True Love

Joel Stein has a very interesting column in the LA Times today. Now before I get into quoting it I have a confession to make. When I clicked on the headline listed in my daily e-paper, I was already to hate it but once I read it I not only loved it, I was in agreement many of Stein's conclusions...but I will let him speak now...

I don't love America. That's what conservatives are always telling liberals like me. Their love, they insist, is truer, deeper and more complete. Then liberals, like all people who are accused of not loving something, stammer, get defensive and try to have sex with America even though America will then accuse us of wanting it for its body and not its soul. When America gets like that, there's no winning.

But I've come to believe conservatives are right. They do love America more. Sure, we liberals claim that our love is deeper because we seek to improve the United States by pointing out its flaws. But calling your wife fat isn't love. True love is the blind belief that your child is the smartest, cutest, most charming person in the world, one you would gladly die for. I'm more in "like" with my country.

To be honest, I try not to fall into the trap of saying that liberals don't love this country. Just because we disagree on how to fix what is wrong does not mean (for the most part) that the person I am discussing the issue with does not "love" the country. Take my good friend (and Blog Talk Radio partner) Jazz Shaw. We don't always agree on the problems or the solutions, but I know that Jazz loves this country dearly.

One place where Stein is 100% correct....calling your wife fat - even in a "loving" manner is a guaranteed fight starter! It's a very bad call....

When a Democrat loses the presidential race, real lefties talk a lot about moving to Canada. When Republicans lose, they don't do that. Though, to be fair, they don't have a lot of nearby conservative options. Not even Hannity is a committed enough conservative to yell, "If Obama wins, I'm moving to Singapore."

Actually I know a couple of conservatives who said that they would move to Australia or a deserted South Pacific Island if Obama won, but I knew that it was a idle threat. Unlike the many Hollywood stars and starlets who SWORE that they would leave the country if a hick like President Bush won in 2000 or 2004 (people like Alec Baldwin, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam Robert Altman, Barbara Streisand, Susan Sarandon and Robert Redford for example) these folks didn't have the financial where-with-all to pick up their lives and move. One wonders, however, why these stars didn't pack up and go. They had the occupational flexibility and the finances to move anywhere in the world, but they didn't. Could it be that they realized that in spite of their hyperbole, they knew that there was no place better to be?

Stein then talks about his conversations on the issue with Glenn Beck...

When I ran the idea that liberals don't love America as much as conservatives by talk-show host Glenn Beck, who will move from CNN Headline News to Fox News next month, he totally agreed with me, which is precisely why I called him. "It's absolutely true, deep love. As a parent loves a child," he said. "But I think liberals laugh that off, the way the rest of the country laughs off the love Texans have for their state. Texans don't think, 'Oklahoma, you suck.' Well, yes they do -- but they don't think other states suck. They just have a love for the republic of Texas. I don't have disdain for other countries. Well, except for France."

Now I have to say something about my Texan friends. To say that they "love their state" is a gross understatement. The Logical Husband's best friend in the military was a gentleman from the Dallas area. Richard kept a box of Texas soil in his locker in the barracks so that he could get that feel of "home" whenever he needed it. A native Texan would die for his/her state - that is the same devotion that most conservatives (and many liberals) have for their country.

Here is where Stein and I part ways.

I accused Beck of loving America just out of birthplace convenience, which is kind of like loving the girl who happens to sit in front of you in homeroom. "If I were born in Great Britain and read about Britain and America, I'd love the values and principles and the men who founded this country," he said. "I love that we crossed these mountains and didn't know what was on the other side. I love that the Pilgrims didn't want to come here, but they came here because they felt prompted to by God. There's always been a spirit of adventure and awe in this land. And I don't think any other country has that." Beck, it seemed, loves America the same way little boys love camping.

Despite Beck's rationalization, I still think conservatives love America for the same tribalistic reasons people love whatever groups they belong to. These are the people who are sure Christianity is the only right religion, that America is the best country, that the Republicans have the only good candidates, that gays have cooties.

Unlike many of my more progressive and conservative friends, I have actually lived outside of the US and it was during a time similar to today when our standing in "the world" was a bit strained. It was during the Cold War - when Ronald Reagan was President and "the World" was certain he was going to start World War III. It was in those days that the Logical Husband was in the Army and stationed in southern West Germany (this was before re-unification took place obviously). Don't get me wrong - I was not one of those weepy military wives who HATED being stationed overseas because "it was not home!". I made our little off base apartment home - not only for the Logical Husband and myself, but for the other GI's at our base and our dozens of German friends who were constantly there. It was a 3 1/2 year long "honeymoon" if you will - except that we lived and shopped and did business with the German government and our neighbors businesses. We adored Germany so much that we gave serious consideration to a job offer that would have allowed us to stay there as employees of a German military contractor. It was a wonderfully tempting offer, but in the long run, as much as we loved living in Germany we both were ready to go "home". There were too many freedoms that we had here in the US that we didn't have in even enlightened Western Europe. The government intrusion into daily German life was just beginning and many of the younger more "Americanized" kids were rebelling against it so you can imagine what someone who grew up with the real thing - warts and all (as opposed to the romanticized ideal that these kids had) - had to say on the issue.

I have a co-worker who is more liberal (on many issues) than I am who also was fortunate enough to have spent much time overseas. When I asked her thoughts on this particular column she said that she too has an overwhelming love for this country that comes from her time abroad - it gave her a deeper appreciation of just how blessed this country truly is. She saw things that gave her a deeper appreciation for the things we have here.

The Logical Husband and I (and my co-worker) have also had the luxury of being able to travel to some of the countries in the world that our progressive friends find so fascinating and I can tell you that these countries are not all they are advertised to be by their cheerleaders here in the US. Just as the European youths of our years in Germany had a "romanticized" vision of the US, American Progressives have a romanticized vision of these more egalitarian societies like Sweden and Cuba. There are many who are out there exposing the warts of the countries (other than the US) that our friends on the left idolize. The information is out there, if you are willing to see it.

Joel closes with a graph that sends me from pity to anger at him in a very swift fashion.

I wish I felt such certainty. Sure, it makes life less interesting and nuanced, and absolute conviction can lead to dangerous extremism, but I suspect it makes people happier. I'll never experience the joy of Hannity-level patriotism. I'm the type who always wonders if some other idea or place or system is better and I'm missing out.

Pity because again, he just doesn't get it. Love it not nuanced - love is "I'll lay down my life for you", love is give up everything you have in order to be with that person or be in that place. True love never wonders if there is something better out there! Those of us who have been overseas, we have been to these places that you admire so much and we are able to see the good, the bad and the indifferent in them. We go to these countries and we see people - hard working people who are doing whatever it takes to take care of their families and live life to the fullest - just like we do here. Anger because he just refuses to see this country in the same idealistic light he sees other countries in.

Joel - the reasons most conservatives love America more are not "tribalistic" as you claim and no conservatives don't hold the patent on loving America. The fact that you have bought into this absurd notion shows that you still don't get it. The reason that conservatives like myself (as well as Jazz, his progressive wife Georg and my liberal co-workers) love America is because it is a place where we can all agree on the problem, disagree on the solution and still stand shoulder to shoulder to defend a country that may be flawed. It is still a place that we can stand tall and say that there is no place that we would rather be - in this time - than in this place....the United States of America.