Posted on 12/16/2019 8:31:46 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
At first glance, the new nationalism of conservatives will seem benign and even uncontroversial.
In his book The Case for Nationalism, Rich Lowry defines nationalism as flowing from a peoples natural devotion to their home and to their country. Yoram Hazony, in his book The Virtue of Nationalism, also has a rather anodyne definition of nationalism. It means that the world is governed best when nations agree to cultivate their own traditions, free from interference by other nations.
There is nothing particularly controversial at all about these statements. Defined in these terms, it sounds like little more than simply defending nationality or national sovereignty, which is why Lowry, Hazony, and others insist their definition of nationalism has nothing to do with the most virulent forms involving ethnicity, race, militarism, or fascism.
Heres the problem. I suppose any of us can take any tradition that has a definite history and simply redefine it to our liking. We could then give ourselves permission to castigate anyone who doesnt agree with us as misunderstanding or even libeling us.
But who actually is responsible for the misunderstanding here? The people who are trying to redefine the term, or the people who remind us of nationalisms real history and what nationalism actually has been in history? Which raises an even bigger question: Why go down this road at all?
If you have to spend half of your time explaining, Oh, I dont mean that kind of nationalism, why would you want to associate a venerable tradition of American civic patriotism, national pride, and American exceptionalism at all with the various nationalisms that have occurred in the world?
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
PING!
A fine article. Although long winded, verbose, and repetitive, you can skip to the last paragraph which says it all, nicely, tritely.
America’s system IS exceptional and too many damned Leftist globalists don’t like our standard of living and our personal liberty.
Barack Obama said that Americans could just set their thermostat at whatever temperature they wanted when other people in the world didn’t even have AC or heating units. President Obama said that we were selfish when we wanted to own our own cars and drive them wherever we wanted to go.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg said that our Constitution is not a good model for other countries.
couldn’t set their thermostat
America !! The constitution!!! The founding documents !!! Yessir !
There is no other !
There will never be another !!!
Any ism, separated from God and morality, will become toxic. And that includes the isms you might plan to replace the other isms with.
I does little good to criticize an ism that has gone toxic if you don’t understand what made it so, and why the new ism is going to go just as toxic.
But Nations are still the most natural way to divide people up according to language and culture.
Think of a neighborhood. Houses are the “nations”, every household, has common resources that are shared, and usually there is compatibility amongst the members of the household.
Neighbors can be of different cultures, and yet they can still be good neighbors.
Imagine, however, trying to place two families of different cultures under the same roof, where now they compete for the shared resources of the house, you can see the inevitable conflicts that will result. It’s not to say one culture is necessarily better than the other, but still, it is a less than ideal situation to put them in.
That’s why we have nations.
While I agree with this guy, what percentage of people read to the last paragraph?
Man you have to make your point early on, and then hammer it home with your logic until people can’t deny the truth of it.
Here the guy raised the questions beautifully early on, and that could result in a lot of people totally missing his point.
Just like Progressives do with everything.
Climate, race, "gender identity," firearms, taxes, wages, meat, sexism, secure borders, ...
Yep, nationalism could become a real problem if conservatives start acting like Progressives!
The problem of fake journalism.
“and our democratic way of government that made America the greatest nation in the history of all nations.”
That phrase near the end of the article innocuously slips in what I believe is a MAJOR problem... promoting democracy.
Democracy has been poisonous to our Constitutional Republic for a long long time. The great majority of our citizens are not even slightly aware of the damage it has done, and will do as long as it’s allowed to influence and dominate their thinking.
We need to do what we can to educate, first ourselves, then as many others as possible. Otherwise America, and possibly the world, will languish in an everlasting competition to be the ‘Majority’... and never know peace.
This is standing operating procedure for leftists.
The right wing and left wing concepts are irrelevant now. Republican ans Democrat monikers dont matter.
Politicians are either one world government globalists or nationalists.
Thats the only distinction that matters.
Trump is a nationalist.
The one world government will eventually happen thiufgband be taken over by the Antichrist. But... we know the ending.
For now, we fight the good fight.
We are going down this road because the left, trans-national corperations, and the cheap cultural marxists who have hijacked libertarianism are at war with the nation state, the nation, cultural idenitity and sovereignty, and there is a push back. Not all nations are the same. Not all countries are teh same, and not all nationalisms are the same.
Politicians are either one world government globalists or nationalists. Thats the only distinction that matters.
Let me know when the Left attacks the “left wing” nationalism of “indigenous pipples” and “people of color.”
They can start with the Black Hebrew Israelites, BLM, La Raza; MEChA and even the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis. All these folks are poison to our Republic, along with the Left in general.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.