Of Patriotism and Blind Loyalty

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it". -Mark Twain

There have always been patriots who have stood up against those who who'd use power in office to take advantage of the American people and scare them into a false sense of what being a patriot really is. Fortunately, there have always been people who would stand against this type of abuse of power, people with enough courage to say to the power-hungry fear-enabler, that they're full of shit.

Edward R. Murrow is an example of what it means to be a patriot. You see, back in the 1950's, Republican Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy found his way to political power by making false accusations of people and their ties to the big scare of yesteryear, Communism. Whenever some jumped on McCarthy's bullshit, he would fire back with another accusation of having connections or ties to Communist influences. When McCarthy's witch hunts reached to the point of American citizens fearing their neighbors, friends, even their own family members of having ties with Communists, Murrow and his team at See It Now on CBS had the courage and the strength to expose the bully-boy tactics of McCarty. His most memorable quote was his scathing attack against the Junior Senator and asking all Americans who disagree with McCarty's tactics, to not keep silent.

His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men

Unfortunately, during that time, you also had enablers, people who allowed McCarthy to carry on with his reckless assaults on others.

During the 1952 Presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor George Marshall, a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he cut these parts from later versions of his speech.[33][34] The deletion was discovered by a reporter for the New York Times and featured on their front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.[35]

With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to squelch his power and influence. But he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by showing that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly.

Unfortunately, the Republicans played only a third of the part. The Catholic community, even the Kennedys themselves helped support McCarthy.

One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which composed over 20% of the national vote. Although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as McCarthy's fame as a leading anti-Communist grew he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers and Catholic journals.[27] At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.[28]

McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice,[29][30] and was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns.[31]

Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. Asked once by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. why he avoided criticism of McCarthy, Kennedy said, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero."[32]

Today's power-hungry fearmongers are the same person as McCarthy was 55 years ago. Take Rudy Guiliani's comments on how Democrats would bring about another 9/11 if he or the GOP isn't elected as President as an example.

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped. “If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.” After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”

Like last time there is a patriot who stands up against the politics of fear: Keith Olberamann.

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back… on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued:
"But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn't hear the none-too-subtle subtext of 'vote Democratic and die,' Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of Politico.Com, quote…

"America will be safer with a Republican president."

At least that Republican President under which we have not been safer… has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself, and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president - or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani's flights of grandeur in New Hampshire - even if they elect a different Republican.

How dare you, sir?


"How many casualties will we have?" - this is the language of Bin Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a conceit over your own ability — and worthiness — to decide, who lives and who dies.

And like last time, there are the enablers, people who neither have the courage, nor the backbone, to stand up and speak truth to power..........this time, they're Bush apologists, the last of a shrinking minority that still are lock-step behind this man's destructive policies, and the scaremongering from other candidates.

Democrats can complain all they want about the "politics of fear," and blah-blah-blah, but Democrats (and liberal pundits) have made a habit of accusing President Bush of making us less safe. Hillary's response to Rudy's comments also give the same implication, and Obama's response is equally pathetic. Now, what's interesting about their responses is that both of them apparently don't have the courage to appear at a debate put on by FOX News, yet they take offense to criticisms of their abilities to handle the threat of terrorism. Well, like it or not, if they can't handle FOX, they can't handle terrorists.

So, the Democrats need to stop whining and playing the victim, and start addresses the facts of the criticism. The reason why they don't is because they can't. Remember what John Kerry said during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention? "Any attack will be met with a swift response." Well, that may sound good in liberal circles, but I believe in the conservative strategy of getting the terrorists before they attack us.To put it differently, Republicans believe in going on the offense, and Democrats believe in playing defense.

Cheers to Rudy for telling it like it is.

Even though this nation has had it's fair share of scaremongers and enablers, we should always remember that we have always had patriots, people with courage to speak the truth, have always guided us from dark places in our history, back into the light.

And the next time some Bush apologist calls you unpatriotic for not following Bush's leadership over a fucking cliff, tell them this: who is more unpatriotic - the man who speaks truth to power, or the man who enables the president to keep ruling like a king, doing nothing?