According to this doctrine America had been responsible for numerous crimes and misdeeds through its history for which it deserved punishment and chastisement. White American had enslaved blacks and committed genocide against Native Americans. They had oppressed women and tyrannized minority groups. such as the Japanese who had been interned in camps during World War II. They had been harsh and unfeeling towards the poor. By our greed, we had despoiled the environment and were consuming a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and resources. We had coddled dictators abroad and violated human rights out of our irrational fear of communism.
Given this bill of indictment, the Punitive Liberals held that Americans had no right at all to feel pride in their country's history or opimism about its future.... The Punitive Liberals felt that the purpose of national policy was to punish the nation for its crimes rather than to build a stronger America and a brighter future for all.
First off, let me say that I'm reading this very conservatively biased book, 100 People who are Screwing Up American because I had recently finished a very liberally biased book by Jack Huberman titled 101 People who are Really Screwing America, a retort to Goldberg's book (yes I am in the process of reading them in reverse order). I started reading Huberman's book because I accurately assumed it would be a nice who's who of hating Republicans, but upon finishing I surprisingly found myself though mostly in agreement with his views, (despite being Liberal myself) I was frequently offended. Upon realizing this I was reminded that every subject has extreme view points, especially when facts are shrouded with politics. It then occurred to me that I had a rare opportunity to essentially read, the exact same book, on the exact same topic, but told from a polar opposite point of view. So far "100 people" is everything I hoped it would be just as "101 People" was. I plan on staying on course and reading through this book with as open a mind as I can possibly give despite my assumption that I will ultimately be even more offended by this original spin on the same subject.
Now back to the quote. I have to say I did not expect this book to have this effect on me, especially not after the first entry. I will admit I found the first paragraph amazing candid of my own views fears of the potential corruption of our current and frankly any future administration. However, do I really believe that "the purpose of national policy was to punish the nation for its crimes" in place of "build[ing] a stronger America and a brighter future for all." I feel it would be unfair to ignore this possibility when reading the previous statement as though it was on the verge of being a religious experience.
I have long believed that one of the must fundamental leasons anyone can learn was coined by the philosopher George Santayana when he said "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (thanks Wikipedia ^_^). Does it not follow that, when we have seen a trend in our country's past (albeit this is no where near unique to our country) to respond to desperate times with policies of hatred to certain innocents such as was the case after WWII and 9/11 and our response to the Japanese and Muslims respectively, we should not be more cautious in who we are suspicious of as a country? Given that the extreme difference between the way we treated the Japanese versus the way have been treating Muslims I'd say we have done this very effectively. Granted Big Brother, has not left suspicion unplaced, but not admitting surveillance is an improvement over internment camps is an undeserved insult to the Japanese Americans who lived though WWII. Does it also not follow that, our history of (again albeit certainly not unique) enslavement of blacks and oppression of women, that we should be cautious of who we write off as happy with the way things are and have been? Given our continuous progression towards true equal rights and opportunities I'd say our caution as done us well so far.
What Piereson calles Punitive Liberals, Goldberg refers to as America Bashers, but I would not consider them one in the same. Goldberg considers America Bashers as people who consider "the United States such a terrible place" and I will say I agree with him. I believe that people need to respect the fact that we have things like morales on T.V., the ambiguous literary skills of our President, and of course Sox or Yankees to argue about. There will always be problems, if you are a member of a small tribe in the desert or live in one of the freest and richest countries in the world. The fact that many of us have the ability to argue about wither or not our President actually can or cannot correctly pronounce the word nuclear just shows many of us do not have to argue about how is our family going to eat tonight, where are we going to live, or how can we possibly survive through yet another night. Its a strange irony that the fact that we have people will never be happy unless they can nit pick such small problems is actually a flattering tribute to how many few problems we have in this country. I will certainly say that I do not believe many liberals have the respect that most of their biggest issues and complaints about this country are indeed an enormous compliment that we are actually at a point that we can have elections based solely issues that are ultimately trivial. I will applaud the conservative view point for understanding that if nothing changed from here on out (with the exception of our troops in Iraq) shit wouldn't be that bad and things now are better than they ever have been.
So, do I hate America as it is today? I do not feel that hatred. Do I believe that things will stay the way they are? That is of course impossible. Do I believe that we need to look at our past policies, understand what was good for most Americans and what was bad and do everything we can to not repeat our past themes, themes that we should indeed be ashamed of the fact that they ever occurred? Yes. Do I believe that things are all in all kosher in this country regardless of everything that has transpired since our 43 President took office? Yes. Do I feel that we should should continue to try and steer this country in a way that is good for as many Americans as we can possibly improve their quality of life? Yes. Do I believe we have been on the right track for the last 7 years? Not a chance!
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