Defining True Patriotism

In this day and age one party in our political system is considered to be the ardent supporters of American ideals.  A party where true patriotism and love of our country is not only embraced but protected.  Now we all know that I am talking about the Republican Party.  It is assumed because of Republican’s dedication to conservative ideals and large defense budgets that they are the “true” Americans of the political spectrum.  This can be seen everywhere in politics today, for instance Rick Perry, the new republican presidential hopeful, when asked if he thought the President loved America replied by telling the media to go ask the president himself.  The message  implied  that of course Rick Perry, a conservative, loves America but our liberal (some may say pragmatic) President’s feelings on the country aren’t so clear.  This assumption of republican patriotism is pressed even more by the newfound far right of the party.  The tea party which was born during President Obama’s time in office like to refer to themselves as Tea party patriots, meaning they are the defenders of America.  This is in combination with the tea parties use of the word socialism when referring to any liberal/left leaning/progressive idea, to conjure up the image of communism (something that Americans have been taught to hate since the 1950s).  It is fairly easy to see that the GOP is portrayed as the patriotic party while the DNC is painted to be rebel socialists looking to deform American ideals.  But I would like to contest this assumption and say that (at least this current surge in conservatism) is unpatriotic and maybe even un-American.

It is important to define what exactly I mean by “patriotism” and “America” before this argument takes form.  The definition of patriotism as provided by dictionary.com is “devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.”  Meaning the act of wanting to support and protect the country or nation one lives in.  Secondly it is important to have a concise definition of what America is.  The full and proper name for America is The United States of America and the best way to define this term would be to look all the words composing it.  Yet again provided by dictionary.com, united is defined as “made into or caused to act as a single entity” meaning that a group of persons or organizations are brought together to act as one cohesive front.  The word state is defined as “the condition of matter with respect to structure, form, constitution, phase, or the like.  made, maintained, or chartered by or under the authority of one of the commonwealths that make up a federal union.” What this definition means is that a state is a group of people living in and participating in a structure or rules of a constitution.  Lastly the term America is in reference to the continent that these United States are located on.  So if we take all of the separate definitions of these words and put them together we will have a running definition of what The United States of America is.  America is the bringing together of 50 groups of people governed and structured by individual constitutions and an encompassing constitution which acts for the welfare of its constituents.  The important thing to take away from this definition is that America isn’t defined as the people living between the Atlantic and the Pacific, but as the structure which binds and supports the people who ultimately control it.

Another definition that is important to look at is what these new extreme conservatives (tea partiers) truly believe in.  The grand theme in the bills, speeches and writings of tea partiers is that the government not only fails at doing anything properly but that also it is far too large.  So the goal of this group of individuals is to shrink government down as small as possible.  An important figure in the far right/tea party movement, Gorver Norquist, has been quoted as saying “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”  Showing his complete desire to destroy the United States government and the structure this country is based on.  Now some conservatives might say that he is a fringe idealist and that his ideas don’t convey the feelings of all conservatives.  If that statement is true then why did 240 house representatives, 34 senators and many Republican presidential candidates sign Gorver Norquists no tax pledge? Here is another example from a much more popular leader of conservative ideals.  Ronald Reagan, seen as one of the greatest presidents of all time by conservatives, said “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”  This shows that the idea that government does nothing but cause trouble and hurt the American people is not a fringe belief but a common held belief among conservative Americans. 

Now that we have a definition of was the United States of America is and understand the very core idea of conservatism of the past 30 years, it is easy to see how unpatriotic conservatives are.  If leaders in the conservative movement either claim government is the problem or want to drown it in a bathtub and the definition of The United States of America is the structure/constitution (government) that unites the people living in the country, how are these people patriotic?  Wanting to weaken, shrink, destroy American government both on a state and a national level doesn’t seem to fit the definition of patriotic.  These individuals are looking to strangle the government by cutting all funding, cut the social safety net, cut funding to education, dismantle any regulation protecting consumers, the environment, civilian health while proclaiming that they are the “true patriots” of the political spectrum.  The labeling of government as the problem and the hell-bent quest of tea partiers in congress and state legislature to tear any form of government down is not only un-patriotic but un-American.  This isn’t to say that conservative ideals of making sure taxes aren’t too high, or regulations don’t become overbearing are un-American; in fact this ideas are very important and needed to be represented in government to ensure a balanced approach to governing.  What is un-American is the unbending belief that government is the problem and that it couldn’t possibly do anything beneficial for the American people, leading to a desire to tear it all down. 

The asymmetry of loving America patriotically yet looking to dismantle it must be emphasized in the days ahead.  Democrats and liberals who fight to strengthen governmental programs and ensure equality to all Americans have let conservatives claim superior love of America for too long.  It is time for progressives who look to protect and support (the definition of patriotism) the government of The United States of America to show the American people that they are to true patriots of our country.         

Following the Turtle

About 3 summers ago I acted on impulse and bought a yellow belly slider turtle.  He was just a baby and only twenty dollars; I thought, why the hell not? The humor and peculiar joy that this little turtle brought to me was not shared by the parental units whose house he would be living in.  After a few weeks of questioning my IQ level my parents came to enjoy the presence of the little reptile and began to laugh at the fact that he resided in our house.  After year of residency in the Carter household it became apparent that LT (his newly acquired name) was living a life of quiet desperation.  Our little turtle seemed bored and would float around all day staring at us.  After much deliberation it was decided that he needed some sort of activity to do throughout the day.  We soon discovered that turtles enjoy hunting down minnows and gobbling them up, so we ventured out to pet-smart and bought him 10.  As soon as those helpless fish were dropped into the tank LT went to work; our turtle made quick work of the first seven fish and ate them within the first hour of their arrival.  But a day past by, then a week, a month, then a year and LT didn't touch the other fish.  The three spared minnows soon grew eating the scraps the turtle left behind.  Our family couldn't figure out why he didn't eat those other fish; theories of him being too slow and them becoming friends with the turtle were passed around but all of these were non-sense.  The turtle caught all the other fish easily, so it wouldn't be a problem for him to catch the other three.  As for LT making friends with the fish, that is the Disney movie mentality leaking into our logic.  But with a flash of revelation I figured out exactly why LT didn't eat the fish.  By leaving the three fish alone LT was maintaining an equilibrium with his environment.  In the wild if the turtle had eaten all the fish, his food source would disappear and the animal would die.  So simply by instinct LT had not eaten the other fish to ensure that his environment would continue to exist.  

I think that we can learn something from this little twenty dollar turtle.  Without learning that one must stay in balance with its environment to continue to thrive, LT had practiced it by not eating all the fish.  This is a quality or state of mind that especially western society lacks.  Our tendency to move like locusts through resources and land is appalling.  The rapid consumerism and encouraged mentality of getting as much as you can for the least amount of work is evident in my families response to the turtle.  We were shocked that he didn't consume the fish as rapidly as possible like we would do with a big bacon cheeseburger.  This lifestyle choice of consumerism has led to nothing but inequality and rapidly dissipating resources.  It seems evident to me that the turtle is living a much more responsible life than us human beings.  By only taking what he needs and ensuring the equilibrium of the environment the turtle is protecting not only his life but his descendants lives from turbulence.  So maybe we should take some notes on how this little turtle lives;  this environmental restraint might end up saving humanity...

A Cocktail and a Debate on World Affairs

To end what I will call a most excellent new year’s adventure, I had a quite lengthy conversation on world affairs with a polar opposite.  It was with the cousin of my best friend and her self-proclaimed right answers to all of America’s problems got under my skin.  Although our conversation (more like argument) ranged from meritocracy in military leadership to toilets being a basic commodity, I will be focusing on the most irritating subject.  Her ideas on the American economy and solutions to our current problems boggled my mind.  Behaving like a true Fox news reporter, she would listen to the first four syllables of my response, shake her head, then utter repeatedly “you’re so naïve and wrong!”  So bare with me, this is my week long stewed response to her ideas.

My friends cousin, let’s call her Alice, took one observation that she had made and spun into a basic solution.  Alice had come to notice that a majority of product that can be purchased in America are made in other countries.  From this she concluded that since all of these products are made by non-Americans, that means the money is leaving the country as well as takes jobs away from Americans.  So Alice’s big solution to the current economic decline and the observations of the economy she had made is to only buy American goods.  If we only by products in America, we would not only solve the unemployment problem, we would stimulate the American economy to the extreme.

While this might seem like a great solution to the economic crisis we have been stuck in for the past two years, in actuality there are a multitude of problems with it.  The first problem with this solution is with the made in America products that are supposed to save our economy; the only requirement that needs to be met to be able to slap a “made in America” label on a product is that the final process is done in America.  All of the components, parts, and materials can be made in foreign countries, as long as they are put together in America.  For instance a broom might have a big label on it that says “made in America” but really the handle was made in Sweden, the bristles in Indonesia and the head in China.  By having someone but those three components together in the USA that Broom Company can label their product proudly produced in America.  Just it says it’s American, doesn’t mean it’s American (unless it’s PBR).

The second problem facing Alice’s simple solution is capacity.  When considering the vast range and amount of products that Americans consume on a daily basis, it is an impossibility for us to support ourselves.  The 303 million Americans present and accounted for in the country use a disgusting amount of products everyday; think of every wrapper, drop of gas, door, piece of clothing, etc that you have used today.  Someone has made every single little thing that you touch, eat, watch and enjoy.  Considering how much Americans use every day, it would be impossible for us to make all we “need”.  The only way that we could possibly buy only American products would be to drastically alter the way America consumes.   Honestly this would be the greatest thing that we could ever do for the country; not only would it help the economy, it would also help diplomacy and the environment.  But unfortunately being the good Americans we are, greed and decadence run through are veins.  The American appetite will not be curbed until a catastrophic act occurs.  So Alice’s solution would obviously not work because of the problem of capacity.

Lastly, Alice’s idea runs into the problem of cost.  All of those delightful little products we enjoy on a daily basis are cheap for a reason.  Foreign countries unfortunately don’t have strong workers rights in place, opening the door to employee oppression.  So companies operating in “developing countries” are able to pay employees a dollar for 14 hours worth of grueling work.  This is why all of our shoes, toys and other assorted goods are so affordable.  While I strongly disagree with the alienation and oppression of these workers, sadly this is how our globalized economy.  Now let’s look at what would happen if all of these tedious, dirty jobs had to be done by Americans; first off most Americans would refuse to do the work that is done by these foreign workers claiming its beneath them.  Secondly a lot of the jobs that would need to be done are too hazardous to pass the requirements for workers in America.  But even if we put aside our pompous nature and the dangerousness of the jobs needed to be done, it still wouldn’t work.  The amount of compensation that would have to be granted to American workers would be exponentially more expensive than paying foreign workers.  For example Nike might only have to pay an Indonesian worker a dollar a day to make shoes, while they would have to pay an American 64 dollars a day to do the same job.  So instead of your new Nikes being $85 they would probably end up costing $400 dollars.  But this would not be limited to Nikes, it would involve every single product in America if we follow Alice’s plan.  The price to properly compensate all of the Americans making the products we use would drive the prices up so high that no one could afford anything.

Wow, that was one hell of a rant!  But I feel that I have some good counterpoints to her solution; at the very least they are questions that need to be answered.  Because of our over decadence and prissy mentality of not wanting to get our hands dirty we are stuck with the economic crisis we have.  If we could learn to live without all of the pleasures we have become accustomed too, we could ultimately climb out of this hole and develop better lives for the workers we have oppressed for a century.  Unfortunately this is a dream, a dream that will be unlikely to be fulfilled. 

I may be a dreamer but I’m not the only one, maybe someday you can join us and the world can be as one.

Ben