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Not everyone share’s Mr. McCain’s view that the defeat in Vietnam was a “disgrace,” or that the result of a war carried out “Not In My Name” nonetheless has bearing on the worth of one’s country. ~Bret Stephens I should hope that no one shares the view that the outcome of a war has bearing [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Another thought on Lieberman’s McCain endorsement. Even taking into account the bizarre awe in which modern Democrats hold JFK, I thought it was extraordinary that Lieberman said that the “one, in my opinion, closest to the Kennedy legacy, the John F. Kennedy legacy, is John S. McCain.” That’s amusing–John S. McCain. It’s never made sense to [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
You never know when Bolingbroke is going to come in handy. In his thoughtful post on the subject, Reihan replied to one of my arguments: (4) Daniel rejects the notion that patriotism is primarily about the state my sense is that patriotism is commonly, and properly, understood as “constitutional patriotism.” If it is not about [...]
Filed under: Bolingbroke, politics
As a follow-up to this post at the Scene, I should make a few clarifications. I don’t like, and generally try not to use, the word isolationist, because the word is pretty much meaningless and leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. The word isolationist is inherently pejorative and is an extremely loaded term, and moreover [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
A couple of items to ponder for those hoping or fearing some significant change in how the U.S. relates to Israel and Palestine under an Obama administration: Gen. McPeak rejects the attacks against him here, and The New York Sun editorialised in defense of Obama against charges that he was insufficiently “pro-Israel” over two months ago.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
The main American Conservative blog is now up, and the contributors are rapidly outpacing me in producing new posts. If I’m not careful, they’re going to make me look downright lazy. Read Tom Piatak on Jonah Goldberg, Kara Hopkins on the response to Prof. Bacevich’s Obama article, Tim Carney on lobbying, Kelley Vlahos on McCain and [...]
Filed under: miscellaneous
Following up on the continuing patriotism/nationalism debate, Reihan explains why he is a nationalist, and I try to explain why I am not.
Filed under: politics
My thanks to Scene colleague Matt Frost for his post on Kateb, Wilkinson and patriotism. I generally agree with his remarks, and I should have more to say about it in coming days. Let me note that I agree with something Wilkinson said in the comments to Matt’s post: But please don’t forget the role of the [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Will Wilkinson does get this much right: The kerfuffle over Barack Obama’s pastor is in large part about whether the man is patriotic enough. Instead of rejecting this kind of attack or pushing back against it, he then proceeds to applaud Obama for his allegedly “inferior patriotism,” which he takes as a given because Obama [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Kateb also said: In truth, if strict self-defense were ever at stake, patriotism would be unnecessary: people would not require any inflated passion to defend what was not an inflated purpose. But if we followed Wilkinson’s recommendation and loved freedom while being faithless to any particular country, we would need to have patriotism to inspire us to [...]
Filed under: politics