A Simple Answer to a Stupid Question

The question:

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

My answer:

No. Dumbass.

(via Jack Fowler at NRO)

The longer, less glib answer is that Howard Zinn is looking at an entirely different nation than the one in which you and I live. It’s been a very long time since the United States has been militarily expansionist. We have, in fact, passed up opportunities to expand our nation by military conquest. Indeed, if we were truly the colonial imperalists we are accused of being, the United States of America would have colonies in Germany, Japan, the Phillippines, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait right now. We would probably have admitted a couple of them as states by this point.

The fact is, there’s never been a country with our level of military or economic power less interested in colonial expansion or imperial expansion. Folks like Zinn can fling about all the hip leftist buzzwords they want, but it doesn’t change the facts of history. Zinn really doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. He has an idea of America in his head that doesn’t reflect the one that actually exists. He can’t even characterize our songs correctly. We don’t sing songs that tell God he “must single out America to be blessed”. Heck, we don’t even assume that He has singled us out at all. We’re not that arrogant. We do sing songs that thank God for blessing America as much as He has. We celebrate our blessings and give thanks for them and ask that He continue to bless the country we love.

According to Zinn, we do all this right before we run out and commit mass murder. Right.

Instead of inventing an America to hate, let me suggest a better pastime for him. Let him spend a little time tomorrow wondering how it is that he is free to write such drivel about his nation without being snatched up and tossed into prison. He’d find that love of the flag he so despises is a very big reason he’s free to trash that very same flag today.

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Category: Moonbat Nonsense