I’ll do my best to ensure that it does not happen again.
“I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it”
~ Theodore H. White
Cupcake:
You make a very valid point. But you must, to be fair acknowledge that what you said also operates in reverse.
A few points to consider:
[1] Was it a successful campaign?
[A] Well the US Army et al are sitting inside baghdad defacing statues do yes.
[2] Did it go to plan
[A] Not quite - those nasty Iraqis fought back enough to extend the war by a few weeks.
[3] What were the protestors really protesting about?
[A] Some, blood for oil [valid]
[B] Invasion of sovereign territory [valid]
[C] The justification of the actions taken [and this is where it gets ugly]
[4] Was anybody protesting against the actual soldiers?
[A] No, most people realise that the army is a political tool, nothing more.
So then, what is the point? - and i’ll speak personally as I don’t presume to speak for ayone else.
It’s no more patriotic to support the war as it is to oppose it - and in terms of the rhetoric offered both sides are as bad as each other.
[Q] Bad? How so?
[A] The anti-war people may be living on another planet with some of their theories and ideas, but in opposing this
is the pig-headed arrogance of those in favour. Both sides have blatnatly refused to examine or acknowledge the other’s points. The pro-war side has, however, been much more prepared to make personal attacks.
I’m not sure which is more dangerous, stupidity or closeminded arrogance?
I would say this though - I fail to understand how attacking another country can be considered a patriotic act - but that’s my opinion YMMV
"I would say this though - I fail to understand how attacking another country can be considered a patriotic act - but that’s my opinion YMMV "
O.K…I DID say that I was not interested in serious debate but since you were so nice and civil about it…
It’s not the act of “attacking another country” that is patriotic, it’s the act of supporting your Government when your country needs you to that is patriotic. Not “Blind” support, not “Unquestioning” support and not even “Fervent” support but what is required is UNWAVERING support.
Do you have kid’s? If you do, I would imagine that you will “support” them no matter what right? Good, Bad, Right and Wrong your support will never waver, that’s because of the bond between parent and child. Is there not a similar bond between Patriot and Country? If not, shouldn’t there be?
There is also the issue of “Faith”, a little thing that seems to be in short supply on the liberal side of things (and admittedly, perhaps too much on the right…). You don’t get to pick and choose what parts of the Bible (or Koran) you believe, to TRULY have faith you must to some extent put that faith in the unexplained/Improbable. If all you have are questions, well my friend, you do not have faith. Worse, if all you have are answers, all you have is an active imagination.
pa•tri•ot
Pronunciation: (pA’trE-ut, -ot" or, esp. Brit., pa’trE-ut), [key]
—n.
- a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
- a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.
- (cap.) Mil.a U.S. Army antiaircraft missile with a range of 37 mi. (60 km) and a 200-lb. (90 kg) warhead, launched from a tracked vehicle with radar and computer guidance and fire control.
In the end I guess (yeah, like this debate will EVER end…) the protesters (both active and sedentary) should ask themselves if what they did and stood for “defended his or her country or it’s interests” and whether or not the fact that they exercised their hard won freedom of speech can really be called “support”.
You can love your neighbor, love your country, you can even love your sheep but that does NOT make you a patriot.
“The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same”
~ Eric Hoffer
Not to mention, the American media, as we are told, “elected not to show” American POWs and kids with their heads blown off. Those kids will forever be on the President’s conscience.
I don’t think you have seen a single protester, who was against freedom or thought that Saddam Houssain is an Iraqi Nelson Mandela. The protests were against war, because civilians would be hurt. Hundreds if not thousands of innocent civilian lives have been lost.
And what’s the first thing the Iraqis do with their newfound freedom? They loot their own cities to the ground, turning them into and something that looks like the movie set for Escape from New York.
I find this strange; many of the anti-war camp complain that this war will all be fought by the middle class, fair enough, but why are star types speaking out? Do they represent the middle class? The rumor goes that when Micheal Moore had his little rant at the O’s a stage hand started booing, i think this was an interesting thing. If the stars were clapping and the stage hand booing what does that say about how the " middle class " feels about the war. In my opinion the stars do not represent anything but themselves and their own view point. I bring this up because most liberals complain that the media shows us what we want to see. Its the same thing with the protests. Who are protesting, midle class or high priced college kids…regular people or stars? The ones who will not fight in the war are the ones that oppose it. I know this is a sort of coherent rant… so sorry if i sound dumb.
Thank you for the response cupcake - and since we’re being all polite here grin,i’ll continue, briefly.
Using your definition - but leaving out the missile bit 9unless osmeone actually thinks they’re a patriot missile shudder:
pa?tri?otPronunciation: (pA’trE-ut, -ot" or, esp. Brit., pa’trE-ut), [key]
?n.
- a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.
- a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.
Okay, so what if a protestor considers themselves defending/ loving their country by protesting against the actions of their government as they see the actions of their government as counter-productive to the interests of their country?
That fits your definition and it’s one that I, personally would hold. You don’t have to stop loving your country to disagree with your government.
I cite your own declaration of independence:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
Essentially the declaration enshrines not only the right and necessity to form a government in order to protect inalienable rights, but it also enshrines the right to oppose the government when people perceive it to be abbrogating those rights.
Needless to say, those parties both for
and against the government being patriotic for patriotism is about ideology and it is about interpretation.
In short those people getting into arguments as to who is more patriotic/ right are doing little more than creating division that are by definition ‘unpatriotic’.
Remember, “a house divided against itself shall not stand”
Cupcake, you are right on many levels. They could find a thousand lbs of anthrax in an old folks home in Irag and a damn liberal would claim it was planted. Most, and i say most not all, the people who were against the war were against George Bush. There is a reason that all of the troops are watching FoxNews and why ABC and CBS dropped points in the rating and fox became the #1 watched cable news network. Because most people do not fall into line with the liberal bullshit. John Kerry and the like (especially Tom Daschle) have gone back and forth over Irag so many times. On Neil Borg’s website, he has a list of things that Tom Daschle has said in the past about Irag. A couple of years ago, when Clinton was president, he was all for going in and stopping Saddam Hussien. Now he says we were wrong for it. MAKE UP YOUR MIND! The liberals would rather see an unsuccessful war and bad economy just so they can have one of their guys in the White House. Its all political. As im sure you all know.
“Needless to say, those parties both for
and against the government being patriotic for patriotism is about ideology and it is about interpretation”
This is what it really boils down to isn’t it?.
Interpretation:
“I will save the Government from itself”
“Poisoning the water supply of Pennsylvania will bring much needed attention to (insert “noble” cause here)”
“My Militia in Montana are the REAL Americans and dammit, we’ll shoot any of them pesky G-men that come around here”
“I will fly this plane into the World Trade center because I am a “Freedom fighter”, not a Terrorist”
…and so on.
“Everyone is everything”…what I mean is that I am one twisted semantic away from being a 1200 pound flying elephant and if you give me the time I can explain exactly my reasoning for this. I could also explain just how deep my belief in this is. It’s true! It’s true! I am! I am!
But it don’t make it true.
Twisting the dictionary meaning of a word to suit ones purpose is like reading your Horoscope and “making it fit you day”, yeah it’s true IF you think about it the right way. Obey the Letter of the Law or the Spirit? I think that you would find that the Pro/Anti would be split down the line similar to Spirit/Letter.
In the end though, the Ends do NOT justify the means so if the End necessitates me being “Un-Patriotic” then I’m not interested.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”
~ William Shakespeare
P.S…I am a Canadian, sorry if not spewing Liberal, Left-wing, spineless, socialist platitudes threw you off. The fact that a CANADIAN (with USA ties) has stronger feeling for the country of AMERICA than some of those “weak” patriots out there should shame them.
TSK, TSK, TSK…
Goldberg…I think you summed things up very well. The stupidcrats…not all…but some prominent ones; totally flip flopped regarding war in Iraq AND changed their views regarding support once a Republican was in the White House. Such blatant hypocrisy is laughable and one reason I am not a democrat and the reason I refer to their voters as STUPIDCRATS.
As for what is truthful in the media:…yes…there are different views depending on which network is running the story. Fox seems pretty accurate; but Al Jazeer?..come on…they report falsehoods that fly in the face of reality. Remember…there is such a thing as TRUTH…not opinion…
Nobody ever said that this war wouldn’t be a total slam-dunk for the USA. No surprise there. It just goes to show that Iraq is not a legitimate threat.
While you guys are patting yourselves on the back saying “I told you so”, there are innocent Iraqi civilians trapped under rubble in Baghdad, with nobody available to help dig them out.
There are people dying right now, innoccent people.
“Feel Good!” ???
Also, the “liberal media” tag is utter bullshit. That is a total myth. As someone else noted, the media is run by huge corporations, who are conservative. NONE of the networks did anything except spout the official line being fed to them by the Pentagon. The role of journalists is NOT to be a puppet of the government, but that’s exactly the role they’ve played in this war. I looked at all of the channels, and only the BBC came slightly close to being “fair and balanced”. the other channels were almost pure US propaganda.
How come there is no longer any mention of FORGED DOCUMENTS (saying that Iraq was supposedly buying plutonium from Niger)? That story was dropped like a hot potatoe, even though a LIE was used to sway Congress into giving the President sweeping powers in the war. That is a huge story that has been buried by the US media.
How come every day there is a big story about finding chemical weapons, which turns out to be false, but the next day there is basically no retraction or clarification? People are being led by the nose here, and apparently some of you enjoy that. I guess you will enjoy being spied on too, now that we have Patriot Act 2. I guess a police state is considered patriotic by the Bush white house.
“We are from the U.S. government, and we’re here to HELP you” LOL!!!
Cupcake, whether you are from Mars or Canada is irrelevant to the validity of your opinion - or at least that’s my opinion - I know the shock of being judged for what you say rather than anything else may come as a shock from past forum experience, but if you feel it necessary I’ll personally abuse you later.
Now, to what you said.
“Everyone is everything”…what I mean is that I am one twisted semantic away from being a 1200 pound flying elephant… It’s true! It’s true! I am! I am!
If you want to be a flying elephant that’s fine with me petal 
Twisting the dictionary meaning of a word to suit ones purpose is like reading your Horoscope and “making it fit you day”, yeah it’s true IF you think about it the right way.
Which is what you’re doing.
You can’t have it both ways you know. You can’t provide a definition and then say that only one interpretation of the provided definition is correct especially when that definition is not binary.
The definition of patriotism is not binary. It states neither what constitutes love of the state or indeed how that love is to be expressed.
Your argument of letter vs spirit of the word doesn’t apply either for the simple reason that you’re trying to codify an amorphous concept not a tangible piece of legislation.
OK that ends the semantic argument.
Personal Note
Now, I personally don’t agree with the war, I think what Bush has done abbrogates far to many things, but then I think many of the protestors come from the left-wing rent-a-crowd who have no real feeling for what Bush has done but are simpl,y protesting becasue it gives them someting to do in the weekends.
As a taoist and a political anarchist [which refers to anti-bureaucratic leanings, not a fondness for explosions] the actions of both parties are abhorent to me - for they destroy the balance.
“That story was dropped like a hot potatoe” (sic)
…Hey Lump, is that a real subtle and clever Quayle reference? or just a damning condemnation of the American public education system?
“If Al Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell check”
~ Dan Quayle
My buddy Judas…
“I cite your own declaration of independence”
My clarification of heritage was FYI only…it is not MY declaration of Independence but what you reference is the part that Militia groups use to justify their actions/existence. It is the clause that gives nut jobs and the like the “Right” to anarchy.
“The definition of patriotism is not binary. It states neither what constitutes love of the state or indeed how that love is to be expressed”
This is where the :Interpretation" thing comes in. The definition of patriotism IS NOT binary (Dual/Two fold), you are right here. The definition of patriotism is what my INTERPRETATION says it is within the confines of the language used to define it’s dictionary meaning. Maybe your argument is with Webster not me? 
And I do have to believe that the Spirit/Letter argument holds water here as I am sure that the inferred meaning of the words Webster used to define “Patriot” were to be defined in the simplest form of the word, not stretched to each descriptors boundaries. Keep It Simple Stupid I guess.
Interpretation again and again. All I can do is Interpret the definition and all you can do is the same. We are going to have to agree to disagree. Which of course makes you no less wrong.
“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche