Why Gallup chose to put the word “patriotic” in scare quotes in writing about its own poll is left for the reader to ponder.
Inasmuch as it came up in the discussion of Barack Obama’s “national service” plan the other day, I highlight the fact that 78% of those surveyed find military service shows a great deal about the person’s patriotism, and 48% say the same about supporting US policies around the world, while only 28% say it about protesting US policies. Call it our Jacksonian streak. (I add for our more progressive visitors that such poll results does not mean that such attitudes are necessarily correct; that would be the fallacy of mass appeal at work.)
In a related poll, Rasmussen found that 75% of likely voters are proud of America’s history. Only 13% say they are ashamed of that history, with the rest undecided. Republicans are overwhelmingly more positive than Democrats about US history, with 91% of GOP voters expressing pride in America’s past compared to 64% of Democrats and 73% of unaffiliated voters.  These and other numbers in the Rasmussen poll (on America as a role model and whether equality of justice exists here) tend to highlight the degree to which people further Left on the spectrum tend to view America in terms of its faults.
Allahpundit looks at the Gallup numbers and asks how it is that more people regard voting as patriotic than see risking one’s life on the battlefield as patriotic. First of all, the question refers to military service; had it referred to actual combat service, the numbers might have been different.ÂÂ
Second, some answers might be found in a recent Bradley Foundation report, “E Pluribus Unum,” discussed in a column today by David Broder. Although Broder characterizes the report “questioning whether America’s national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness,” one could slot the terms “multi-culturalism” and “political correctness” at the end and have a sharper diagnosis of an educationals system and a society in which the majority of eighth graders cannot explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and only 5% percent of seniors can accurately describe the way presidential power can be checked by Congress and the Supreme Court.
Broder’s response is telling — or would be to Allahpundit:
Young people may not know the Constitution as well as we would like, but they found their way to the polling places in record numbers this year and joined enthusiastically in many campaigns. And they volunteer for all kinds of good works in their communities.
When I wrote about the dumbing down of presidential rhetoric and argumentation, there was a fair amount of contrary sentiment that such was perfectly acceptable to reach the historically broadened base of the electorate. Perhaps people will reflect further on the speed at which we are skiing down the slipperry slope of ignorance to a system where the course of our constitutional republic is being charted by people who increasingly do not understand it.
Related: Matthew Yglesias takes Independence Day to express this bit of brilliance:
Ultimately, I think the United States is a pretty awesome country but it very plausibly would have been even awesomer had English and American political leaders in the late 18th century been farsighted enough to find compromises that would have held the empire together.
The world as imagined by the young pundit posits Rodney King in the place of George Washington, and cannot imagine a foe so implacable that war is necessary.
Yglesias wants to look forward to having Prince Chuckles the Ridiculous as our next (Pin)Head of State?
Anyway, there’s a reason why, for years now, I’ve inserted the words “justifying the revolution” in almost every post I’ve ever done about goings-on over in Old Blighty.
Possibly the most retarded thing I’ve read this year.
Yes I too wish that I could still be paying taxes to the British Crown.
Fuck tea.
What does it say about our political discourse in this day and age that I can read something like that from a lefty without immediately thinking “You’ve got to be shitting me” or something like that?
Lindsey Graham would have made a perfect Princess Diana I think.
Every single thing that sucks about America is due to insufficient rejection of its not-former-enough Britishness.
So — figures.
Well, on the flipside, it would have probably done great things for the UK and Canada.
So, basically, he’s arguing in favor of a state religion? And a monarchy?
WTF is up with the left these days?
“What does it say about our political discourse in this day and age that I can read something like that from a lefty without immediately thinking “You’ve got to be shitting me†or something like that?”
Sean M.,
I think it means that our children and grand children are well and truly fucked!
“Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/4 @ 4:07 pm #
So, basically, he’s arguing in favor of a state religion? And a monarchy?”
That’s what make Islam so interesting for progs.
If instad of Rodney King, howze about:
“If it weren’t for pickpockets I’d have no sex life at all.”
– Rodney Dangerfield
I was so poor growing up .. if I wasn’t a boy… I’d have had nothing to play with
Sure, given a British Empire that didn’t screw things up as badly as the historical one did – this imagined Empire would probably be an utterly dominant world power, with very little to oppose it. They lost us because they were doing a piss-poor job of running/maintaining an empire/colonies here. If they had had the shakes (and gained the experience), India and a good portion of the Mideast would still be British, as would all of North America. But it wouldn’t look anything like the UK today – I don’t think we could judge this particular fantasy Empire by how badly things are going for the Brits nowadays.
Would it be more awesome? Eh, hard to tell; there’s a lot of give-and-take implied in that line of conjecture. But the great experiment of freedom that is the United States would never have occured. And we’d be all the poorer – in so many ways – because of that.
God Save the Gleen !
I wonder if Yglesias realizes that he just claimed that the world would be a better place if an oppressed colonial satellite had not risen up against its foreign dictator… for the good of the global white Imperial power.
#14
Even as early as the late 1700s Britain knew that it was costing her more to maintain her empire than she was receiving from her colonies. Our split with England was just the start of her long downward spiral.
Better troops and ships were sent to the Caribbean to put down the slave rebellion on her sugar plantations since England gained more revenue from sugar than from all of the 13 colonies.
Yglesias prolly thinks self realization is about masturbation.
Given that Yglesias would prefer it if our country as such did not exist, I think I may have to question his patriotism.
You’ve got to remember that for Yglesias, the currently accepted meme about the revolution is that it was all about a bunch of white guys who didn’t want to pay their taxes.
[…] lapse is not exactly surpising, given that on Independence Day, Yglesias expressed his wish that America could have remained part of the British empire. That does not make his claim of […]