Posted on 07/04/2014 5:06:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
You wouldn't think, five years into the Obama presidency, that so many liberal Americans wouldn't like America.
A new Pew survey found that 44 percent of Americans don't often feel pride in being an American, and only 28 percent said that America is the greatest country in the world. Respondents who "often feel proud to be American" were overwhelmingly conservative (from 72 percent to 81 percent depending on the kind of conservative). A majority (60 percent) of "solid liberals" said they don't often feel proud to be an American.
The polling data only proves what has been obvious for a while.
Georgia Rep. John Lewis recently said that, "If the Civil Rights Act was before the Congress today, it would not pass, it would probably never make it to the floor for a vote."
Lewis is right. If it came before the Congress today, it wouldn't pass. You know why? Because we passed it 50 years ago. The GI Bill wouldn't pass today either, because that was enacted in 1944. If, somehow, we had Jim Crow today, the American people -- and Congress -- would vote to abolish it in a landslide.
In fairness, Lewis was primarily condemning congressional gridlock, not GOP racism.
Primarily.
A legitimate hero of the civil rights era, Lewis has adopted the liberal habit of suggesting that his political opponents have a burning desire to return to the era of Jim Crow. At the 2012 Democratic convention, for instance, he gave a thundering speech that equated a vote for Mitt Romney with going back to the era of segregation.
Contrary to what you hear daily on MSNBC, Republicans don't want to force Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Dr. Ben Carson, Sen. Tim Scott or any other African-American to the back of the bus.
Lewis isn't the only leading Democrat incapable of giving the American people some credit. In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case, Hillary Clinton insisted we are following in the footsteps of anti-democratic Middle Eastern theocracies. According to Clinton, the majority on the court were like Iranian mullahs, behaving "in ways that are disadvantageous to women but which prop up them because of their religion, their sect, their tribe, whatever." The shocking, inarticulate stupidity of this analysis is only outdone by the stunning ease with which Clinton offered it.
She's not alone, of course. To listen to some of the hysterical responses to the court's decision, you'd think the government in Washington is the only thing thwarting the desire of millions of businessmen to drape their female employees in burqas.
This glib anti-Americanism manifests itself most readily when issues of race and gender are in the headlines, but it hardly ends there. MSNBC host Chris Hayes celebrated soccer's growing popularity in the U.S. because it strikes a blow against "anti-soccer trolls" who believe in American exceptionalism. "Part of embracing a truly worldwide competition," Hayes cheered, "is accepting the fact the U.S. cannot simply assert its dominance. Turns out we have to play just like everybody else."
It's ironic. In 2009, conservatives (myself included) pounced when Barack Obama seemed to dismiss American exceptionalism as an empty platitude. "I believe in American exceptionalism," Obama explained, "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
By this standard, American exceptionalism isn't exceptional, it's a vague and meaningless form of national self-esteem, rather than a complex concept describing the uniqueness of the American founding and American character.
Liberals quickly and angrily defended Obama, saying none should dare question his patriotism, and of course he believes America is special. In May, Obama took another stab, telling West Point graduates that he believes in American exceptionlism "with every fiber of my being." But he immediately qualified what he meant by insisting that "What makes us exceptional is not flouting international norms and the rule of law; it's our willingness to affirm them through our actions."
Translation: We prove we're exceptional by playing just like everyone else - just like playing soccer!
Why liberals have become so comfortable running down America is no doubt complicated, but I think one part of the answer is obvious. Liberals tend to equate patriotism with the government. Obama was supposed to usher in a glorious new era of European-style big government. He's failed, though alas not entirely. But in the attempt he aroused a populist movement -- the tea parties -- full of people who wore their traditional patriotism on their sleeves and tricorn hats. The forces of American exceptionalism proved formidable, taking advantage of our exceptional constitutional structure to thwart European social democracy.
And liberal resentment over that fact is palpable.
Liberals ‘hate’ America because, the assumption being normal people love their country, they think that makes them smarter than everyone else. Its their basic nature.
I have to agree, precise and to the point.
IMO - this is a result of the social revolution of the 60’s and 70’s - the Weather Underground and other anti-American groups of the day. This was one of their goals and they have succeeded beyond their dreams.
Yes. All the liberals I know are like this. They truly are insufferable. Disagree with them and they look like their heads are about to explode!
Hayes cheered, “is accepting the fact the U.S. cannot simply assert its dominance. Turns out we have to play just like everybody else.”
The nub of it as far as I’m concerned: These types hate the moral authority of the American Idea because they themselves are their own moral authority. America is in their way.
It appears the soccer (pardonnez-moi, les futbol) players are stretching, not levitating.
Anyway, soccer symbolism is the latest left vs right flashpoint - liberals love soccer for its internationalism, conservatives disdain it for the same reason.
Most fans of American football probably aren’t that political about sports.
Goldberg’s theme is about liberals’ anti-American feelings as revealed in national polls; soccer is merely the image du jour reflecting this sentiment on the Left.
The point is exactly what is being said in many of the comments. Here in our United States there is a big difference between the government and the governed. The government sucks (and it has sucked for ages, under both Republicans and Democrats). But our people are basically good folks. Most importantly, our founding principles — that of a constitutional republic springing out of the ideas of Adam Smith and John Locke and Edmund Burke and many others have yet to find an equal in the political-philosophical word. To the Left, these MEN are just a bunch of dead white guys. Who do you want us to emulate Che Guevara? Trotsky? Idi Amin? Pancho Villa? So even though our government has been in the ideological outhouse for a good hundred years or so, the philosophy upon which the USA
was founded still inspires many of us to continue on despite all adversity.
It sure looks to me like that you want to throw the towel in and give up. Don't do that
I knew there was a reason why I am so disagreeable with leftists ;')
futbol
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Bump.
futbol
Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world's most popular sport. ...
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B******t.
One of the core beliefs of liberalism, in total rejection of historical fact, is that they are the party of tolerance and diversity, and the GOP is the party of the Klan which only wants to send blacks back to the plantations, and to lynch any troublemakers.
And people like Lewis believe that Obama was elected on the basis of his alleged abilities and minimal experience, when in reality, he was elected strictly because of his race.
There's no point in being fair to a liberal liar and hypocrite like Lewis, unless you are afraid of having his ilk condemn you of the racism that they themselves embrace.
To anyone who is required to talk and listen to liberals the 60% number is probably low. This was a poll in which people self-identified their pride in America. Even liberals feel obligated to lie and say they love their country and are proud of it when in fact they hate it.
Liberals don't hate all of America. Just that which is good and decent. Liberals love the corrupt, dysfunctional federal government and the corrupt IRS. They love the fact the VA is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and refusing to provide treatment to veterans.
Liberals romanticize the criminals, the con men and the other bad people who prey on honest and good Americans.
In short, liberals are simply bad people who hate good people.
This is a confusing debate. I used to love America because it was exceptional. The shining city on the hill was not like the socialistic, secular, entitlement-enfeebled Europe. Our government was pretty bad in some areas, but NOT that bad. We were not Europe.
Now Obama has remade America into Europe. He and his Bolshevik brethren have irrevocably destroyed traditional marriage and taken over one sixth of the economy — never to relinquish control.
Which America should we love? Past or present?
FDR's administration was infiltrated by communists and spies. These men were born in the 1800s. The 60s and 70s merely manifested itself as a fulminating disease.
As a posted previously, Bill Ayers could never have achieved his position of power without a **lot** of mentoring by Marxofascists who were born in the 1800s and 1910s.
I love my country like a grieving parent loves his crackhead child that is killing himself
Real simple. Liberals need to have an excuse to implement their stupidity as policy.
If everything is great, then there is no excuse for them to "fix" it, whatever they have the compulsion to mess with at the time.
So, they go to great efforts to tear things down in the public psyche in order to justify the remedies they wanted in the first place, whether those are necessary, desirable, or not.
If they manage to convince people that living in a country where even the poor people have the option of being fat is horrible, "unjust", or even "evil", then they have free rein to screw with things (at least in their own minds).
When a person has no ideal were they come from, they have no ideal were there going.
When fighting the blogwarz I've noticed an uptick in a tactic among the lefties. Not dissimilar to Joe Bidet's "It's patriotic to pay your taxes (even though he is in arrears himself), They have adopted a faux-patriotic bearing. Screenames that mimic (and often mock) Founding Fathers, avatars that depict American flags and the Statue of Liberty, etc.
They respond to anything you say with a scolding, "That's not very patriotic of you" or "Why do you hate America?" or "You disrespect our president because you're a racist and you hate America".
It's all designed to get under our collective skins and I've seen where it has had some modest success. These are the selfsame "patriots" who bristled against the axiom of "America, right or wrong" and saw it as arrogant and imperialistic. As with most things the leftists hold only a tissue-thin understanding of anything, including that particular slogan. The slogan, in it's entirety goes, "America, right or wrong. If it's right - keep it right; if it's wrong - make it right
. It's not a statement of our infallibility as much as it's an exhortation to keep to our principles. What they see as jingoistic and self-important I see as encouraging and uplifting.
Mooshie offered up a revealing glimpse into her anti-patriotism - a dark and misanthropic sentiment shared by most Leftist-Americans, when she notoriously stated "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country...". That wasn't misstated patriotism - that was cynical contempt for everything that had come before her husbands rise to power. She wasn't happy that Øbozo was now poised to contribute to the greatness that is America, she was thrilled that they had gotten away with something that was sure to cost our nation.
It was a statement that took JFK's "Ask not.." theme and inverted it. "What's in it for me?!" should be the motto of the Dhimmicrat party. They're only happy when they've gained an advantage and only patriotic when they perceive their side "winning" or dominant. The left and the right will never view patriotism the same way because we are wired differently. You are welcome to shoot me should I ever start to feeeeeeeeeeeeel the same way as they do!
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