Does Patriotism Mean Love of Big Govt?

Since When Does Patriotism Mean Love of Big Government? By Chuck Baldwin September 2002

Patriotism seems to have taken on a strange new definition. Love for country has been replaced with love for big government. At one time, American patriotism meant love for liberty, love for family, love for faith, and love for the principles articulated in America's founding documents. No more. Today, only people who demand increased government protection, increased government handouts, and increased government bureaucracies are considered patriotic.

Today's Americans look to the federal government to solve virtually every problem, to protect them from virtually any adversary, and to even subsidize their own personal welfare. In exchange for this new insatiable appetite for serfdom, such people are more than willing to surrender their individual freedoms and personal responsibilities.

There doesn't seem to be Republican alive who remembers Ronald Reagan's famous quote, "Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem!" Instead, today's Republicans appear just as anxious to invoke the heavy hand of government as Democrats - maybe more so.

Virtually no one in Washington is calling for less government today. The only undecided question being debated now is how much to increase the size and scope of the federal government. The founders' concept of limited government has been repudiated by the vast majority of this me-first generation.

Even so-called conservative leaders (including Christian conservatives) on radio and television will fight anyone who dares suggest that the federal government has become a behemoth with virtually no resemblance to the country that was created back in 1776.

No one in Washington wants to dismantle any federal program or department. Even the once-despised National Endowment for the Arts gets a huge spending boost from these "conservative" Republicans. Ditto for federal spending for education, energy, agriculture, commerce, etc., and ad infinitum. And if you think all that's bad, wait until this new Homeland Security Department grows up. There won't be a shred of freedom left! Taxpayers have allowed themselves to be forced into financing a federal leviathan that is in the process of swallowing every liberty and personal responsibility in sight; and few people seem to mind.

Beyond that, if anyone dares suggest that the federal government is too monstrous, too oppressive, and too invasive, they are called unpatriotic. Worse still is the fact that many such people are paid personal visits from a variety of government goon squads in order to intimidate or silence them. (Yes, this practice continues under the Bush administration.)

This is not the America that tens of thousands of brave men fought and died for. This is not the country I grew up in. America has become an alien nation. It is a country completely foreign to the one bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers.

I am very confident that if George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Otis, Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and the rest of those great patriots of yesteryear were alive today, they would be treated by our own government the same way they were treated by old King George of England: as traitors and criminals.

Yet, the real traitors and criminals are the ones in Washington and other places who have worked (and are working) feverishly to dismantle and destroy the fundamental principles contained in our U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.

If despising an overbearing, overreaching, Orwellian-style federal government complete with its "swarms of officers" intent on harassing and stealing my liberties makes me unpatriotic, then I will gladly wear the moniker.

What I think about the article is that the writer is allowing the grasping politicians, inside the Beltway, who have let themselves be intimidated by every grasping special interest group outside the Beltway, define "Patriotism."

The problem of definition is partly in in his own head. Patriotism means what it always meant. Usurpation also means what it has always meant. Washington has become a town full of usurpers. They are not patriots. They are not problem solvers. To paraprase Reagan, Government is not the solution, it is usually the problem.

The writer sees that problem correctly. His mistake is to allow the enemy to define his or anybody else's terms.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

The problem is the Supreme Court; their job is to judge Constitutionality NOT popularity, and certainly not to create new law or expand the Constitution beyond its very clear limits, as in Roe V Wade. They have completely overstepped their bounds. Their job is to look at a case, then look over at the Constitution. This should be completely independent of public opinion or politics; the recent decision about executing "retarted" death row inmates is another classic example: they voted their ideology instead of Constitutionality.

The problem is the Supreme Court;

The Supreme Court is but one of the problems

Let us look at the Senate and its recent failure to uphold their Constitutional duties in the Clinton matter.

The whole system is completely out of control, and operates not in the best interests of the American people.

Nor does it act to uphold those ideal and principals set forth by the founders.

It is a predictable tragedy; the courts play but one small role.

The Orwellians have captured Patriotism and also Conservatism and twisted it to mean fighting foreign wars. This is New World Order Patriotism not American Patriotism.

We are being sucked into fighting endless wars for religious, economic, political, etc issues that have been going on for thousands of years. Our troops still haven't come home from WW II and the Korean wars.

We should not fall into the same pit as the British Empire - where the sun now sets. We better get our 'Patriotism' under control before we head for the same sunset. We should not be the world's police dog coming when called.

I understand your frustration. I do, however, have a different take on history compared to today.

Even Reagan didn't look the ABA in the eye and say he will disregard it's opinion of what judges to select. That is the big battle. Nor did Reagan have the courage or mandate to reduce domestic spending. While he was able to double government revenue with his Capitol Gains cut, he had a... what was it again? Oh yes. A war to fight. So the rats held the defense budget hostage for domestic increases that MORE than doubled.

Now Bush has a war to fight, a predecessor who had falsified economic records by 30%, an esteemed economic icon [Greenspan] who is letting a hint of interest rate hikes continue to haunt investors, a radioactive ship mystery just the other day, along with a mysterious alleged bomb prank, a war in Afghanistan, a UN that booted us from the Human Rights Coalition and replaced us with Sudan, the most partizan senate in US history since the Civil War, and yet....

And yet he still got his meager tax cut, still defies the ABA, still is waging a masterful war, still is keeping US sovereignty, and still is giving the DNC hell in the polls.

Does Patriotism Mean Love of Big Govt?

This is a massive generalization. This also is why I hate the stereotype of "Bushbots."

The answer is "no". This patriot still hates the idea of a big, intrusive government, while supporting Bush's efforts to defeat the forces of terrorism. Some of us feel just fine supporting the president on less than 100 percent of the issues. It's not all or nothing.

The problem is the Supreme Court... Their job is to look at a case, then look over at the Constitution.

You said it! We actually had dissenting justices who wanted to take over the election process! Imagine what a dangerous precedent that would have been. It would be worse than Wade County, Florida in every city in America. Lawsuits after every election.

Forgive me, but could please explain what you meant by; "The problem of definition is partly in in his own head".

I mean that it should not even occur to an articulate Conservative, which the writer appears to be, to let political spin-masters redefine basic terms. One of the first things that we need to understand in the ongoing battle for America, is that we must never play the other side's word games. They keep changing the uses of terms--and by implication the meaning--for a purpose. That purpose is never to advance the things that we believe in.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

The problem of definition is partly in in his own head. Patriotism means what it always meant.

I haven't seen any redefinition of patriotism, myself. I hear plenty of complaints about it, however. Democrats try to make it sound like a dirty word. Clinton's UN Ambassore once said, Nationalism is a code word for racism. [His confirmation hearing.] The Republican Senate approved his appointment overwhelmingly, not because they liked what he said, but they had no clear, specific reason not to appoint him. To me, that was specific enough. To me, nationalism is no different than patriotism. I might be wrong about that.

Regardless, patriotism means love of country and it's people. It always had, and God willing, it always will. Being a patriot does not necessarilly mean you love freedom. Nor does it mean you want a nanny state. Nor does it mean you want an Orwellian state. Those are separate issues, IMHO. No idiology other than patriotism [love of country and its people] has a monopoly on the flag. The rats get very confused about that. And that is a powerful advantage of the GOP.

Freegards....

The Supreme Court is but one of the problems...

Abortion, gun control, employers' rights, free exercize of religion, property rights, freedom to purchase allegra and/or blood thinners without a doctor's note, freedom to raise a child as one sees fit, freedom to handle car safety as one sees fit, accountability for actions... etc etc ad naseum.

Your post (#12) shows clear thinking, and makes crisp and accurate distinctions.

The Republicans should not have confirmed the bastard who made that statement. While nation and race have often been used interchangeably in history; and race, limited to its biological sense, is indeed a factor in nationality, the coupling in that derogatory sense telegraphed loud and clear that the man was a doctrinaire Leftist, interested in undermining, not supporting, national loyalty. To understand the mindset, see Myths & Myth Makers In American "Higher" Education, particularly the section on Gordon Allport, a Parlor Pink Fellow Traveller from Harvard, who considered even loyalty to family an undesirable source of prejudice--but whose book on the subject was still being used as a textbook, thirty years after his death.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

I must agree with you 100%. Unfortunately it is more than just our terms and language that the socialists have uusurped, they have infiltrated every aspect of our lives.

Socialism is a rebellion against reality. It uses the Big Lie, not just as a means of persuasion, but as a means for reassuring its own adherents. (See The Lies Of Socialism.) In all its forms, it is at least partially driven by a Compulsion For Uniformity. The egalitarianism, which is so beloved by the Parlor Pink set, actually springs from the same hatred for human differences, which prompted Hitler to set up death camps, and the Communists to starve to death even greater numbers, whose only sin was a wish to farm their own land.

Now of course, the Gordon Allports, referred to in my last response, above, would claim that they are only fighting prejudice in the interests of world peace. But what we are left with, if we ever accept their definitions, is the peace of absolute subjugation to their value system.

Yes. They are doing their best to infiltrate every aspect of your life. They mean to end all dissent to the new value system already very evident in many departments of American colleges. We are in a very ugly ideological war, and the sooner we understand how it is being fought, the better. In the days when the Communists were carrying the ball for the Left, it was easy to focus on an enemy. But today, the attack is more defused. It is not centrally directed by a single powerful conspiratorial group--or even two or three. That does not mean, however, that its adherents are any less determined.

William Flax

Does Patriotism Mean Love of Big Govt?

...But neither do politicians tell huge, entertaining whoppers:
"Why, send yours truly to Capitol Hill, and I'll ship the swag home in boxcar lots. You'll be paving the roads with bacon around here when I get done shoveling out the pork barrel. There'll be government jobs for your dog. Leave your garden hose running for fifteen minutes, and I'll have the Department of Transportation build an eight-lane suspension bridge across the puddle. Show me a wet basement, and I'll get you a naval base and make your Roto-Rooter man an admiral of the fleet. There'll be farm subsidies for every geranium you've got in a pot, defense contracts for Junior's spitballs and free day care for Sister's dolls. You'll get unemployment for the sixteen hours every day when you're not at your job, full disability benefits if you have to get up in the night to take a leak, and Social Security checks will come in the mail not just when you retire at sixty-five but when you retire each night to bed. Taxes? Hell, I'll have the government go around every week putting money BACK into your paycheck, and I'll make the IRS hire chimpanzees from the zoo to audit your tax returns. Vote for me, folks..." -P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores

Agreed, but it's still but ONE of the problems.

There are four branchs of government, and all four of them have been selling us down the river for over a century.

And if you add us, there are five...

and the fifth is just as guilty.

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