On Jan 7, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Nick Arnett wrote:
Warren Ockrassa wrote:
-- every bit as dangerous as blathering on and on about how America is always in the right, justified in anything it does, "my country right or wrong", etc.
I'm not sure if you thought that's what I was saying with the Decatur quote, but the context in which he said it, as well as what it means to me, is very, very far from "America is always in the right."
I wasn't referring to your post; I was thinking more of how the phrase is more often abused than used in its proper context.
He chose to talk instead about a kind of belonging that is akin to belonging to my family, which is a statement of fact whether or not I agree with them or can even stand to be around them.
Yes -- but you can choose not to have anything to do with a nation of individuals, if you want. Countries are not forces of nature, and politics is not a tide or a wind.
Then you are responsible for its misdeeds as well? Such as, I don't know, bombing the living hell out of a country, killing thousands of innocent civilians, on totally false pretenses?
That's when confessing that it is still *my* country becomes so hard, and I'm tempted to say, "What's the point?" But until the day I renounce my citizenship, I still belong, even when I'm deeply unhappy with what I belong to. Of course, the same sort of divisions occur in my head and my heart.
My point here is that ownership is not sufficient. To me it seems more effective to register disgust with a nation's actions than to berate others for pointing out ways in which a nation's policies are faulty.
(Before it comes up from some other poster: I don't buy the "love it or leave it" line any more than I buy the utterly ludicrous assertion that the fed is truly an extension of the will of the people. Both are hive-mind notions.)
I believe that if a nation is going to be "mine" it has to be tolerable and tolerant, at the very least. The US isn't even close on either mark, by many standards. So to that extent US actions are *not* a reflection of my will, and the fed demonstrably is not acting as an extension of my desires. Therefore, this is not my country.
I find it interesting that there are so many who purport to be fiercely individualistic ... but insist on everyone toeing the line in some way or another. This group of people can't marry. That group of people can't complain about paying taxes. That other group of foreigners ... well, they're foreigners, so let's kill 'em.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" my ass.
1. It is your money. (I assume you earned it productively.)
2. It is my money. (I earned it, the fed did not.)
3. It is not our money. (You didn't earn my money for me. You are not entitled to any money from me gratis. I do not expect you to give me any of your money.)
Hmm. Isn't wealth inherently a property of community, even when it isn't community property? (That was fun.)
How?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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