The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(07-05-2020, 09:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 09:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 05:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Eric -- Classic X'er seems to have the idea that there very few ways in which to be American, and all of those involve being like him, looking like him, and believing like him.  That of course is too narrow.

He fails to understand as I do why Confederate flags and statues of Confederate leaders could be so offensive to people American by default -- and the 13th, 14th, and 125th Amendments in place for a century and a half. Those Americans are the descendants of people for whom those Confederate leaders waged a war and sacrificed huge amounts of cannon fodder, tax revenue, and honor to keep in bondage. The political heirs of the Confederacy then steadily stripped the rights that freed slaves got until they and their descendants  were but shells... until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

If there are memorials to German soldiers of World War II, then those are of the plotters of July 20, 1944, who, had they succeeded, would have put a swift end to the particular horrors of Nazism and sued for peace, putting a swift end to the Nazi nightmare. But those potters failed (they came close to succeeding!) and almost all of them paid with their lives for their courageous deed.

You're wrong. Classic understands that there are many ways to be American and many ways to prove to others that one is an American and there are many races of Americans these days as well. You're right. The traditional black vs white, north vs south, rich vs poor, haves vs have nots are too vague and way too narrow to go by these days. You can if you want but you'll be crushed by America. Classic also understands that burning an American flag or dissing the American flag during the American anthem isn't a good way to gain American support or gain American sympathy these days either.

That has seemed to changed, although not in your right-wing, Trump-loving circles. Colin Kaepernick has been welcomed back into the NFL, and even the commissioner has apologized to him, and his gesture of kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality is being praised and copied instead of knocked now. He was ahead of his time.

The fact that you are worried about these symbols, while you ignore the reality of racial profiling and cops singling out unarmed black men like George Floyd and Elijah McClain for murder, gives broad and powerful hints about where your racial sympathies really lie. Also your defense of confederate monuments does this as well. Trump seemed to cater to the people who say exactly the same things that you do in his speech at Mt. Rushmore yesterday, but it is being condemned as dividing America and as stoking prejudice by many folks, as his approval rating drops to minus 14 points or more.

You still cannot define what you mean by what is American. All you can do is appeal to loyalty to national symbols and feelings of nationalist patriotism. The flag and the anthem can be important symbols, but what do they represent?

OK -- I am not Greek or of Greek ancestry.... but the Greeks have a flag that in some respects reminds me of the US flag (nine blue and white stripes instead of thirteen red and white, and a cross instead of stars). 

I would not deny a Greek the right to this flag and anthem:





It well fits a heritage far older than ours, and even more explicitly promotes liberty in contrast to three and a half centuries of subjection to a very alien power that disparaged Greek culture and the majority religion of the Greek people. The music seems to be distinct to the country in question (OK, the Greek-speaking part of Cyprus has used it, but ... those people are Greek!) and uniquely suited to a historical context. It has fit a monarchy and a republic. It was awkward for the vile dictatorship of 1967 to 1973... which is just as well. 

As national anthems go, it is very good -- one of my favorites among those not of my own country. 

The flag and the national anthem well fit a historical context and a culture. This said, few other countries have a history like that of Greece. But this said, a nation is more than its symbols.

An aside: in an extended version, one fellow is mentioned:

Τζορτζ Ουάσινγκτον