Comments here by Lileks:
What annoyed me about the Obama comments was the crude reduction of everything into economic terms, the most dismal prism through which to regard humanity. So the factories close, and the sullen mass of the lowly workers ball their fists, feel a strange sour bolus of resentment bolting up their throat, and think: must – channel – confusing - emotions- into – unreasoning – opposition – to – redefining – marriage. If the factories magically reappear, does everyone sigh with relief, quit church and drop off their guns? I have money! No need for the Magic Carpenter and that poorly-worded amendment. Call off the border patrol, too – there’ll be jobs and upward wage pressure for everyone. It’s not exactly an unusual thesis; I’ve encountered it for years. People cannot possibly believe these crazy things for their own sake; they must be driven to them by external forces.
Believing in nothing, our Left can't believe others might believe in something, apparently. It is a thoroughly Marxist way of looking at things--you must believe in that which gives you another dollar in your pocket and you must believe our socialist policies will give you that buck. Right and wrong have no place in this materialistic way of looking at life.
More analysis here. The logical conclusion of someone with such a view of Americans:
First, the consent of the governed, when their behavior is governed by their false consciousnesses, is unimportant. Second, the public requires the supervision of a progressive elite which, somehow emancipated from false consciousness, can engineer true consciousness. Third, because consciousness is a reflection of social conditions, true consciousness is engineered by progressive social reforms. Fourth, because people in the grip of false consciousness cannot be expected to demand or even consent to such reforms, those reforms usually must be imposed, for example, by judicial fiats.
And of course, my essay on Stupid Americans (these are my people, I proudly say). Do click through to the essay by Orson Scott Card.
When you don't respect the country you live in or think very much of your countrymen, I suppose it should be no surprise that you don't think defending your country is important--or that those who defend it are worthy of respect.
UPDATE: I'd like to clarify that I hardly think that snobbery toward those not in the top 5% income bracket is a unique trait of the left side of the aisle. I've certainly seen conservatives who seem disgusted with many aspects of our culture and seem to take that as an excuse to despise much of American society. And there are clearly those on the right who don't think anything is worth fighting for.
Yet our left seems to harbor such views both individually and together in far greater numbers. Certainly, our media supports the Left in such views and marginalizes the Right, so the impact of the latter is miniscule. And the urge to govern the ignorant masses for their own good seems to reside mostly on the Left. And this latter point is what really irks me about the attitude revealed by both the comments and the varioius defenses of the comment. You are free to look down on whoever you want. Just don't try to tell them that you are really out to protect them from themselves.
And don't pretend to love your country when you only do when it agrees with you or does what you like to do. That isn't love of country--that's love of self.
