13 March 2007
8:52 PM
A reader emailed me and asked me to explain this, if I could. I read it through several times in order to be fair.
My take is actually a bit sympathetic. I don’t write off every person who says he hates his country. For one thing in our day and age people tend to use words rather willy-nilly, words like ‘irregardless.’ They say that something “begs” the question, when in fact they mean in “raises” the question. There is a difference; and it is an important one. (Don’t get me started.) And they employ a great many literary devices.
If I had the same problems with our history as this writer, I would have put my sentiments differently. I would have said something more like:
Among many reasons, I regret, on moral grounds, my country’s near-extermination and subsequent oppression of the aboriginal American population. I regret, on moral grounds, my country’s role in the African slave trade. I don’t really regret it’s control of institutions like the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization; any alliance holding between nations, whatever the nature of such alliances are entered into because those nations see some benefit for themselves. (I wish my country hadn’t bothered joining such organizations.) I regret my country’s role in propping up brutal dictators like Suharto, Pinochet, Duvalier, Hussein, Marcos, and the Shah of Iran. (I recognize, however, that this ‘propping up’ was pursuant to the frequently-unachievable, but certainly never long-lasting goal of ‘stability’. Sometimes ‘stability’ is not worth its cost. Totalitarian governments can deliver ‘stability’; I wouldn’t want to live under one. On the other hand it’s difficult to see whether doing nothing is really preferable to a proposed course of action. The left, for all their pretensions to humility and spite for American ‘arrogance’ certainly seem certain that their course of action, motivated by the purest of intentions, would have had morally superior results. On the other hand, they don’t need results, only ‘pure’ motives. And I won’t even deny that their motives are pure.) I don’t think my country’s support for Israel is ‘unconditional’ but is predicated upon the fact that Israel is an America-friendly democracy; so I don’t regret our support for Israel. I don’t think the two-party system is bogus. There are other parties; right now they can’t get enough votes to do any practical good. What we do have, in our two-party reality (it’s not a ‘system’) is formation of governing coalitions before elections, as opposed to parliamentary systems where coalitions are formed post-election. I like having some idea of what the ruling coalition will likely be, and likely do, when I cast my vote.
But why did this blogger use the word ‘hate’? I think it’s simply hyperbole. I think he does a fine job of clarifying his major problem: it is with the government/administrations which perpetrated the evils he specifies and for which he ‘hates’ America. It doesn’t seem to me that he hates America the way that Osama bin Ladin, for example, hates America. He has high hopes for his country and has very strong emotions about areas where he believes his country has failed.
I know: I'm coming off more as Secretary of State material than Secretary of Defense.
My take is actually a bit sympathetic. I don’t write off every person who says he hates his country. For one thing in our day and age people tend to use words rather willy-nilly, words like ‘irregardless.’ They say that something “begs” the question, when in fact they mean in “raises” the question. There is a difference; and it is an important one. (Don’t get me started.) And they employ a great many literary devices.
If I had the same problems with our history as this writer, I would have put my sentiments differently. I would have said something more like:
Among many reasons, I regret, on moral grounds, my country’s near-extermination and subsequent oppression of the aboriginal American population. I regret, on moral grounds, my country’s role in the African slave trade. I don’t really regret it’s control of institutions like the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization; any alliance holding between nations, whatever the nature of such alliances are entered into because those nations see some benefit for themselves. (I wish my country hadn’t bothered joining such organizations.) I regret my country’s role in propping up brutal dictators like Suharto, Pinochet, Duvalier, Hussein, Marcos, and the Shah of Iran. (I recognize, however, that this ‘propping up’ was pursuant to the frequently-unachievable, but certainly never long-lasting goal of ‘stability’. Sometimes ‘stability’ is not worth its cost. Totalitarian governments can deliver ‘stability’; I wouldn’t want to live under one. On the other hand it’s difficult to see whether doing nothing is really preferable to a proposed course of action. The left, for all their pretensions to humility and spite for American ‘arrogance’ certainly seem certain that their course of action, motivated by the purest of intentions, would have had morally superior results. On the other hand, they don’t need results, only ‘pure’ motives. And I won’t even deny that their motives are pure.) I don’t think my country’s support for Israel is ‘unconditional’ but is predicated upon the fact that Israel is an America-friendly democracy; so I don’t regret our support for Israel. I don’t think the two-party system is bogus. There are other parties; right now they can’t get enough votes to do any practical good. What we do have, in our two-party reality (it’s not a ‘system’) is formation of governing coalitions before elections, as opposed to parliamentary systems where coalitions are formed post-election. I like having some idea of what the ruling coalition will likely be, and likely do, when I cast my vote.
But why did this blogger use the word ‘hate’? I think it’s simply hyperbole. I think he does a fine job of clarifying his major problem: it is with the government/administrations which perpetrated the evils he specifies and for which he ‘hates’ America. It doesn’t seem to me that he hates America the way that Osama bin Ladin, for example, hates America. He has high hopes for his country and has very strong emotions about areas where he believes his country has failed.
I know: I'm coming off more as Secretary of State material than Secretary of Defense.
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About Me
- James Frank Solís
- Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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