Thus demonstrating why there isn’t much of a difference between the candidates in some respects:
“I’ll admit to you … that it’s tough in some respects,” McCain said when asked by a questioner at a town hall meeting how to be proud of the country.
“We have not always done things right and we mismanaged the war in Iraq very badly for nearly four years.”
[...]
“What we have to do is tell our friends around the world that we will be proud of America because of what we’re going to do.”
You know what would be nice? If we actually had a candidate who doesn’t really care about Europe’s view of us. What does it matter what France thinks?
Though, I agree with McCain on one aspect, it is tough to be proud of America sometimes. It was tough when American voters voted in Pelosi as leader of the House and Reid as majority leader in the Senate (by giving the majority to the Democrats) and it will be tough if they vote in Obama as president. I won’t have a whole lot of respect for the mental capacity of my fellow voter if that happens. And I’m sure there will be plenty of times I won’t feel too proud living in this nation on his rule.
Update: BTW, apparently it doesn’t take a change of presidents to get France to like us, only a change in their president.
posted June 15, 2008 at 9:28 am
I love French fries, they’re my biggest food weakness. But they’re misnamed because they’re actually from Belgium (even the French admit this). So I found it hard to be proud of my country when Washington renamed them to liberty fries.
That was completely juvenile and they should used that opportunity to rename them to their country of origin and eliminate this confusion.
posted June 15, 2008 at 9:48 am
So, you had a problem being ‘proud of America’, and all it took was a certain party getting the majority in Congress?
Other people said that and you were pretty upset and they had things like the memories of kids having to have police guard in order to safely go to school, or people having fire hoses turned on them for peaceful assemblies, etc.
A country, even our own, can do things that make it hard to be proud of it, and it isn’t such a terrible thing to say, is it? Unrestrained, unthinking patriotism, without a clear view of what your country is, and does, is, to me, no virtue. Even for a politician.
Like a person’s child, ‘my country can do no wrong’ is not only not accurate, it doesn’t even do the country (or the child) any favors, because they’ll never have the chance to improve.
posted June 15, 2008 at 10:24 am
“Other people said that and you were pretty upset and they had things like the memories of kids having to have police guard in order to safely go to school, or people having fire hoses turned on them for peaceful assemblies, etc.”
I’m sure I could point to other times in American history I wasn’t proud to be an American but then I was pretty young at the time. I didn’t actually know it was happening but I was dealing with current events just as McCain was.
I think the point it’s obvious what he’s talking about and it’s gratuitous and unnecessary.
posted June 15, 2008 at 10:38 am
I think the point is, someone has said they’re proud of America now, and people complained that, merely by inference, it meant they weren’t before.
Now THEIR guy has said not only that there were times he wasn’t, but NOW is one of the times, and suddenly.. not only is it not virtually traitorous to say so, but these examples crop up when the writer felt the same.
Just like the ‘candidate visits to warzones’, is this another ‘not a universal standard’ moment?
posted June 15, 2008 at 4:30 pm
The last time I was proud of America was right after 9-11. I have not had a reason to be proud of our country since. It is the fault of BOTH political parties and ALL levels of government as well as the mind-set of the Religious Right and the protectionist Left. The leadership in this country, the handling of the war on terror and the lawlessness in our cities have only served to destroy my faith in our country.
I pray that the next person we elect as the leader of the “Free World” will restore my faith. Before we can lead the world, we must be able to walk together in a common purpose. Somehow I don’t think McCain or Obama can do that but one can hope.
And when you want to blame the Democratic leadership sit back and think of how the Republican leadership they replaced did little to help the causes of the Religious Right. They let me down by their inaction.
I will not vote the party line (I never did before anyway) but vote for the person I believe will lead responsibly.
Meanwhile, I don’t believe in giving a piece of striped cloth with a bunch of stars in the corner more reverence that my God. If I can’t pray in public, display my faith in the public places, I will not give honor to the flag. We are to be a country UNDER God and our flag should not be more important than our Faith.
posted June 15, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I think McCain’s admission is a step in the right direction. Patriotism means more than unthinking support of all the government’s decisions. I love America and the ideals she symbolizes and sometimes embodies, and America IS my country, right or wrong. But when we are wrong, let’s admit it and change course.
Of course, I decry the hypocritical double standard that makes it possible for one candidate to say he’s not always proud of America, and be praised for it, while the wife of another voices a similar opinion and is crucified by the Right.
Obama `08! North Carolina goes blue in November.
posted June 15, 2008 at 7:06 pm
America is a work in progress. No other country aims so high on a host of issues, but the fact is, we miss the mark on a lot of things. We are who we are.
On the whole, it’s a better country than it was in the 1950′s and 1960′s when I was growing up. That doesn’t mean I like every change, but just in my lifetime we have made enormous strides in overcoming the legacy of slavery, we have a standard of living that literally could not be imagined in 1950, and we have avoided the nuclear conflagration that seemed to be on the immediate horizon in the 1980′s. That’s not a little to be thankful for.