In an act of petty revenge against the Philadelphia Eagles, President Trump put on display the concept of patriotism that unfortunately has come to characterize America in the era of the national-security state — a concept that perverts the genuine meaning of patriotism on which America was founded and which characterized the nation throughout the 1800s.
The controversy began when Trump scheduled a ceremony at the White House to celebrate the Super Bowl win by the Eagles. Most of the members of the team, however, decided to boycott the event, which, not surprisingly, caused Trump to go ballistic. Rather than continue with the ceremony with the ten players who were coming, Trump disinvited the entire team and decided to hold what he considered to be a “patriotic” event at the White House.
Surrounded by military men, Trump’s event was what has come to define the word “patriotism”—militarism, nationalism, and an unconditional love of the U.S. military, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI, whose members supposedly devote their lives protecting our rights and freedoms and keeping us “safe.”
The purpose of this type of “patriotism,” of course, is to encourage support of the government, especially through support of the troops, and to discourage criticism of the government or dissent against its policies.
The irony is that the type of patriotism that characterized the founding of our nation was precisely the opposite from Trump’s concept of patriotism.
Consider George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. Americans have been ingrained with the notion that those men were great Americans. They weren’t. That’s because they weren’t Americans. They were British citizens. They were just as much British citizens as Americans today are American citizens.
They didn’t like what their government and the troops were doing to them. They criticized. They dissented. And in the final analysis, they began shooting the troops, doing their best to kill them. As the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, showed, this was not a friendly war by these British citizens against their own government and the troops. It was a brutal and vicious war, one in which the troops were doing their best to kill their own citizens, and vice versa.
King George took the same position as Trump takes today. He considered the British colonists who were taking a stand against their own government and who were killing the troops to be criminals, terrorists, and traitors. If King George and the troops had prevailed, all those rebels would have gone down in history as nothing more than common criminals.
Instead, most of us celebrate them as patriots, genuine patriots. Why is that? Because they had the courage to stand up against their own government and the troops. They were willing to risk their lives by standing for what was right, even if their government and the troops considered them to be criminals, terrorists, and traitors.
Today, Americans lives under a massively powerful government, including an enormous military establishment, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Trump’s version of patriotism entails conflating all of these entities with “the country.” In his mind, it’s all one and the same thing. Thus, if a person opposes the national-security establishment or fails to pay it proper reverence, in Trump’s mind that is equivalent to hating America.
That’s not the way our American ancestors viewed things. After the Revolutionary War was over, they did everything they could to ensure that the United States would never have a massive military establishment, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Also, no IRS. That’s because they believed such institutions were a threat to the country and specifically to the freedom and well-being of the citizenry.
That’s why there were no such things under the Articles of Confederation. It’s also why there were no such things under the Constitution. And why there were no such things for the next 100 years.
The American people didn’t want a strong, powerful, centralized government. They wanted a very weak government. They just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, support their families, and pursue happiness in their own way without interference from government officials. Setting aside the big violation of liberty known as slavery, by and large Americans just wanted the government to protect them from invasion and punish murderers, thieves, and the like.
Their concern was liberty, not nationalism. They didn’t believe in such things as a Pledge of Allegiance or a national anthem. They didn’t think in those terms. They thought in terms of freedom, not allegiance to the government or to the nation.
For a good example of Trump’s version of patriotism, look at the Nazis, who shared his same concept, especially after World War II began. Germans were expected to rally to the government, especially in time of war. Supporting the troops was considered the solemn duty of every German. Anyone who criticized the government or who failed to show the proper reverence for the troops was considered unpatriotic, even a traitor.
My favorite story in history is that of the White Rose. After I learned about the White Rose many years ago, I wrote an article that is my all-time favorite of articles I have ever written. It is entitled “The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent.” I was really pleased when I learned that it had been chosen to be included in an anthology of essays on the Holocaust for high-school students. Some years later, I made a point of visiting the University of Munich, where the White Rose members were students.
Those German students refused to support the troops, even in the middle of World War II. They stood against their government. They criticized it. They called on the German people to rise up against it. They paid for their dissent when they were caught, tried, and beheaded by German officials.
If you haven’t seen the movie “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” I cannot recommend it more highly. It is a German film with English subtitles. Pay particular attention to the courtroom scene, where Sophie and her brother Hans and their best friend Christoph Probst are being tried by military tribunal (the same type of tribunal being used by Pentagon officials in their prison at Guantanamo Bay). Watch and listen carefully to the chief judge’s diatribe against the defendants. He angrily accuses them of being bad Germans, traitors, because they weren’t supporting the troops and the government. His concept of patriotism is no different from that of President Trump.
But the fact is that the White Rose students were the real patriots, just like the people who were standing against their government and its troops in 1776. The patriots are the ones who stand for what is right, even if it means standing against their government and the troops. The traitors are the ones who use government in ways that violate the principles of liberty and justice and, in the process, use nationalist symbols to quell criticism and dissent.
#1: misterwhite To: Deckard (#0)
Yeah! Right on!
(Except for free healthcare, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, free education, and agencies to look ater our well-being like the FDA, EPA, CDC and others)
Other than that, LEAVE US ALONE.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-10 11:47:35 Reply Private Reply
#2: Vicomte13 To: Deckard (#0)
Calls to the past don't speak to me. An armed rebellion murders people. If I'm going to go murder people, they had better be murdering people, such that my back is to the wall. By my lights, my government is not murdering people.
Yes, the taxes are too high. Yes, there is way too much corruption. Yes, the government permits abortion, which is murder. Yes, we are at war and handle it incompetently, which needlessly gets our own people killed. Yes, our police forces are thuggish and overreact a lot and kill people without justification. But no, the government is not systematically killing my people on purpose. It's incompetent, wasteful, profligate and unwise, but it is not actively wicked.
Therefore, there is no justification for me to think about murdering people. America is not the Third Reich. Hell, even the USSR after Stalin wasn't the Third Reich. Crappy things require mental non-assent and passive resistance, and the quiet refusal to cooperate all the time: personal judgment always vetoes the law. Has to, because America is not a living spirit answerable to God, but I am, so what I do has more eternal consequences than anything America does. You are much more important than America, because you are real. This is on the cosmic scale. And THEREFORE you can't be going out there killing people just because this idea, "America" is messy and cockeyed and rather dysfunctional. America is like your body. It's not perfectly fit. It has warts and bruises, and broken veins and sickness and scars. Just because you have plantar warts is no reason to go blow off your foot.
Obviously.
Or rather, that OUGHT to be obvious. Not sure that it is to everybody.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-06-10 11:56:31 Reply Private Reply
#3: GrandIsland To: misterwhite (#1)
“Open borders are consistent with moral principles and principles of free markets and free enterprise. They are also consistent with our heritage of economic liberty. America is in a perfect position to lead the world out of the statist morass in which it has been mired for more than a century. One of the best places to begin leading the world to freedom, free markets, and free enterprise would be by simply opening America’s borders to the free movements of goods and services. It’s the moral and practical solution to America’s immigration woes.”
~Jacob G. Hornberger
This tool left FB because he was hounded by posters as a liberal TOOL.
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-10 12:11:35 Reply Private Reply
#4: Hank Rearden To: Deckard (#0)
President Trump saw the ball-tossing mouthbreathers trying to set him up for an embarrassing photo-op and said "Fuck off, leftists - you're not getting the opportunity."
Nice move as we MAGA.
Hank Rearden posted on 2018-06-10 17:06:07 Reply Private Reply
#5: Liberator To: GrandIsland, Deckard, TooConservative (#3)
Nice find on those hypocritical quotes, GI. That Hornberger was spanked from FB was justified. Posters aren't so easily fooled anymore by propagandist horse-crap/Fake News.
Besides being a liberal tool (hiding behind a "Libertarian" mask), those citations expose Jacob Hornberger as an anarchist AND globalist.
Deckard -- what Hornberger espouses is NOT "Libertarianism". The guy is a bad actor, a transparent Trojan Horse member of "The Resistance".
This entire essay is a Lefty-Globalist thinly-veiled hit piece on Trump. It also didn't take me long to spot another Trump hit-piece at this site, this one *preemptively* blaming the President for *more* expensive hurricane costs (WAAAAH!!! TARIFFS!!) But I digress...
Hornberger's constant hyperbole that has NOTHING to do with Trump and reality and EVERYTHING to do with hysterical projection and delusion. The extent of setting up his not-so-subtle "Trump = Nazi" inference was amusing:
Huh?? WHAT. AN. IDIOT. (Is this dope auditioning for MSNBC?)
Here's "HATE/BLAME TRUMP!!" Hornberger's winning delusion:
Liberator posted on 2018-06-10 17:46:29 Reply Private Reply
#6: Liberator To: Vicomte13 (#2)
Yes, you are right on these counts... And no, gummint isn't murdering people wholesale do Third World sh*tholes (as is inferred.)
This author is hypobolic and purposely inflammatory because HE is part of virulent "The Resistance" movement along with Antifa and its parent company - the Democrat Party Inc. They are doing their best to create divisiveness, hate, and chaos.
"America" is messy and cockeyed and rather dysfunctional. America is like your body. It's not perfectly fit. It has warts and bruises, and broken veins and sickness and scars. Just because you have plantar warts is no reason to go blow off your foot.
Obviously.
Or rather, that OUGHT to be obvious. Not sure that it is to everybody.
Well stated. The reason it's not obvious is...insanity-run-amok on the Left.
Apparently in 0bama's Fascist Utopia, his rainbow farts neutralized all the dysfunctionality,hate and ugliness in America for them.
For these fake libertarians and Leftist hypocrites, America suddenly required an "armed rebellion" and "Resistance" AS OF the evening of November 7, 2016.
Liberator posted on 2018-06-10 17:58:52 Reply Private Reply
#7: Liberator To: Hank Rearden (#4)
Yep. That's one take.
Trump knew the BLMers and Symp-Whiggers who *would* shown up would have merely kneeled and created a scene.
The hyperbolic author referred to *Trump* as "petty". Oh the irony.
Liberator posted on 2018-06-10 18:03:30 Reply Private Reply
#8: Hondo68 To: Deckard, Dont forget to smash the state (#0)
I love my country, it's the government I hate.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-06-10 18:09:58 Reply Private Reply
#9: Liberator To: hondo68 (#8)
LIARS.
Why weren't they openly "hating" their "government" when 0bama was President?
Liberator posted on 2018-06-10 18:23:24 Reply Private Reply
#10: Hondo68 To: Liberator, I like Ike (#9)
All lives matter, numbskull. Where do you come up with this shuck 'n jive, Fox News?
I haven't liked the gov since Ike Eisenhower. Protested LBJ in front of the White House in my '60 Fairlane 500.
Very similar to Ron Paul's goals.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-06-10 19:11:11 Reply Private Reply
#11: GrandIsland To: Liberator (#9)
Excellent question... don’t expect Hondope to answer it.
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-10 20:37:39 Reply Private Reply
#12: GrandIsland To: hondo68 (#10)
Unless you’re riding the Black LIES Matters, coattails... as an anarchist. Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed.
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-10 20:40:56 Reply Private Reply
#13: Hondo68 To: GrandIsland (#12)
Your ahole agenda is not selling well Porky.
Hondo68 posted on 2018-06-10 21:15:41 Reply Private Reply
#14: Deckard To: hondo68 (#12)
The only lives that matter to FireIsland and the other State-worshiping uniformed storm troopers is is "Blue Lives"
Deckard posted on 2018-06-11 08:32:48 Reply Private Reply
#15: Liberator To: GrandIsland, hondo68 (#11)
He still hasn't...and likely won't ever. All I saw was just another "Bad cop!" ad hominum come your way. Man...they ain't never gonna let it go, are they?
When we see a sudden challenge and criticism for EVERYTHING The Hammer (Trump) does (and didn't do), but NO criticism or blame at all for 0bama who sabotaging America in the open, it makes the whiners look..FAKE...and like Tools of "The Resistance".
Liberator posted on 2018-06-11 12:58:22 Reply Private Reply
#16: Liberator To: hondo68, GrandIsland (#13)
CHALLENGE:
*Exactly* WHAT IS that "ahole agenda" about, Hondo?
Liberator posted on 2018-06-11 12:59:25 Reply Private Reply
#17: Liberator To: Deckard, hondo68, GrandIsland (#14)
"State-Worshiping"? Over the years I've seen little to believe that's the case. Meanwhile you guys constant post anti-LEO stories just to tweak GI. He retaliates by tweaking you back.
Btw, if you really believe Thug Lives Matter more than Blue Lives, then you'd prove it by moving to Detroit or Camden.
GI was never a typical LEO because IF he was, he would have played the PC game and been promoted for "just following orders". I believe GI was a more-than-fair cop.
I think you guys are victims of the "Mandela-Effect".
Liberator posted on 2018-06-11 13:08:35 Reply Private Reply
#18: Hondo68 To: Liberator, yukon, 2kon, Fire Island, Robert Paulsen, IbJetson, party hacks, Deckard, *The Two Parties ARE the Same* (#15)
Search for posts by me, go back 2 years to when Obama was president. Then do Deckard just for the hell of it.
You'll find that the posts are consistent across D&R administrations.
You yukon type party people change, kiss up to the R's, and make excuses.
That's GI's agenda in a nutshell. Globalist, Totalitarian Police State, Log Cabin Republican, yukon clone.
Hate America globalists
Hondo68 posted on 2018-06-11 16:56:06 Reply Private Reply
#19: GrandIsland To: Liberator (#17)
I do however recognize that it’s not just governments that can rob me of my rights and liberties. People victimizing me, while violating laws, remove my liberties as well. Some that post here don’t propagate fairly. They’ll attack the government for taking my guns (as they should) and defend the criminal burglar, for stealing my guns, to fund their drug habits.
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-11 18:35:53 Reply Private Reply
#20: sneakypete To: Deckard (#0)
At least Trump HAS a patriotic viewpoint,unless his detractors,who are all globalist buttholes.
sneakypete posted on 2018-06-11 18:44:57 Reply Private Reply
#21: no gnu taxes To: misterwhite (#1)
I've paid into that system for 35 years. It was not supposed to be a welfare system. Just give my damn money back.
Geez, even Trump can collect SS.
no gnu taxes posted on 2018-06-11 19:49:12 Reply Private Reply
#22: misterwhite To: no gnu taxes (#21)
I paid into it for 50. But it's a government-run system that pays out less than a private system and confiscates any remaining "balance" when you die. And it's running out of money. So there's that.
It needs to be privatized.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-11 20:20:09 Reply Private Reply
#23: GrandIsland To: no gnu taxes (#21)
He, without say, paid into too. He doesn’t take a presidential salary... why shouldn’t he collect SS?
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-11 20:42:55 Reply Private Reply
#24: GrandIsland To: misterwhite (#22)
But that isn’t how the WEAK sheep roll in this over sensitized country. We will feed, house and pay for all those old folks that weren’t responsible to provide for their non working golden years, regardless if we abolish SS.
In the wild, you can’t hunt... you die. This is why most animal species will outlast humans.
GrandIsland posted on 2018-06-11 20:50:15 Reply Private Reply
#25: Jameson To: misterwhite (#22)
Privatization is a wealth-grab by the financial services industry which would destroy millions of lives as soon as the next recession hits...
Privatization would increase the "administration costs" significantly.
The surplus funds are invested in the safest vehicle on the planet.
The only issue is the number of people out-living their projected pay-out period.
The solution isn't privatization, it is raising the retirement age, raising the ceiling (by a lot), and bumping the rate by a point or so....
Privatization will only introduce "profit" to the equation, which, as we know, has made the cost of healthcare insurance unmanageable.
Jameson posted on 2018-06-11 22:17:04 Reply Private Reply
#26: misterwhite To: Jameson (#25)
Like the banks, the financial services industry can set up an FDIC-type system of insurance using their funds and backed by the federal government. They'd almost have to do that to draw participants.
"Privatization would increase the "administration costs" significantly."
Hah! Federal employees who can't be fired are running the current system, loaded with participant fraud and abuse (Disability insurance is paid by Socual Security funds to 14 million people totaling $150 billion per year.)
Throw in competition with a profit motive and costs would shrink. The Social Security system currently spends $2 billion a year to administer retirement and survivors benefits.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 08:25:21 Reply Private Reply
#27: misterwhite To: Jameson (#25)
That's been the solution for decades. So has eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse". Time to do something other than talk about it.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 08:28:49 Reply Private Reply
#28: Jameson To: misterwhite (#27)
Your "party" controls 3 branches of government....
Please proceed.
Jameson posted on 2018-06-12 08:31:21 Reply Private Reply
#29: misterwhite To: GrandIsland (#24)
You can set it up with an FDIC-type insurance system funded by private investment institutions but backed by the federal government.
"We will feed, house and pay for all those old folks that weren’t responsible to provide for their non working golden years, regardless if we abolish SS."
True. Those funds come from Medicaid. But if you go to one of those government-run homes, you must sell everything you own and turn over those sales and your monthly social security checks to the home. (No, you can't sell and give the proceeds to your children -- first thing the government looks for.)
And don't expect that retirement home to look like what you see in commercials. Those people are paying $6,000 a month of their own money to live like that.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 08:51:34 Reply Private Reply
#30: misterwhite To: Jameson (#28)
You expect Trump to do everything? Will you give him 4 terms to do it?
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 08:54:01 Reply Private Reply
#31: misterwhite To: hondo68 (#8)
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 08:57:48 Reply Private Reply
#32: misterwhite To: Deckard (#0)
So the author defines Trump's view of patriotism then proceeds to criticize it.
This is a textbook example of a "straw man" argument. Also a textbook example of a lazy, agenda-driven, ignorant and deceitful author.
misterwhite posted on 2018-06-12 09:02:01 Reply Private Reply