House of Eratosthenes

Hating America There are a lot of people piping up again, or at least there is much noise made by them as they so pipe up, who hate America. Well, they won’t say that, although it’s unmistakable that they want everyone to understand that they do hate America. Their lists of issues and problems with America, just meander endlessly from one unrelated subject to another. This is inherently nonsensical. They don’t seem to mean what they say. They don’t seem to even be directly communicating with anyone as they do their bloviating. I think I summed it up brilliantly at Rick’s place:

A lot of people who live in other countries, see themselves as shareholders within an aristocratic layer, standing to gain something if their country’s currency performs more strongly against the U.S. dollar. And so they spew their anti-American propaganda. They do it so they can be seen doing it.

Sad thing is, they aren’t all living in other countries. Some of them live right here in America…and hate themselves for it.

Just remember, they aren’t communicating. They’re performing. That’s what is sad about being a dedicated America-hater — you have to worry about what everybody else is doing, and everybody else gets to butt in to what you’re doing, which means most of the nonsense you spew out is just a lot of filler designed to please others. Thinking for yourself has become an American luxury, and although they won’t admit it, this is a big part of the reason people “hate” America.

I suppose it’s time to trot out examples, since a favorite accusation of the America-hater has become an accusation of accusation…I’m accusing of hate, anybody who doesn’t like my policies, creating a…okay, altogether now…CLIMATE OF FEAR.

So I would refer the interested and inquisitive observer to scroll upward from that comment of mine, to the comment from “brenda”:

Its fascinating how the American people are so easily distracted from issues that really matter. Opposed to getting titillated by who Obama and McCain’s pastor is and what they think, you may want to take time to consider what if any of this has to do with your paying $4.00 a gallon for gasoline; 63,000 jobs lost in the month of February; the war in Iraq which is siphoning off $13 billion a month; 47 million Americans without healthcare; the Gulf coast still resembling a war zone two years post-Katrina; a gallon of milk costing almost $5.00; the astronomical number of American homes in foreclosure; American banking systems threatening to go under with your money still in it; gang violence out of control in many parts of the country especially the Mid west; the number of children in this country living two to three times below the federal poverty level; education system shot to hell –and I could go on.

What gets me “titillated” about this, is how “she” is so easily distracted from the subject at hand, in midsentence, as she accuses others of being exactly that. The question is whether Barack Obama is worthy of consideration for the presidency. And as it’s been pointed out repeatedly, if he and his long-time church pastor were white men and the pastor’s comments were as racist as they are but in the opposite direction, we’d decide that in about a tenth of a second and we wouldn’t look back. We wouldn’t have time to worry about how much milk costs, it’d be a done deal.

So that is the question under consideration — if you can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses. We need to know.

And no, that doesn’t connect to gangs, Katrina, milk, healthcare or gasoline. But it isn’t any further removed from those things, than anything out of the mouth of Mister Hope-Change-Hope-Change we’ve been hearing for the last year or so. Thousands of jobs lost? What’s Mister Hope-Change gonna do about that, huh brenda? Raise the taxes on those evil businesses? Hey, brilliant. Boy, that’ll really show ’em.

But the America-bashing is fascinating. It’s been stylish for awhile now, but who can deny that it’s in a new phase? People were resentful of America entering World War II too late. They were resentful of us entering Persian Gulf War II too early, or at all. Are those peeves from the same strain of anger?

Arguably not. They are antonymous, by nature. The distance from one to the other in terms of time, is multi-generational. And, I would assert, the motives are different.

It’s not so difficult a thing, you know, to spot the difference between the complaints of an individual and the complaints of a collective. It’s like the difference between truth and fiction, fiction being forced to make some sort of sense. The complaints of an individual have to make sense.

The complaints today against America don’t make sense. Oh, one or two of them might have a kernel of truth. But when you consider all of them as a whole, the entire structure breaks down. Consider the words of commenter “it don’t matter”:

You americans are such a bunch of sheep. You are so easily led along and just go with what the politicians tell you. If you people were to wake up and realize so many people in this world hate america for a reason maybe you could take a look at yourselves and figure out why. Who the hell died and made you the rulers of the world. If america stayed out of everyone elses business and didn’t have to have troops in almost every country on earth they would not be a target of revenge. Think about it, if someone invaded your country would you just accept it or would you fight back? Well what do you think these people are doing? Bring your troops home to defend your country and let others sort out there problems. By the way all you suckers who think you are so free, take a closer look, everyday you give up more and more of your liberties in the name of safety. Grow some balls and stand up to this government bullshit and quit being such followers. News flash your government lies to you.

Now, I know what it is like to be upset at the people of a country because they “give up more and more of [their] liberties.” If I didn’t know what that was like before, I learned it when it was brought to my attention that the Brits have to pay a special tax to watch television in their homes. You knew all about that, right? It’s a pretty big deal. They even have TV detector vans and door-knocking constables barging in to make sure nobody’s watching TV if the tax hasn’t been paid — can you imagine?

Emotionally, how do I react to something like that? Hating the Brits? No…the thought really hadn’t occurred to me. The closest I ever got to that was to shake my head, mutter something, and feel, if anything, sadness. It doesn’t get me ticked off. If I have anger toward anyone when I hear of policies like this one, I have it toward the politicians in the United Kingdom for allowing this to happen — and there, as well, I’m much more sad than angry.

So the giving up more and more civil liberties is, in my mind, a completely phony argument. This doesn’t make people angry. Someone tells me they’re angry about the PATRIOT Act, and I don’t see an angry person, I see a tool. It’s baseless political propaganda. And I hope the speaker is being paid for his propagana, because if he isn’t he’s not only a tool, but a fool.

But let’s indulge the argument for a moment, and pretend temporarily that it’s reasonable to get angry with people of a country who have decided to sacrifice their liberties. What, exactly, are these liberties we’ve given up? The argument boils down to this: New ani-terror legislation is being used to bust drug dealers who aren’t terrorists.

The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.

It really all boils down to that. It sounds scary on the surface: We were attacked, we passed some new laws, now the laws are being used to prosecute crimes that have nothing to do with the event that inspired those new laws.

But the argument dissolves — completely — when you realize the crimes that are being prosecuted, were all crimes before the new laws came into effect, which are procedural laws dealing with what evidence can be gathered, and how. Whether the crime is a crime or not — that was already decided.

That changes everything. Absolutely everything.

I’m not sure where this “liberty” is written down. X is against the law, you routinely do X but we can’t catch you. Terrorist Act Y takes place that gets thousands of people killed so we pass Law Z to bust future Terrorist Acts Y. Z makes it possible to catch you doing X as well, but you have a “civil liberty” to go ahead and do X because Z should only be used to bust Y?

Whether you should be able to get away with X, even though we can bust your ass wide open for it, I don’t think is even up for discussion. It was decided when laws were passed making X a crime. And, sorry, but trafficking is not something you can legally do here. You’re supposed to be getting in trouble when you get caught doing it. That’s just the way it works.

So the propaganda is phony. It is phony in letter and in spirit. It’s also new. Older than 2003…it pre-dates the invasion of Iraq by a good stretch. But it’s still modern. Twenty years ago we had a conservative President whose popularity was, shall we say, a bit soft. He had enemies. But the enemies didn’t rely so much on this tactic of “Look at all those countries that hate us so much lately because of our President!” Had they thought of this, maybe they would have implemented it. But the argument against Teflon Ron wasn’t that he was getting other countries to hate us, it was that he fell asleep in meetings, and wasn’t spending enough of our tax dollars to find a cure for AIDS.

So something has happened since then. Something in the global community has occurred to convince the propagandists, that they can most effecitvely make bad ideas look good, by domininating the discussion in worried tones that France might get all snippy with us if we don’t go ahead and implement the bad ideas.

What happened since the 1980’s to make this the most effective way to criticize a supposedly right-wing President? Now that we know the propaganda is phony, from where did it come, exactly?

Update: On the other question — why is Rick’s place, Brutally Honest, so brutally infested with these insects? As I said over there, “It’s almost like he left something out, and they came crawling in like ants.” His answer makes me think…

The truth of the matter is that somehow, someway, this blog tends to show up in Google more often than not and Lord knows the leftist loons and moonbats are certainly Google adept…

Okay noodle on that one awhile. There’s me — I’ve been known to occasionally argue with lib’ruhls on the innernets, believe it or not. And I have a buh-LOG. Let’s face it, that’s a little weird. Everybody doesn’t have a blog. And truth be told, I occasionally get a little mad at myself when I resolve to finish writing something by 5:45 and it becomes 6:30…then 7:00. Now and then, it starts to look like something a little bit unhealthy.

Internet Argument But then again, doesn’t everything.

Nevertheless — sometimes we need a reminder that there are ways to go well beyond this. The “leftist loons and moonbats” have their own stale talking points. Really, they do. “Lied about weapons of mass destruction” comes to mind first, and then “erosion of civil liberties” and one of my favorites, “there is no terrorist threat” or “you’re more likely to get struck by lightning.”

I cannot even begin to imagine firing up Google, loading those phrases in, and bringing up a search results page so I can jump in and start giving them guff. True, I am guilty when the other party takes the active role, of being unable to resist some probing…dissecting the silly argument…finding out what makes it tick. That does interest me. But to go looking for it? To just trot on out there, mouthing off, reciting my own counter-slogans at the first specimen I happen to find?

I understand completely that to someone who isn’t absorbed into either one of those two levels, they might look somewhat similar. But they aren’t…they’re not even close. What the freakin’ HELL. You use Google to find arguments.

Whisky…Tango…Foxtrot.

It gets sadder still when you think about the ones who don’t even have blogs. Imagine the implications of that. Not organizing anything, not building anything, not even doing the electronic-scrapbook thing. Which must mean, not even feeling any sort of need to do so. No substance, no input, no output. Nothing but the activity, and the instinct to participate in it — an “exercise,” in the most literal interpretation of that word.

The need to spew. And only to spew. The sound bites are tired, repetitive…they vary from one spewing to the next, far less than a given model of car will vary in shape from one year to the next.

Like I said above, I know that looks terribly silly to the non-blogger: A guy with a Blog That Nobody Reads, ranting away about this-or-that, flipping his top over the phenomenon of people who use Google to do a lot of purely stale arguing and nothing more. I’m sure it looks like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Eh…the difference, such as it is, kind of falls into the Fats Waller file. If I have to explain it to you, you’re never gonna know.

I enjoyed this blog very much. You write with humor, intelligence, originality and relevance. I’m a new fan!!!
- brenflag | 03/15/2008 @ 18:46
We’re pleased to have you aboard. Another nobody not coming by to not read the Blog That Nobody Reads.
- mkfreeberg | 03/15/2008 @ 23:51
Once again, you hit the nail on the head. Perfect!
- bradenmikael | 03/16/2008 @ 09:29
I’m just amazed that people think that the government should have anything to do with gas or milk prices, health care coverage, the job market, home foreclosures, natural disasters, the education system, or poverty.

As a matter of fact, all I can see in Brenda’s spew that the government definitely ought to be involved in is the thing she’s bitching about the most — common defense of the nation. She’s complaining we’re spending too much on something the goverment should actually be involved in — whene arguably everything else beyond gang violence and perhaps some treasury issues — the federal government wasn’t ever supposed to be involved in.

I think you did hit the nail on the head regarding those who search for places to spew. It’s like trophy hunting. “I found this place where a guy said ‘X’, and I said : ” spewleftistantiwesternantiamericantalkingpoints spewleftistantiwesternantiamericantalkingpoints spewleftistantiwesternantiamericantalkingpoints spewleftistantiwesternantiamericantalkingpoints

… yeah. That’s what I said. Ain’t I great?
- philmon | 03/17/2008 @ 21:08

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On Hating AmericaSaturday, March 15th, 2008

On Hating America
Saturday, March 15th, 2008