This is becoming a rather tedious response of yours to posters who offer a different opinion or interpretation of an article or statement. Do all we dissenters need to reread until we come around to your position? Get over yourself. My response stands and needs no defence.
That would be more interpretation of the relevant issues. Granted I took a tangential approach to some of the comments, but that
I think the point most people don’t understand about American nationalism is that it is an unindoctrinated choice. No one is writing foolish articles or drivel about how great their country is or how bad another country is. You can agree to disagree in the US and not have to worry about the police knocking on your door(for the most part).
You can be an American and hate the US and that is your choice. I’ve seen many people who do. It’s still a choice, though. What people want in this world is to be heard and have choice in their life. How many students in Taiwan really get to choose their major? In the US they can study whatever they want if they can and choose to do so. There are no “hukuo”(sp?) or something to keep you stuck to one area. The oppurtunity to start a business or live your life as you choose is all there.
The American system is a tradition handed down by our forefathers. It works, though not always perfectly. It protects rights of the minority from the majority rule. In the US there are a variety of different groups who get together on their own to talk about the choices they made to be in what groups for what causes. The ideas espoused by the founding fathers of the US would be censored or persecuted by most members of the UN. These ideas appear to be quite revolutionary in this day and age in most parts of the world after being put forth over 200 years ago. I find this quite remarkable.
What gets the rest of the world is having to live with the fact that the US can act how it wants without the restraints of the Cold War. Why do we need to follow a failed Mideast policy for any longer? Why do we still need so many troops in Germany? Is now not the best time to start holding Saudi Arabia responsible for the export of its fanatical Wahabi Islam? I don’t see a lot of other countries doing these things or asking these questions. In the past decade, we have seen a whole lot of navel-gazing from Europe with very little action, the FUBAR qualities of Russia(thank god for natural resources), the ongoing everpersistent Middle East problems, Latin American countries in an everexpanding debt default policies(God please help Lula, he needs it), Asian countries just shaking off the effects of The Asian Financial Crisis to have the problems come back and haunt them due to inadequate structural change(Taiwan is currently experiencing deflation), and an ever increasingly well-armed China bully its way around the world. These problems compare in what to the US’s?
Looking at the rest of the world and some Americans do, especially those with a stake in the future, we see a world a mess. Failed countries, failed policies, corruption, war, terrorism on an unimaginable scale and the US has decided on a change. We may have these problems at home, but they can be dealt with by the laws set forth and enforced by an independent judiciary. In many other countries, this is and has never been the case. It’s sad really that so many people in so many countries perpetuate a victim’s complex for nationalism and think this worthy for themselves and their children. In the US, we try to rise above that. There is so much more to look forward to in life, why whine about past wrongs, why not talk about the past in a soul searching dialogue and figure out how to never again repeat the same mistakes of our forefathers. We can engage in private civic duty and not be persecuted for it, like many other forumosan members’ countries. They made a choice too and I respect that. That’s what it means to be an American.
CYA
Okami
But I do credit you with plenty of intelligence… that’s why I cannot understand your above comments. How could you state that feelings of “nationalism” derive from the same origin for “any” nation… Do you think that such feelings of nationalism are natural in North Korea? China? Saddam’s Iraq?
It came in response to your following statement:
I think it is also important to note that we can hate the party/person/administration in power and still be considered patriotic. The other day I was talking to a local friend about the whole SARS thing. I told her that I had lost faith in the gov’t to deal with the matter effectively. She said that she still supported the DPP because she didn’t want to be viewed as being unpatriotic. I asked her if KMT, PFP, New Party, TSU, and Green Party supporters were unpatriotic, and she wavered… :?
Very well put, Okami … you said everything (and more) that I would have wanted to say.
Among countries with a strong liberal democratic tradition, this is unremarkable (although most such countries don’t get schoolkids to pay obeisance to the flag or trot out the national anthem for all and sundry events. But anyway). So again, this point seems to me to be pertinent only if you are comparing the US to, say, the PRC.
Among the developed democracies, US nationalism is an aberration.
I think by “deveolped democracies” you actually mean European “welfare states” and their clones. BWAHAHA! What on earth do they have to be nationalistic about?
Careful, Blueface, that’s the Coalition of the Willing you’re talking about. If they find out how little respect you really have for them ‘the morning after’ next time you need them you’re going to find out that the Coalition has been reduced to nothing more than yourself and your right hand. 
While Sweden is considered a very “advanced” economy, the Economist recently revealed that the per capita income of African Americans (the poorest segment of the US population) is higher than that of Sweden. That said, I am not sure how many Swedes would be willing to trade places with those Black Americans. Just wanted to point out that despite the statistics on poverty, they actually do quite well compared with other nations.
My right hand is a hell of alot more useful. 
Sorry but have to say, I strongly disagree with the assertion that anyone can infer anything or “read anything into” another person’s article, no matter how “tangential.”
I think this type of deconstructionism is tedious and unwarranted. Reading 101 teaches summary of key arguments and analysis of positions. I do not think that there can be any argument therefore over what this particular author’s intentions are. You may wish to draw on the article to establish comparisons of your own, but when you do so you no longer have the right or privilege to use the author to buttress any such views.
So, in other words, people have no right to disagree with an article that espouses a view? I suspect generations of analytic philosophers would disagree.
Voluntarism? US nationalism is sourced and expressed through voluntarism. Is that really true?
I’m sure there is something to the argument, but I am a little sceptical as to it forming the complete picture. I do believe that the US is a country of ideas and ideals. I do think these ideas are manipulated to exploit US nationalism from time to time and as the author rightly points out this proposes a danger to the long term hegemonic position of the US.
I would like to point to something alluded to by the writer but not fully explored. The most likely expressions of antagonism toward the US rightly or wrongly are based in economics first and geopolitics second.
Simply put the US is such an economic power house that it in most instances can ignore, conjole, bully, and exploit most situations it finds itself in. Quite naturally it is tempted to do so. However, such actions do have consequences. Some of them distasteful, plain wrong, regretable, but perhaps inevitable.
And here’s the tricky bit, when the system backfires the US does need to muster nationalism to the fore. Then we start hearing things like American values being challenged, a way of life being held to ransom by wayward, ragtag terrorists. Our own freedom is our own weakness, lets protect it at all costs. Democracy is being challenged!
Ideas are being manipulated to activate nationalism and patriotism to go to WAR. Is there any more extreme form of nationalism?
Of course the rest of the world feels jaded. Where can other countries air their grievances perceived or otherwise against US economic imperialism? The US policy of unilateralism is what godes others. That unilateralism created so much ill will toward the US especially in the hands of the Bush administration, that sympathy for the US was quite simply squanded by this administration. I believe purposefully. However, to what end I have no idea.
Pretty much. Nobody questioned why I didn’t put a stack of flags on my car after Sept. 11th, nor why I didn’t run around to the “support our troops” rallies. They did it if they felt like it. The ones who went to the “support Saddam” rallies were the ones who were screaming furious at how little the rest of the country supported them; and when others shunned them for their stupidity, they got up on their soapboxes and declared that they were being oppressed by the imperialist-nationalist right-wing loons. They also complained about how terrible it was that private businesses, such as a local talk-radio station, went out and printed signs for the support-the-troops side, while the left-wing printing collectives had to print their own signs.
So, both sides got their say, although the anti-war side acted like the spoiled little fools that they are.
[quote=“Fox”]I would like to point to something alluded to by the writer but not fully explored. The most likely expressions of antagonism toward the US rightly or wrongly are based in economics first and geopolitics second.
Simply put the US is such an economic power house that it in most instances can ignore, conjole, bully, and exploit most situations it finds itself in. Quite naturally it is tempted to do so. However, such actions do have consequences. Some of them distasteful, plain wrong, regretable, but perhaps inevitable.[/quote]
Sure, just like France’s unilateral opposition to the Iraq war – they opposed it, now they’re paying the price. France tried to bully the Eastern European states by threatening to screw up their E.U. membership applications and whining about how these relatively new democracies were being “un-European”.
You mean like when it backfires by a small group of ragtag religous gentlemen hijacking imperialist-capitalist airlines’ aircraft and flying them into buildings that are symbolic of American hegemonic oppression?
Well, yeah, I guess we kicked the shit out of them for that. Our bad. Next time we’ll just use nukes.
Gosh, I dunno! I guess we’re just plain bad people for freeing Iraq and kicking the Taliban out of power. After all, those third-world types were giving their people the good government they wanted, right?
Yes, American unilateralism is so bad, especially when it’s backed by pretty much everyone except Syria, Libya, Iraq (back then, anyway), Russia, France, and Germany. Oh, and Belgium. Mustn’t forget Belgium.
Of course, it was only “unilateralism” if you leave out Britain, Australia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Kuwait, Estonia. . . .
MaPoDoFu,
I’m not going to argue with you. I didn’t present the argument. It was presented in the article at the head of this thread.
I happen to agree with the general gist of that article. The article is trying to point out that US foreign policy must ultimately unite the world in the same spirit as it unites a nation with in its own boarders.
That good will simply doesn’t exist at present. Why not? Well that’s the question. The author suggests that it is unilateralism. You are clearly of a different view.
[quote=“Fox”]Voluntarism? US nationalism is sourced and expressed through voluntarism. Is that really true?
I’m sure there is something to the argument, but I am a little sceptical as to it forming the complete picture. I do believe that the US is a country of ideas and ideals. I do think these ideas are manipulated to exploit US nationalism from time to time and as the author rightly points out this proposes a danger to the long term hegemonic position of the US.[/quote]
Absolutely right and the reason why I said the author’s neglecting of the role of the media is lamentable. In the “battle” against Communism - the only true religion the US ever had - those not toeing the nationalist line were villified.
Of course at the same time, those living in the USSR, Eastern Europe or China and not toeing the “communist line” were simply executed.
Yes some of them were, but as you well know, the article we are commenting on examines AMERICAN nationalism.
Some???
[/quote]
It all looks very compelling, if this thread was about states murdering their citizens. Since it clearly is not, I wonder just how much further from the topic and context of my reply you are prepared to stoop.
