Apparently, according to Representative Bachman, anyone who is liberal or has criticized America is anti-American. She believes that there are all sorts of anti-American people running around in our Congress. She wants the news media to do a penetrating look at all the members of Congress to find out if they are pro-American or anti-American. Sounds an awful lot like the kinds of nonsense that was being tossed around back in the fifties, except back then, it was Communism.
I’m pretty sure I’d wind up on her list of anti-American people, since I think that the U.S. has made some serious mistakes in the past and I am frankly and honestly ashamed of what we’ve done. What she doesn’t seem to understand is that having a realistic view of my country and the actions taken by the worst administration in our nations history, doesn’t mean I don’t love my country. Since I haven’t had the benefit of much travel outside the U.S., all my friends and all my family are here. The places that I love, like Red River Gorge in Kentucky, are here. My home is here. I love all of that. I am also proud of America at the same time that I am ashamed of our President. I am proud of the work being done by our brave soldiers at the same time that I feel they’ve been betrayed by their Commander-in-Chief.
I would guess, that even those of you who are very conservative still loved America when Bill Clinton was President. You loved America even if you believed that what he was doing was wrong.
Party affiliation and political leanings aren’t what determine patriotism.
What worries me, are those who love their political party more than they love this nation. I worry about those who love their political ideology more than they love this nation. Unfortunately, I think there have been far too many of those people, on both sides of the aisle, elected as our representatives.
This is the UNITED States of America. Those who seek to tear us apart in order to gain political power are the real anti-Americans. People who try to stir up racist, class, or ethnic hatred, whether they be Democrats, Republicans, Independents or members of any other political party, are doing anti-American things. They might justify them by claiming they are trying to “save” America, but what they are really trying to do is remake America into their own idea of what America should be.
John McCain has taken to running “robo-calls” that make it sound as if Barak Obama is somehow directly involved in terrorist attacks and that he somehow plans to enact “far leftist legistlation” once he is elected. It’s a pathetic attempt to scare people into voting for McCain. Two years ago, if you’d asked me if I would have believed McCain would stoop to such tactics, I would have said no. I’m very sad that I was wrong.
