And eventually a firing squad.
Heck, a right-wing member of the board just flounced away, seemingly forever, on the basis of “you didn’t build that”. I’m not sure this is a good era in American politics for context.
I’m going to ask some questions, but I think my posts are invisible, so I don’t really expect answers.
I think we agree that the phrasing was quite poor and that’s why he backtracked the very next day. Right?
Do we also agree that the actual context is a response to Trump’s Make America Great Again, implying a return to, uh, when? What era are we trying to return to? Cuomo’s response seems to me to be, well, pick your era, but America wasn’t living up to its ideals. There was Jim Crow, rampant sexism, anti-gay laws, serious drug crises, spikes in crime. So, “America wasn’t that great” in that context may mean, hey, so many people were left out of the American experience, it’s hard to call it great. What do you think?
Here we go again.
“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Those were some radical sentiments for their time. The founders of our country came out of a time where it was believed that your place in society and the world was the divine manifestation of God’s will and plan and it was not your place to try and change it. It was believed that your husband, your king, the lord of your manor was inherently better than you and that this hierarchy needed to be accepted. The idea of pursuit of happiness was also radical - the prevailing idea was that your life was the property of your king and your God. Personal happiness had no place in the equation.
But our forefathers changed that. Our country was built on an idea, not a race, religion or ethnicity.
The Declaration of Independence is more aspiration than declaration. It took us ,as a country, time to implement this idea. And it’s a continuing process.
We fought a war over slavery, and our ideals triumphed over race, culture and heritage.
It was still a slow process, but we continued
We changed the country’s attitude towards war. We fought against the mass slaughter of unwilling soldiers in Vietnam. We still have war, but this country no longer has tolerance for the kind of casualties we saw in Vietnam. And all military service is now elective.
We also took part in eliminating the legalized racism that ran directly counter to the Declaration of Independence and hampered so many of our citizens in their pursuit of happiness.
We took further steps towards achieving these ideals by making marriage legally available to all couples.
We still aren’t there yet. But we’re getting there. And I’m proud to be part of it.
Because asking people how much they love their country is like asking men how much they love their wives. It’s, at best, a meaningless question because what counts is not how much you profess to love, but how you express that love.
And frankly, a lot of “patriots” are like the guys that love their wives so much that they would rather kill them then see them with another man. They embrace anti-governmental hierarchical ideals that run directly counter to the vision set forth in the Declaration of Independence. These “patriots” are exactly like the guys that project a fantasy image onto an exceptional but not perfect (because she’s real) woman and then kill her because she doesn’t live up to their fantasy.
Yes, I love my country. I love my country the way a parent loves their child. A good loving parent doesn’t insist that their child can do no wrong. A good loving parent doesn’t believe her child if he tells her that everyone in the school system and police department is out to get them. A good and loving parent doesn’t try to make her child’s misbehavior a societal norm
Like a good parent, I have a vision of what ai want my country to be in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. That vision is laid out in our founding documents. And I want to help guide my country towards achieving that vision in whatever small way I can.
Because I love my country.
OTOH, us liberals don’t literally hump the flag the way Trump does. For the simple-minded, this is what loving America means.
Excellent, thanks.
OP, it seems clear to me that you seem to agree that Cuomo didn’t really mean that. In fact, you know this because you pointed out that he walked back his comments the very next day. In that case, isn’t this whole thread disingenuous?
Let’s look at Giuliani’s “Truth isn’t truth” statement. Would it be fair for someone to start a thread that said, Giuliani said that “truth isn’t truth” – is this a common sentiment on the right? That there is no objective truth? I think that wouldn’t be fair, because the statement is taken completely out of context – he was talking about how Comey said Trump asked him to lay off Flynn and Trump said he did no such thing. In a high stakes interview with the Feds where you could be charged with perjury or obstruction, it’s dangerous to go into that situation with that sort of he-said-he-said out there. In that specific case, what is the truth? Would Mueller believe his friend Comey or the president he’s investigating? He should have said, “what is the truth in that situation”, not “truth isn’t truth”. It’s distressing to me to see people I follow and respect taking that quote out of context because it’s bullshit to do that. (Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” was, in fact, the whole context and utter bullshit).
Giuliani can get even more of a pass because he said it during a television interview, not during a speech. It doesn’t change the fact that Cuomo’s statement was taken out of context, and, as you admit, he walked it back immediately with better phrasing and better context.
Given that, why start this thread?
HD, do you believe America was great during the period of Jim Crow laws?
Yeah, the War Over Patriotism article was pretty good. My opinion on left v right on patriotism in a nutshell:
Left: America is good, but it can be great when all are equal under the law, equal opportunity exists for all and we achieve human rights, environmental protection, health care, and economic justice for all.
Right: America was fucking perfect until these uppity minorities, females, and environmental extremists starting pissing all over the sacred Constitution as written by our forever infallible founding fathers. Either you display unquestioning patriotism as we demand and that you do so whenever and however we demand it or you are an enemy of the people and you should be eliminated.
This clip really captures the buffoonishness, the utterly pathetic hypocrisy, of our Orange Mistake in the White House. (And he’s one the same flag hug 3 or 4 times by now.)
I wonder if any Republicans here will deign to comment on that stupefying display.
Nah … I didn’t think so.
I’d be rather surprised if you could find a quote from some high-ranking elected Republican, like say a Governor or something, that expressed this sentiment.
It sounds like a topic for another thread.
No, your posts are not invisible.
I would guess that one of his aides said something to him along the lines of “you just wrecked your shot at the 2020 presidential election” shortly after he left the stage, and at that point he probably realized just how bad what he’d done was and started worked on a plan to backtrack ASAP. I think saying “the phrasing was quite poor” (or that his comment was “inartful”) doesn’t really capture the extreme idiocy of what he did, but for purposes of our discussion I’ll agree with this.
I agree that it was at least in part a rebuttal to President Trump’s MAGA campaign slogan. I’ll note that you appear to be soft-pedaling what the Governor actually said by leaving out the word “never”, but I think you’ve more-or-less captured the point that he was stupidly / badly trying to make.
My understanding is that “the period of Jim Crow laws” encompasses our involvement in World War 2. While I certainly wouldn’t point to Jim Crow laws as an example of something “great” America did, I would put our role in defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan in that “great” category, and thus would have no qualms answering your question in the affirmative.
Cuomo was in a difficult position. Much of the progressive Left is based on grievance politics - blacks, gays, feminists, people who want the government to pay them for doing whatever they want - and if Cuomo says anything about America’s greatness, it will offend against their grievances.
It is hard to appeal to the far Left, and mainstream America, at the same time. So Cuomo has to oscillate between “America was never great” and “no one questions that America is great” and hope nobody notices.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh, I think the present thread is already more than often for queries of this ilk. Anyway, I hope it flatters you to know that it was specifically your opinion that mattered to me.
Won’t you tell us? Please? Pretty please?
I think anyone born here should consider themselves lucky. The USA is the best country in the world and our bill of rights is still a gold standard.
Rather than focus on stuff that happened 50-300 years ago, I think the nation is better off looking at how we have changed for the better.
America is viewed as one of the greatest nations in the world today. I do understand that some who live here hate it. That is their right, and they are also free to leave. Yet we seldom see that. Gee, I wonder why.
It would flatter me even more if you’d start another thread to solicit my opinion about other quotes by other people. They are not the topic of this one.
I’ll admit that many supporters of the nearly all-white grievance party might be too challenged to understand the point Cuomo was making. Phony patriots rejoice over jingoistic nonsense like the “greatness” of country. People who actually give a shit about their fellow human beings strive to make it better.
Of course, in the age of zero attention spans, out of context quotes like the one in the pathetic OP will resonate with dingbats who think putting a magnetic “support the troops” sticker on the good ol’ SUV is an actual act of patriotism.