Posted on 08/29/2010 10:43:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In political debates, liberals often accuse conservatives of saying that liberals hate America. This was particularly common as the left in this country began turning firmly against the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Dissenting from the policies of the ruling Republicans, according to the left, was not just a political opinion, it was really an act of patriotism.
With Barack Obama as president, that line of argument has gone the way of the dodo on questions of foreign policy but the attitude behind it is manifesting itself in the debate over the propriety of the proposed Islamic cultural center/mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. The project is widely unpopular with the American public and also among New Yorkers but for some reason it seems to have found a number of passionate defenders among the liberal commentariat, top Democratic politicians, and the left-wing blogosphere.
Critics of the “Ground Zero mosque” do not simply hold an incorrect opinion in the minds of defenders like New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, they are “un-American” for allegedly believing that all Muslims are the same as the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center.
Mosque critics believe no such thing but that does not matter to its liberal defenders, many of whom seem to have taken a renewed sense of patriotic furvor in embracing this argument.
It’s a puzzling argument to those of us who don’t buy into it. How can being in favor of an Islamic mosque and cultural center in close proximity to a place that was destroyed by Islamic terrorists possibly be patriotic? In his Best of the Web column for the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto answers this question by arguing that liberal elites have a very different view of what patriotism entails than most Americans:
What is the nature of this contempt [for mosque opponents]? In part it is the snobbery of the cognitive elite, exemplified by a recent New York Times Web column by Timothy Egan called “Building a Nation of Know-Nothings”–or by the viciousness directed at Sarah Palin, whose folksy demeanor and state-college background seem terribly déclassé not just to liberals but to a good number of conservatives in places like New York City.
In more cerebral moments, the elitists of the left invoke a kind of Marxism Lite to explain away opinions and values that run counter to their own. Thus Barack Obama’s notorious remark to the effect that economic deprivation embitters the proles, so that they cling to guns and religion. [...]
The Ground Zero mosque is an affront to the sensibilities of ordinary Americans. “The center’s association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence,” as the Associated Press has reported. That Americans would find this offensive is a matter of simple common sense. The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that’s a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.
The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: “the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ‘ours.’ ” What a perfect description of the pro-mosque left. [...]
There is one important difference between the American oik and his European counterpart. American patriotism is not a blood-and-soil nationalism but an allegiance to a country based in an idea of enlightened universalism. Thus our oiks masquerade as–and may even believe themselves to be–superpatriots, more loyal to American principles than the vast majority of Americans, whom they denounce as “un-American” for feeling an attachment to their actual country as opposed to a collection of abstractions.
In short: liberals don’t hate America, they simply hate Americans, especially when they won’t go along with such obviously good things such as President Obama’s healthcare law, “economic stimulus” spending, nationalizing student loans, unilaterally disarming American nuclear weapons, or raising taxes in an anemic economy. Having fully embraced the notion that Judeo-Greco-Roman society has engaged in systematic “cultural imperialism,” the modern Left has embraced what might be termed “cultural inferiorism” as a means to atone.
One could argue that conservatives and libertarians are prone to similarly negative views about the public–particularly when it votes for politicians loathed by the Right–however, it seems to me that when such sentiments are expressed, they tend to proceed more from disappointment than the fulminations against the public one regularly sees expressed by liberals (the supposed movement “for the people”).
The reason for this rhetorical disparity is that conservatives and libertarians seem to have a much better grounding in the idea that they have a political ideology. Liberals lack this sense, believing their ideology to be literally incommensurable to other ideologies. To oppose liberalism is thus not only intellectually incorrect, it is also an affront to common decency.
And that, dear reader is why, if you oppose the Ground Zero mosque you are indeed un-American. To those who think otherwise, congratulations on your supreme enlightenment.
We’re seeing what the left resorts to when they use up the usual counter-attacks. Don’t be hatin’ y’all.
Absolutely true and only one minor correction needed.
Liberals have no ideology - they have instructions Leftists give them to obey, or they get kicked out of their collective as punishment. That's the point of BEING a liberal - you don't have to HAVE an ideology that you might have to personally stand for some day.
As for Leftist "ideology" ... they are eternally split between two arguing factions - those wanting to have both death camps and concentration camps, versus those who just want the death camps without any other hassles.
I always knew I was a good patriot.
Now we don't do that anymore and it is just getting worse and worse.
Patriotic Americans are going to realize that the only way to finally rid themselves of these fascists is to hate them back and eliminate their breeding grounds in educational institutions along with their employment offices in foundations and the media, once and for all.
The excesses of this administration and their majorities in both houses of Congress has finally shown their hand and therefore sealed their fate. We need to turn out in droves this November, though, to ensure democrat incumbents don't cheat and steal their way back to their seats. Then we need follow up our voting with pressure to dismantle the fascist machine the democrat party has built in institutions and the government bureaucracy.
The democrat party needs to be so completely destroyed as a national political force that they are no longer even mentioned in the context of national elections.
Regards
yep...the criminal lib media showing their true colors again...
see when the rats are in the minority or don’t control the WH then when citizens speak out against the gov’t its’ called dissent....
when conservatives speak out its’ called hate...
more and more people are seeing this double standard for what it is- complete hypocrisy...
And coming from San Francisco too, what a joke.
Remember: The Left kills its political opponents whenever it can. They hunger for that day.
“And coming from San Francisco too, what a joke.”
Not everyone in the Bay Area is a foaming-at-the-mouth, hysterical, bomb-throwing Bolshevik. True, a few are, and they give us all a bad reputation.
The Examiner is our ONE print publication that actually has something worthwhile every now and then, unlike the rest of the hard-left “newspapers”.
“Propaganda sheets” would be more accurate.
They are unprocessed compost.
“Patriotic Americans are going to realize that the only way to finally rid themselves of these fascists is to hate them back and eliminate their breeding grounds....”
AMEN!
“The democrat party needs to be so completely destroyed as a national political force that they are no longer even mentioned in the context of national elections.”
I join you in that goal.
I want Barack Obama to be remembered by history for 2 things, first black president and man who destroyed the democratic party.
Considering the mayor’s reputation, I’d say there are very few of you in order for him to be in power.
Well, I don’t live in San Francisco proper. I’d go mad.
But I do live right across the bay in a little, unincorporated community that was known as “home of the cowboy”.
A little bit of sanity among the madness.
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