Love America? They Don't Even Know It - Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 00:16
Love America? They Don’t Even Know It
David C. Stolinsky, MD
May 21, 2009
Suppose you heard a man say, “I love my wife, but I want her to be 20 years younger and have bigger breasts.” Suppose you heard a woman say, “I love my husband, but I want him to be taller and have an executive job.” Suppose you heard a parent say, “I love my son, but I want him to get straight A’s and be a varsity athlete.”
Would you think these people really loved whom they claimed to love? Or would you think that they loved their own glorified ideal of the persons, not the persons themselves. Rather than love, they were expressing a narcissistic desire that the person conform to their notion of perfection: “I’m perfect, so I’m entitled to a perfect spouse and child.”
This tendency isn’t confined to personal life – we also see it in politics. Some of my liberal friends, or former friends, say they love America, but they want it to be “better.” Of course, everyone wants people and nations to be better. Everyone has complaints about those they love. But what does “better” mean?
Does it mean that a specific flaw would be corrected? That’s realistic love. Or does it mean that the person must change in radical ways to conform to their ideal? That’s narcissism masquerading as love. Does it mean that the nation must change in radical ways to conform to their ideal? That’s narcissism masquerading as politics. There may be an example in the White House.
Many liberals – that is, leftists – claim that they love America. But at the same time, they disrespect its history, despise its foreign policy, dislike its domestic policy, detest its economic system and deride its military. That’s like my wife saying she loves me, but that she can’t stand my relatives, she looks down on the work I do, she hates the way I act, and she wants me to have plastic surgery and change my religion. If that’s love, no thanks, I don’t want any.
What, precisely, about America do liberals love? The trees? The rivers? The mountains? But the physical features were here before the country was founded. They are beautiful, but they aren’t really that different from trees, rivers and mountains in other countries.
To say that you love America in this sense is merely to say that you enjoy nature. Yes, but so what? So did Hitler. He spent hours gazing at the mountains and valleys from his retreat in the Alps. Did that make the terrible suffering he caused any less terrible? Did that make him any less evil? Was that any help to the millions his regime murdered? Was that any consolation to the survivors?
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Don’t you just love that view? But would gazing at it make you a better human being? It didn’t do much for Adolf. Worship of nature is convenient for tyrants, because it carries no moral obligations. God has Ten Commandments. Trees have none.
America isn’t mountains and valleys. America isn’t a place. It’s not even a people. It’s a set of ideas. The Declaration of Independence expresses them beautifully. You can’t love America in any meaningful way if you despise these ideas.
* America is the God-given dignity of every individual. You can’t love America, and at the same time believe that the “elite” – that is, government bureaucrats – should have the power to tell people how to live their lives in every tiny detail.
* America is the infinite value of every human life. You can’t love America, and at the same time devalue the lives of the very young, the very old and the severely disabled.
* America is individuals taking care of themselves and their families, as well as of those less fortunate by means of religious and secular charities. You can’t love America, and at the same time persuade people to sit passively and wait for the government to do something for them.
* America is the right of individuals to own property and enjoy the fruits of their labor. You can’t love America, and at the same time believe that the state should have the power to take things away from one citizen and give them to another whenever it pleases.
* America is a nation of individuals, not groups. You can’t love America, and at the same time curry favor with one group at the expense of another, thus creating dissention between economic, ethnic or social groups.
* America is God-given rights guaranteed by a written Constitution. You can’t love America, and at the same time believe that unelected judges with lifetime jobs should have the power to force everyone to obey their latest whim, even though they call it “the Constitution.”
* America is a Constitution that limits the federal government to specific powers, reserving all other powers to the states and the people. You can’t love America, and at the same time empower the government to control everything from health care to toilets and light bulbs.
* America is a Constitution that every government employee − from the President to the newest military recruit − swears to uphold. You can’t love America, and at the same time claim the Constitution is a “living” document that means whatever the government says it means. As Thomas Sowell points out, this signifies that the Constitution is dying, not living.
* America is the will to defend the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. You can’t love America, and at the same time − as Andrew McCarthy points out − stop trying to keep terrorist communications out of the United States, and instead close Guantanamo and usher terrorists into the United States.
* America is individual rights, some of which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. You can’t love America, and at the same time try to dictate what we hear on the radio and see on the Internet, as though the First Amendment did not exist.
* America has become rich and powerful. You can’t love America, and at the same time resent our wealth and power, and do your best to reduce them.
* America is the struggle – usually successful – to stand up for what is right. You can’t love America, and at the same time slander our history, and insult the memory of those who died to preserve the freedom of ourselves and our allies.
* America is deep respect for those who risk their lives to defend us. You can’t love America, and at the same time claim our troops are ignorant losers and cold-blooded killers who terrorize women and children in the dead of night.
* America is the will and ability to protect its people and its ideals. You can’t love America, and at the same time cut our missile defense program − despite the fact that unstable dictators in North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. In what sense do you love what you do not protect?
* America is founded on Judeo-Christian values. There is a verse from the Old Testament on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof.” You can’t love America, and at the same time undermine its foundation by removing every trace of religion from public life. You can’t love America, and at the same time not have a deep belief in freedom, both for ourselves and for others. You can’t love America, and at the same time deny that rights come from God. If they come from men, men can as easily take them away. This has often happened, and can happen again.
Love isn’t really love if it insists on altering its object in fundamental ways. Some people claim to love America, but they can’t stand anything about it except the physical features. What they really love is nature − and their own ideas. America is something else entirely. They don’t love it. They don’t understand it.
They don’t even know it.
Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. He can be contacted at
[email protected]