-By Warner Todd Huston
Byron York from NRO’s The Corner Blog noticed an interesting little tidbit in The New York Times on January 18. In the Times’ recounting of all the interesting events going on in the Capitol surrounding the inauguration of The One, the Times seemed very excited that it was suddenly “cool” to be patriotic.
WASHINGTON is suddenly hip again, infused with the heady double-barreled combination of a new crowd of idealistic young political worker bees, who actually believe they can change the world, and the arrival of America’s first black president. It’s even cool to wave the Stars and Stripes. And in the honeymoon months of the Barack Obama presidency, before the country’s marriage to its new president undergoes the usual souring, a trip to the nation’s capital is just the ticket. Why, it would almost be unpatriotic not to visit.
This is far more a revealing and disgusting display of the unpatriotic demeanor of the left than a demonstration of excitement over the Obammessiah’s big day.
This little paragraph also speaks to a chief difference between conservatives and Republicans and the extremists in the Democratic Party. This difference is one that fully defines what real patriotism is and proves once again that the left doesn’t have it.
Recall back during Bill Clinton’s first inaugural, the then left leaning actor Ron Silver told a story that when the jets from the U.S. Air Force streaked over head, he was heartened to realize that those jets were “our jets now.”
Now, many know that Silver had a change of heart in the aftermath of 9/11. After those towers came down, Silver realized that the left was the cause of that crime nearly as much as the Islamofascists that perpetrated it. But in the 1990s he was a die-hard Clintonite. So, when those Air Force jets appeared overhead, Silver, in a revealing display, suddenly felt that those jets were “our jets” whereas before he imagined that the U.S. military apparently stood against him and his ilk. Once Clinton was in charge, though, he felt the military was all of a sudden on his side at long last…. merely because Clinton got elected.
Now we get The New York Times saying that with Obama being installed in the White House, it’s “cool to wave the Stars and Stripes.” It’s as if the flag was not a cool thing before November 4, 2008.
You see, to the left, nothing American is “cool” or “theirs” when they are not in political control. They hate the half of America that leans center right so much that when folks with that ideology are in charge leftists feel that the country is not “theirs.”
On the other hand, conservatives and Republicans claim the flag, the military and the country as theirs no matter who is in charge in Washington D.C. Oh, conservatives and Republicans may not be happy when leftists are in charge, but they rarely completely disown the whole country because of it. Conservatives and Republicans remain proud of the U.S. and its history whether the Democratic Party wins or not.
This sentiment so prominent with Democrats where the country is to be disowned unless they hold political power is not patriotism. It is selfishness, arrogance, hatred, and bigotry, but it is not patriotism.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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