…or, “Shut the hell up!”
Ann Althouse today pulled the following quote from “Happy birthday USA. But is America’s revolution unravelling? When the USA turned 200, the nation came together as one. Fifty years on, what are the chances of the same thing happening under Donald Trump? A special series from The Sunday Times Magazine is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the USA”:
“And beneath the bluster, Trump’s limited view of the American Revolution is very familiar… it reflects, like so much else about him, the mainstream culture of the Cold War era, when museums and films did indeed tell a relentlessly upbeat story of American accomplishment — in vivid contrast to the plodding drudgery of communism. The leftist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s dissented noisily from this cozy view, but the majority accepted it unquestioningly. Since then a more extreme view has taken root: those who see the revolution not as the start of an unfinished project but as a fixed source of authority, a 250-year-old set of final answers. But as the US blows out its birthday candles, does it still have the capacity it once had for political renewal, while retaining its founding principles? It is always easier to start revolutions than to end them. This is why so many Americans have believed theirs was superior to others: it had been brought to an elegant conclusion by the constitution of 1787. Americans, it seemed, had escaped the spirals of radicalism and authoritarianism that beset France, or Latin American republics….”
I’m going to take a bit of time off from having to fend off insults, protests and rationalizations from the alleged legal ethicists who are furious at me for raising this issue to point out why I couldn’t be less interested in a Brit’s critique of the U.S.
Althouse summed up one excellent reason concisely with her sole comment on the article: “That’s the London Times. The view from the losing side.” That losing side has seen its empire collapse, its culture overwhelmed and destroyed by unrestrained immigration, the right of free speech trampled, its women brutalized, and its economy disastrously mismanaged while the country stands as a cautionary tale regarding the false promise of socialism. Its Prime Minister just resigned, the sixth leader of the government since the beginning of 2016: a seventh will arrive before the year ends. Meanwhile, its revered royal family is riddled with scandals and embarrassments, for King Charles’ pedophile brother to the obnoxious expats grifting off of their titles in the U.S.
Where does this rotting country get off criticizing us?
Ethics Alarms 
This “can’t celebrate America” theme being parroted by anti-American progressives.
I’ve seen that “can’t celebrate America” theme creeping into conversations with Democrats routinely these days. These people have collectively lost their narrow little minds, it’s hive mind cultish.
I noticed the hatred of America or the embarrassment for being American in high school in the 1980’s. It was evident that Democrats hated this country, even then. The Democratic Party has had an entire generation raised on the hatred of this country. They had to destroy the education system to make it stick, however. We are doomed as a country if we can’t find a way to get rid of our Communist public education system.
The Europeans have always hated, feared, and misunderstood the United States. They are still aristocratic societies and look down on us as a nation of commoners. Although our culture started from European culture, it is different. The most recent example of this difference was starkly shown when our 2 airmen were rescued in Iran. Trump hailed their rescue as a great success. European leaders insisted he was lying because the mission resulted in the destruction of 2 cargo planes and some helicopters. The Europeans truly believe that we wouldn’t trade a couple of 50 year old cargo planes for the life of a pilot. They don’t believe we would because they wouldn’t. I read the rebuttal from several British service members who basically said “No, the Americans really are like that.” They related that if you were a member of the British military surrounded by the enemy, you prayed that your rescue had been delegated to the Americans, because the Americans were coming for you, no matter how many of them were killed or wounded in the process. The British military, in contrast, would spend several days doing a cost/benefit analysis before informing you that your rescue was too costly and tell you to try to surrender.
I assumed it was standard issue MS NOW or New York Times or Washington Post editorial stuff.
Funny how everyone in the world gets a vote in American politics, particularly presidential elections. Americans don’t seem to indulge themselves in this busy-body-ness. Maybe it’s because Americans don’t really understand parliamentary governments and elections.
My bet is it’s more likely that Americans could not identify their nearest national parliamentary neighbor – for ignorance of geography or the definition of the word parlaiment.
Speaking of parliaments, why is it that when we invade a country and set up a ‘democracy’, it is always a European-style parliamentary democracy and not a US-style republic? Who is really in charge of those military operations?
While I have great pride in America and all its accomplishments, I worry about the rising communist movement taking hold. It cannot be ignored. It isn’t just in NY, it is spreading, and for the terribly educated youth it is a siren call. It has been a very long time since anyone has taught them about the evils of communism, socialism, excessive taxation, government overreach, etc. They really believe the promises of free stuff, and they don’t stop and do the simple arithmetic to see how long Elon Musk’s extra taxes will last in this bloated Federal budget. Normal people cut spending when there isn’t enough revenue for all their needs and wants. Governments never do.
Maybe it’s time to revisit Henry Ford’s warning (I paraphrase): Anyone who wishes to depend on the American government for their existence should take a close look at the American Indian.
Politically incorrect language or not, it’s hard to challenge the content.
What ‘rising’ Communist movement? The Communists have been in charge of entertainment and education since McCarthy failed to stop them. When I was an undergraduate, my university had a Marxist group, a Marxist-Leninist group, a Trotskyist group, a Maoist group, and a Stalinist group as student organizations. There was no capitalism. There hasn’t been any capitalism in education or in big business in this country for a long time. The only capitalists are small business owners and the Democrats are trying to destroy them as fast as they can (why was it wrong in 2020 for a family lawn service to drive to work together in the same truck from the house where they all live together, but it was OK for them to drive together to a big lawn service and drive to work in a trucks with unrelated coworkers?). Today’s companies are run by the administrative class, the owners (stockholders) do not hold the majority of the voting share rights anymore. This is how communism works, everything is run by the professional administrative class (the new aristocracy). The administrative class then uses the company’s resources for their own uses to promote the causes of the administrative class(this is how Bud Light, Harley Davidson, Cracker Barrel happen and explains the downfall of Hollywood).
You are correct … I understated the problem. I have been saying for a very long time that though his methods were not consistent with our values, Joseph McCarthy was right about academia and Hollywood. Frankly, I’m quite worried.
The story of the United States is upbeat, a miracle in fact, and one that the nation should always celebrate before all the analysis, what ifs, too bads, and criticism commence. It is absolutely appropriate for a nation’s government to begin from a positive viewpoint in educating and inspiring its own citizens. To do otherwise is national suicide: be open about the mistakes, the errors, the embarrassments, the villains and their victims, but only in the context of a national saga that any other nation would sell their soul to equal. This was the first successful republic in a major nation since Ancient Greece. Its commitment to individualism, risk-taking, courage and idealism is unmatched in world history. Most nations have to indulge in large portions of national amnesia to assert genuine pride. We don’t. The world would unquestionably be a much worse place, if it existed at all, were there no United States of America.
“The leftist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s dissented” because they were deluded, stoned, silly and sophomoric. How has that free sex worked out, guys? What about all the drugs? “If it feels right, do it”? Multi-culturalism? Affirmative action? Today’s leftist radicals are, if anything, more foolish and destructive, because they actively dislike their own nation, the Constitution, our institutions, our history and traditions, and have been warped by a rose-tinted glasses view of socialism, a toxic form of economic sleight of hand that has failed everywhere it has been tried.
Despite what Mr Old Bill has said about me (that I am “anti-American”), it is not so. What I notice however is a dualism in America’s psyche. I’ve tried to understand what it is and where it comes from, and perhaps it arises from America’s Puritan past? Where Americanism became infused with religiousness and the sense of having been empowered by God. Manifest destiny that need not ask too many questions because, beyond any doubt, Americanism is goodness itself.
The problem with a “critical position” is that those who criticize can become possessed by critical moods that become undermining and destructive. For one example: When I was researching Sixties radicalism I came across a very worthy book called “The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalim”. The origins of that critical radicalism came out of the Ban the Bomb movement and was Christian and Catholic in internal philosophy. It came out of philosophical and religious Personalism (such for example the Catholic Worker organization of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day). It was in its essence extremely humanistic in its commitments.
I was both influenced and confused by Robert Bork’s harsh critique of that “spirit” for the simple reason that his view, though articulate and coherent, was also partial — or perhaps prejudiced is the word? It is in the music of that era that the intensely idealistic spirit of its humanism (and personalism) is evident and felt. Two examples: Get Together and Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock. You can ridicule its idealism but you cannot dismiss the deeply felt (religiously felt in fact) commitment to high ideals.
And at the same time, and even with the influence if such idealism, the entire generation worked very hard to undermine established hierarchies. And then of course there came along the (literal) Marxist revolutionaries who took advantage of the critical opening to very literally work (as they openly declared) to undermine and overthrow the State.
I do not think we should be getting complacent in the USA, and invoke ethics estoppel on any criticism on the USA from an English newspaper due to the grim situation in the UK (rape gang report, hate speech prosecutions, and other issues).
In 1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote a dystopian novel with the title “It can’t happen here!”, about the rise of a charismatic leader that proceeds to dismantle the institutions that make the USA the USA, leading to a civil war. Democrats may point at that book and point at Trump , and Republicans will point at the one-party state California to see the prophesies of this book taking fruition. Benjamin Franklin once said “A Republic, if you can keep it”.
As most of the EA commenters trend conservatives, imagine the following:
On immigration we would revert back to Biden level policies, with the borders wide open. Nobody ever gets deported.
On free speech the Democrats are in favor of restrictions. The social media companies moderated content at the behest of FBI, NSA, and other government agencies to suppress content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story; this included cancellations of accounts. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once said that social media companies must moderate content on their platforms or else “we lose total control.”. Hillary Clinton also supports the European Union’s efforts to regulate online speech and combat disinformation. She has been a vocal advocate for the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), urging transatlantic allies to implement the regulations to hold tech platforms accountable for amplifying extremism and harmful content.
So can what is transpiring in the UK today happen here? I think it is possible, and all that is needed is a blowout victory for the Democrats.
We should therefore not gloat about commentary in a center of left English newspaper. Despite the American revolution 250 years ago, the USA is maybe much closer to the UK under Labour, and the EU bureaucracy than you may appreciate. We are one blow out victory away for the Democrats, to turn the USA into California, with a permanent Democrat majority. We will still appreciate the fireworks, barbeques and parades at July the 4th, but that holiday would be effectively meaningless as the American Revolution will be undone by a permanent leftwing bureaucracy.
Not sure what prompts this in the post, though.
Ethics estoppel means a particular critic has no moral or factual authority to criticize behavior that he, she or it has taken part in, endorsed or tolerated. Nor does the EA post “gloat.” Where’s a gloat?
Maybe I need some clarification here, but the way I read your post is that the London Times does not have to right to approach the 250th anniversary of the USA critically due to his concerns about how the Trump administration handles things, simply because the London Times is a British newspaper that is trending left. And the British left are estopped from criticizing Trump and the USA, because of history, rape gangs, hate speech laws etc. And this argument is presented with a healthy dose of patriotism (“gloating”).
I think there are some drawbacks to this approach. It shows an unwillingness to engage with someone’s arguments based on who is making the argument, and to which political side he belongs. This is not different than Democrats being unwilling to engage Republicans, because they are racist and evil. It is easy, it is lazy, and it creates a polarization where the Left and Right are not willing to talk with each other but only condemn.
Appeals to “ethics estoppel” can be used as mouth stoppers to foreclose debate, and can thereby contribute to the forming of echo chambers.
I am also reminded of 1 Corinthians 10:12 with well-known biblical warning against overconfidence: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Patriotism can make some USA citizens feel superior to those benighted folks in the UK and EU. I might be a bit more pessimistic about the USA than many on EA as I believe that California can be a bellwether for the future of the USA, and the USA can start to look like the UK under Starmer in a relatively short time. If the Democrats win a future Presidential election in a blowout as in 2008, then the question in the London Times “But as the US blows out its birthday candles, does it still have the capacity it once had for political renewal, while retaining its founding principles? It is always easier to start revolutions than to end them” needs to be answered with a resounding “No”, as the Democrats do not like the Constitution, do not like the history of the United States, do not want to be called patriots as they are globalists. This why we should not refuse to engage the London Times, but instead have a conversation about the meaning of the American Revolution at its 250th birthday.
It shows an unwillingness to engage with someone’s arguments based on who is making the argument, and to which political side he belongs.
It sure does. If someone is arguing against that which that individual has engaged in, supported or tolerated without beginning with that admission, then I do not regard them as serious and good faith advocates. And why should I? Why should anyone? No, I would not be interested in debating Thomas Jefferson in 1820 if he were advocating the abolition of slavery. He is ethically estopped from advocating that position
Based on the results from New York yesterday, it appears that the hard left (Ocasio Cortez, Sandres, Mamdani, et al) is now the controlling faction in the DNC. Couple that with Seattle, Chicago, and the like, and this country is a few votes shy of becoming a socialist paradise.
jvb
I remember the non-crown prince, whatever his name is, one criticized the First Amendment, calling it batshit crazy, based on “what he understood”. That comment pretty much cemented a general distain for British monarchy as a whole.
Why the hell would I (or any one) care what the Prince What’s His Name “understands” about the Constitution. The amendment was written directly in response to his Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather’s* arrests of colonists for sedition, so of course the prince will feel sore about it. U.S. guarentees of freedoms are intentionally a thumb in the monarchy’s eye. For him to say anything about it, especially while living here, proves exactly why it exists.
This feels very arbitrary and misleading. If they included merely “proud”, would the numbers between Democrats and Republicans look less lopsided?
*Yes, I looked up how many generations, but not Prince Henry’s name, because that’s how little I care of his opinion.
I looked up the survey (they don’t make it easy).
The options were “extremely proud”, “very proud”, “moderately proud”, “only a little proud”, “not at all”, and “Can’t read” (OK, it was don’t know).
answer Republican Democrat, Independent
Extremely 77% 20% 32%
Very 15% 16% 21%
Moderately 6% 28% 23%
only a little 1% 23% 10%
not 1% 13% 12%