Tag: patriotism

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defense & war general freedom public opinion

Fight-or-Flight Fact Check

Democrats, war, invasion, defense

“Majority of Americans Would Stay and Fight if Russia Invaded U.S.,” read Newsweek’s headline for its report earlier this month about a Quinnipiac University poll.

Overall, “55 percent said they would stay and fight,” the article informed, “while 38 percent said they would flee the country, like the over 1.5 million people who have fled Ukraine as Russia continues its attack on Ukrainian cities and villages.”

The Quinnipiac survey asked, “If you were in the same position as Ukrainians are now, do you think that you would stay and fight or leave the country?”

“Looking at political affiliation,” Newsweek noted, “Republicans were more likely to say they would stay and fight, with 68 percent saying they would do so, as opposed to 40 percent of Democrats.”

Yet, weeks later, Newsweek delivered a fact check to readers concerning a claim made in a social media post: “60% of Democrats say they wouldn’t fight if America was invaded.”

Their fact-checker rated it false, because only 52 percent of Democrats said they would “leave,” with 8 percent not sure. Case-closed.

Yet, the fact-checker kept the case open, suggesting that perhaps folks had also misunderstood the question. “Indirect evidence” of this “can be surmised” by the response to another question: “If Russian President Vladimir Putin goes beyond Ukraine and attacks a NATO country, would you support or oppose a military response from the United States?

“In this hypothetical, 88 percent of Democrats were supportive of a military response,” the fact-checker noted, “more than both Independents (77 percent) and Republicans (82 percent).”

But hold on . . . supporting a military response by others, thousands of miles away, is not the same thing as deciding to personally fight an invading army.

It’s a fact. Check it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense general freedom

I pledge allegiance to my refrigerator warranty . . .

pledge of allegiance, patriotism, freedom,

. . . and to the refrigerator for which it stands, one cooling unit, under electric power, indivisible from the side by side freezer, with cold drinks and frozen TV dinners for all.

Silly to pledge allegiance to a refrigerator or its warranty? Perhaps no more so than to pledge allegiance to our nation’s flag or our beloved Republic, for which that flag stands.

Wait a second: Doesn’t our Republic deserve our allegiance?

Well, what is meant by “allegiance”? The first dictionary definition reads: “the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord.” 

The word “allegiance” does indeed derive from feudal times. Even further variations of the definition — “the fidelity owed by a subject or citizen to a sovereign or government” or “the obligation of an alien to the government under which the alien resides” — are tied to a relationship whereby “We, the People” are inferior to our nation-state.

But not in America. We are not “subjects” nor “aliens.” We are the sovereigns.

That wonderful frost-free icebox is ours; it works for us. This Republic is also ours and it was designed to work for us. In clear and deliberate language. In fact, language not dissimilar from an appliance warranty — though written more accessibly for the common person.

We are the government. So, do we really need to pledge our allegiance to ourselves?

As Judge Andrew Napolitano asked on his Freedom Watch show several years ago — before Fox mysteriously cancelled the show — “Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Are true patriots guided by symbolism such as flag waving and pledges or by their commitment to personal freedoms?”

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Most folks reciting the Pledge surely do not view themselves as feudal serfs.

Still, words matter. And actions and rituals matter as well. Tomorrow we celebrate Independence Day — not simply as a method to get out of work, but as a way to remind ourselves and our children that this country was conceived in liberty, in the hope we can continue to expand on and live in freedom. (That’s why I say “Independence Day” rather than the “Fourth of July,” since what happened is much more important than the date it happened.)

The Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence — pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor — didn’t see fit to establish a pledge for citizens to recite. Their pledge was to each other and to the country.

The Pledge of Allegiance, on the other hand, was written by an admitted socialist, Francis Bellamy, in 1892. In addition to the Pledge, Mr. Bellamy also came up with a salute for school children and others to make toward the flag. To prove that truth is stranger than fiction, what came to be known as the Bellamy Salute was very similar to the salute adopted by Mussolini and the Italian fascists . . . as well as the Nazis, for use in tandem with their exclamation of “Heil Hitler!”

In 1942, after U.S. entry into World War II, Congress amended the Flag Code to advise folks to place their hand over their heart, instead of giving the Nazi — er, Bellamy Salute.

Don’t go off the deep-end here: I’m not suggesting that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance makes one a Nazi, or even a far milder brand of socialist. When Americans recite the Pledge, they do so for love of country and to affirm the freedoms our Republic is designed to protect and defend.

What I am declaring is that we Americans must understand our history, our government, and our exceptional place in the world well enough to stop defining patriotism as the repetition of someone else’s words about an alien concept of allegiance. Instead, let’s celebrate the words that are quintessentially ours: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

As we celebrate our Independence Day, our break from the monarchy of the Old World, we ought to appreciate that this break threw out any allegiance to rulers as if they wielded divine power over us and substituted for that corrupt rule a constitutional republic, where the citizens had protection against government encroachment on their freedoms, written down in black and white and fully enforceable.

The Constitution is a warranty of sorts. And the more we think of government in practical terms, like a refrigerator or an agreement for services, rather than some mystical force that tells us what to do, the better for actually maintaining our freedom and keeping our Republic.

As Tom Paine wrote: “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government.”

We cannot protect our freedom by repeatedly declaring allegiance to the Republic, much less its three-color stand-in. 

Instead, saving our Republic requires citizens to stand up and demand that our government adhere to the contract.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ooga Booga Time

moon, earth, flag, Aldrin, Buz,z, tribe, tribalism, patriotism, globalism

Two tribes —

On the left, we see both iconoclasm (razing of Confederate memorial statuary) and a fixation on surface meaning (defending the actions of antifa by fixating on its name: “it just means ‘anti-fascism’!). 

On the right, rallying around the flag and MAGA hats has reached fever heat.

— Welcome to Ooga Booga Time.

In other words: tribalism.

Consider the upcoming movie about Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon. The makers of this movie have made a point of not depicting the raising of the Stars and Stripes above the dust of Mare Tranquillitatis.

Why? Because, says the Canadian actor who plays the part of astronaut Armstrong, the filmmakers wished to present “Armstrong’s success as a ‘human achievement’ rather than a patriotic American victory.”

But it was, factually, very much a Cold War victory. 

What the filmmakers are doing is rewriting history to conform to their cosmopolitan, internationalist tribal mindset.* 

Nothing new, of course — Hollywood has been a propaganda mill for a very long time. Once it aligned itself with Washington, D.C. Not any more. 

Now, apparently, even depicting a central bit of traditional American symbolism in the history being filmed is so stylistically, ceremonially offensive that actors and directors and cinematographers avert . . . our eyes.

“One thing is needful,” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote. “To add style to one’s character.” Maybe. But when it comes to politics what we need — in Hollywood and Washington and Anytown, USA — is less attention to symbolism. To style.

And more on substance. And truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* And, perhaps, to appease the propaganda-minded censors of Chinese government. That’s Ben Shapiro’s take.

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Off the Field

Colin Kaepernick, football, flag, patriotism, Trump, free speech, NFL

At last Friday’s event to rally support* for Sen. Luther Strange, the Mitch McConnell-financed establishment candidate in today’s GOP runoff in Alabama, President Donald J. Trump veered — as he is wont to do — off topic: the NFL players refusing to stand for the national anthem.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,” the commander-in-chief asked the crowd, “when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!’?”

Trump’s trash-talking touched off bigger protests before Sunday’s games. Some argued the president was undermining freedom of expression. But, of course, the president was freely expressing himself.

And no doubt speaking for many others.

Polling conducted last year, after former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the pregame anthem — which started this trend — found a majority opposed to his actions.

“NFL ratings are down massively,” the President correctly remarked.

The National Football League’s television ratings dropped 8 percent last year, and so far 2017’s ratings are down an additional 15 percent. Moreover, in a massive JD Power survey, the protests during the anthem were the top reason given for not watching the NFL.

Of course, Kaepernick was making a political statement, not trying to maximize his dollar-value in the marketplace. The now mysteriously unemployed quarterback said a year ago, “If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”

Whether one agrees with Kaepernick or not, he is paying a steep price to make a point. Firing folks won’t silence the message.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* The president oddly quipped of his Strange endorsement: “There is something called loyalty, and I might have made a mistake and I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake.” Trump added that Strange and his GOP opponent, Judge Roy Moore, were “both good men” and he would campaign hard for either Republican.

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ideological culture

Continental Divide

Today’s ideological impasse is not well understood.

To be a modern “liberal” or “progressive” means generally to favor governmental ways of accomplishing things over private ways, especially over voluntary economic transactions.

Programs such as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law, discussed yesterday — like similar ideas elsewhere — are designed to make “things better” by preventing certain types of voluntary behavior and distributing taxpayer money (forcefully extracted money, mind you) to people who play by certain established rules.

This seems like “justice” and “fairness” to progressives. It seems more like tyranny and bullying and grand theft to me.

The biggest division — the ideological analog of a continental divide — may be the very picture we have of government. Whatever good intent there is, I see government as Force Institutionalized. So, of course I want it limited, by constitutions and whatnot, its scope reduced so that voluntary (non-governmental) interactions can take center stage in our social life.

I believe that paper constitutions are not enough, though, and that government must be checked by Joe and Jill Citizen, who have to live under it, pay taxes to support it, and in good conscience assent (or at least adapt) to its presence in their lives.

Progressives prefer not to look at the “naked force” aspect of government, and see only what they think it can do “for us.” I worry what it will do “to us.” As Tom Paine once wrote, “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.