these facts in favor of surreal ideals and utterly utopian fantasies is a sign not merely of intellectual bankruptcy, but of a disturbing moral immaturity.

Nice summation, moral immaturity are the two most succinct words to describe those on the left and their infantile trust in government.

[Darksheare]

"Please name the Democratic Senators or Representatives that have blamed the attacks of 9/11 on America itself."


There was this little bit at a soldiers funeral in Pennsylvania:

---

Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll did a little politicking and offered some political commentary Tuesday last, uninvited, at the Carnegie funeral of Staff Sgt. Joseph Goodrich. The Marine, 32, of Westwood, was killed in a mortar attack in Iraq on July 10.

Mrs. Baker Knoll began talking to Sgt. Goodrich's aunt during the Communion service. She handed the aunt a business card; Knoll called the funeral a "function." Then Knoll told the aunt that the state government was "against the war."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/print_356887.html

---

Durbin said this:
Durbin, on the Senate floor June 14, 2005, attacked the Bush administration for its alleged mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. After reading from an FBI report purporting to describe mistreatment of prisoners, Durbin said, "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

And then he claimed the 'right wing media' -no such bird exists- had forced him to 'clarify.

This brings us to Rep. Charlie Rangel.

Only eight days before Durbin's remarks, Rangel, on New York City's WWRL radio, attacked Bush for the "fraudulent" case for his War in Iraq: "It's the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country. This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed [emphasis added]. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn't their ox that was being gored." When the host asked Rangel to clarify, the congressman said, "I am saying that people's silence when they know terrible things are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust, where everyone would have me believe that no one knew those Jews were killed over there."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20050630.shtml

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Go take a look at Cynthia McKinney and her comments, go look at Nancy Pelosi and her comments, go look at Ted Kennedy -if he's sober nobody can tell- and his comments.