Matthew Yglesias strikes again, with a new theory about American patriotism:
American liberals and American conservatives are both Americans so our American patriotism is very similar. We just have different ideas about politics. Specifically, I would say that liberals do a better job of recognizing that much as we may love America there’s something arbitrary about it — we’re just so happen to be Americans whereas other people are Canadians or Mexicans or French or Russian or what have you. The conservative view is more like those Bill Simmons columns where not only is he extolling the virtues of this or that Boston sports team or moment, but he seems to genuinely not understand why other people don’t see it that way. But of course Simmons is from Boston and others of us aren’t.
Armed Liberal notes that Yglesias is confusing patriotism with nationalism:
There actually is something unique and well worth celebrating in American patriotism. First because we were among the first to throw off the yoke of hereditary privilege and substitute the rule of the governed. Second – and most important – because we are not a patrimony defined by land or by blood – not an accident of geography or a nation bound by a common heritage but instead a people animated by a set of ideas. That Yglesias thinks those ideas are worth as much as the ideas motivating – say, China’s polity, or Iraq’s – speaks volumes about what he sees when he looks around him.
Furthermore, Yglesias seems to have forgotten that his fellow travelers on the Left argue vociferously (with the occasional aid of sock-puppets) that patriotism is built on defending that set of ideas — or whatever caricature of those ideas progressives are pushing at any given moment. Is Yglesias suggesting that all of that “How would a Partiot act?” talk is just a convenient pose?ÂÂ
This 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 arbitrary patriotism any less stupid. Indeed, Manhattan-born Yglesias was willing to have himself photographed wearing “terrorist chic,â€Â suggesting a certain level of comfort with Islamist head-hackers without any sense that it was an arbitrary choice on his part.
Even if you think America is naughty and bad a patriot doesn’t sit in a pew cheering on a rousing chorus of God damn America I don;t think. Do something about it; don’t revel in it. Baracky’s patriotism has that sort of inflection. I think it’s very odd.
Jingoistic xenophobic racists.
Comment by JD on 7/7 @ 9:20 am #
Patriachal jingoistic xenophobic racists.
I like how Bush apologist is used as a slur in the WoC comments. I think I may start using that. Considering how Obama is taking a more Bushist stance on his positions it should be easy enough to slip it into discussions.
Back to questioning the patriotism of those who disagree with you? Why don’t you just go for all the marbles and say that anyone who disagrees is disagreeing with god.
And your point?
For the second time today, I denounce myself.
Shouldn’t god type in all caps?
Trying to tell God what to do eh ProggHero? Figures that you’d elevate yourself above your creator.
Comment by ProggHero on 7/7 @ 9:36 am #
Shouldn’t god type in all caps?
God has etiquette!
Don’t they both, him and Sullivan write for the same magazine-Atlantic?
Here is your answer.
Yglesias , just like idiot Goldberg is trying to invent his own definition to promote partisan propaganda.
Also, the problem with Yglesias theory is people like me who immigrated to the USA and fell in love so deeply with the country that they took the citizenship and would put their patriotism up against anybody anytime..
Little off topic rub, USA allows too many immigrants to acquire citizenship when they have no basic knowledge about the history and the constitution and are not proficient in English.
One can not love the country one lives in if that person is ignorant about her and can not speak her language…
Considering that, iirc, I have never done so here, it would be hard to go back to it.
Nor am I questioning Yglesias’s patriotism. I am questioning his claim that patriotism is arbitrary when the subject is the United States, pointing out that even his colleagues on the Left would beg to differ with him. And I am asking whether Ygelsias is questioning their patriotism.
These are not particularly nuanced points. try grasping them, instead of your own knee-jerk progg talking points.
The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His blog comments to perform.
sashal writes:
I generally agree with that, though there are also plenty of native-born Americans with the same problems.
Well Karl you may be right. Half the progg commentators on that link are openly saying they do not feel love of country, do not care they were born here and do not feel we are superior to any other country, and that conservatives start wars to kill brown people in the name of fake patriotism.
So does that mean half the posters on that site are a parody because if I cut and pasted those comments on here you people would be calling me one.
Anybody who is anybody knows that it’s Death who speaks in a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(Discworld)”>CAPS. (Scroll down to quotations.)
I don’t know what the liberal conception of patriotism is, but I think I can fashion a couple of comments about the conservative conception. Patriotism is like pornography, you know it when you see it. Furthermore, these ivory-tower analyses of what patriotism is are what commiepinkodemlibs do. If you commiepinkodemlibs don’t experience patriotism at the profound level of Lee Greenwood then maybe your commiepinkodemlib ass ought to be shipped off to Gitmo where true patriots will play Charlie Daniels at 120 decibels for you 72 hours straight while you stand on one leg saluting an 8×10 of Jesse Helms. Hey, commiepinkodemlib, analyze THIS [fires rocket from predator drone, missing you but hitting several Muslim women and children standing behind you]!
And the funny thing is, while the commiedemlibs fret every July 4 over the meaning of patriotism, the conservatives will know what it means and keep murdering brown-skinned folks in patriotism’s name over and over and over and over…
Arrghhhhh…. sorry. Wish I had a preview. And patience. Patience would be good.
“Comment by ProggHero on 7/7 @ 9:30 am #
Back to questioning the patriotism of those who disagree with you?”
No, just fascists like you, Froggy.
“And the funny thing is, while the commiedemlibs fret every July 4 over the meaning of patriotism, the conservatives will know what it means and keep murdering brown-skinned folks in patriotism’s name over and over and over and over…”
What’d I say?
Thanks NObrain your opinion means so much to me. Without your validation I do not know how I could continue with my life.
Can anyone please point out what Proggie contributes to the discussion other than random tangents and over-the-top pronouncements?
Because removing jammering idiots from the room doesn’t hurt the concept of free discussion of ideas, IMO.
That would be side-splitting parodistic humor, Techie.
True Patriots? How to Celebrate America…
The patriotism debate continued yesterday at Winds of Change, which took issue with Matthew Yglesias’ post-patriotic relativism (he argued for, essentially, the internationalization of national pride, strangely enough)……
…keep murdering brown-skinned folks…
What color were the people that Saddam killed?
Oh, hell, ProggHero, you know conservatives prefer to be color-blind. We’d kill people of any color who were available just for fun! Especially on the 4th of July.
The first and last thing I can remember reading on Yglesias’s old blog, not the Atlantic, was a review of Spider-Man 2, which he didn’t like, pretty much because the hero didn’t suffer enough: he beat the bad guys and got the girl, in the end. (It would have taken a happyfeet to do this comic justice.) ‘Weird little shit’, thought I, ‘even for a Harvard grad.’ So also with this latest episode. If every last least little thing you write is an expression of that kind of self-absorption, then you might want to stay away from the subject of patriotism, seeing as how patriotism, whatever the good kind is, probably isn’t a self-absorbed kind of a thing.
Sashal @ 11:
Not even close to correct:
From USCIS website under Natualization requirements:
Language
Applicants for naturalization must be able to read, write, speak, and understand words in ordinary usage in the English language.
United States Government and History Knowledge
An applicant for naturalization must demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of the history and of the principles and form of government of the United States.
Sashal, not even close to being correct? Shocka! Is he still arguing a gainst a book he never bothered to read? That’s some state of the art Phd’ing he’s got going there.
We know, sashal. After all, you were granted citizenship, right?
RTO Trainer,
I cannot believe that I am about defend sashal on this one, but requirements are not the same as enforcement of requirements. How many New Democrat voters got waved through by Clinton for the 1996 election alone?
Karl, there are exceptions, there was also the 80’s amnesty. But Mr. Pravda here was making blanket statements, completely untrue on their face.
RTO,
I see your point, though I read his “too many” as a qualifier.
So, this post is essentially Yglesias likening his view of what patriotism to an accident of birth, and that it’s just as easy for me to become a Frenchman as it is for Joe Paris to take the other side of the trade. Then, the more complete thinkers point out that America is exceptional precisely because I probably couldn’t deliver on the the Joe Paris/yours truly swap – because there’s no way that I’d ever be able to become a Frenchman. Then it’s ProggHero’s spittle-flecked Olbermann rants, which basically tell me that I’m Benedict Arnold if I don’t wipe my ass with the flag after every dump.
It saddens me that I can’t get the past 10 minutes of my life back.
Yglesias’s posts could not have more perfectly summed up what’s wrong with modern liberals today.
dorkafork – it is a case of loving what they desire the object to be; not what it is. The USA isn’t worthy yet.
Narcissim big time.