Reply #98: We are taking anything and everything we can get, and we aint ......... [View All]

Going to give anything back, You post

Thank you so much for everything you have given me, collectively and individually. I will never be able to pay that all back. Ever. Thank you.

We owe you, and if you don't like it.......... :evilgrin:

http://hnn.us/articles/1727.html
Liberal Dissenters Are Patriots, too
By Jonathan M. Hansen
Mr. Hansen, a historian, is a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and author of The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 2003).
(snip)
On the home front, the liberal patriots argued that the way to ensure genuine and lasting solidarity was not to intimidate immigrants and political dissenters but to demonstrate the salience of the nation-state--i.e., the federal government--to the well-being of all Americans: E Pluribus Unum meet Quid Pro Quo. The liberal patriots were not jealous sentinels of the people's hearts. They did not regard local loyalties (whether ethnic, racial, regional, or religious) as anathema to national loyalty, or national loyalty, in turn, as inimical to global allegiances. Citizens first learn about loyalty at the local level, they recognized; without local education in obligation, national loyalty would be impossible.

The liberal patriots were devoted to America's founding principles, but they saw no reason why those principles could not extend over the entire earth. They viewed democracy as a universal impulse, but they did not construe the U.S. Constitution as the final word on democratic governance. They regarded as compatriots individuals of any nation who shared their commitment to liberal democracy, just as they denounced individuals, institutions, and governments--at home and abroad--that compromised that fundamental ideal. The liberal patriots expected American foreign policy to uphold the democratic ideals regulating life inside the Republic. For a nation founded upon putative universal values, promoting those values universally constituted the ultimate form of self-defense.

Here, surely, was a vision of patriotism appropriate for a culturally dynamic society in a fluid, globalizing age. It is one contemporary liberals could be proud of. But before liberals can adopt such patriotism, they will need to demonstrate the courage of their conviction by staking out discursive ground. One place to begin is by demolishing once and for all the shibboleth that political dissent is somehow corrosive to the morale of American troops-an argument that is always the last refuge of entrenched political elites. Not only does this argument slight the professionalism of our troops--if they can't stomach political controversy at home, how will they endure the vicissitudes of war?--but it leaves the fate of the troops, like the policy that deployed them, in the hands of a tiny minority: the president and the department of defense. Were I a private in the U.S. Army, I'd want the whole country seriously invested in my fate.
(snip)

A MASSIVE, RIGHTEOUS DU PROJECT - HERE AND NOW
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=386951