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Those who blame the U.S. for all the world’s ills

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I have detected two broad attitudes toward America among American liberals, the first (and hopefully largest) contingent believes the United States to be a flawed, but fixable country, which is only occasionally responsible for problems abroad. They know that not all evil is caused by the policies of our government or the economic interests of our corporations. Many of them believe that the U.S. can often be a force for good, offsetting its occasional misdeeds and counteracting the crimes of various tyrants and would-be despots. Those who agitate for action in Darfur are examples of such liberals.

These folks means well and do not define their worldview by a hatred of their native land.

There are others who attempt to tie all world evil back to the policies of the United States government and its (in their view) subsidiary corporations. Michael Moore comes to mind as an example of this kind of letie.

Last night, Glenn Reynolds linked a must-read post on the latter example of lefties who want to blame the U.S. for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge:

Two weeks ago, there was an Asia Society screening of a UN documentary about the trial of Comrade Duch, who ran one of the Khmer Rouge’s most infamous political prisons. Two women became upset during the Q&A session (about 37:00 into the linked video) that all this talk about torture and killing fields and retribution and memories of the dead had not been presented “in context.” You can guess what they meant, can’t you? That’s right: Big, Bad America had been an enabler for Pol Pot and his fellow-travelers, and apparently that was what we should have been getting worked up about.

What is it about such people that they always have to blame the United States?  They have easily earned an epithet often offered to gay conservatives:  self-hating.

Yet, in their case, the epithet is not a smear with no basis in reality, but a real description of their own attitudes toward the nation that protects their freedom to criticize it.

Comments

  1. I guess if you wanted to stretch a little you could make a case that way.

    I’m sure she’s not pointing to the fact that there was a Democrat Congress and a Democrat President that were doing all they could to ensure the Viet Nam war was lost.

  2. Kurt P. – You and I had the same thoughts reading this post.

    I once had a “discussion” with a classmate in graduate school. He instisted that the Democrats ended the war, and therefore the “senseless killing” in Vietnam. I pointed out to him that while US military deaths may have ended when the US pulled out, civilian deaths not only continued, but skyrocketed without the US to keep a lid on the violence. He was kind of dumbstruck by what I was trying to tell him. Some folks are just clueless, even to their own words.

  6. Who enables them more? We have a President who has made it a habit to apologize to every nation for real or imagined ills which has befallen them. None of our critics, foreign and domestic laud our country when we said financial, medical, and physical aid to nations who have experienced disasters. Which nation, victorious in war, ever rebuilt their enemy´s nation; the destruction of which was caused by their leaders bellicose expansionism. Only the United States. Germany and Japan, while having an ambitious population, would not be as far advanced as they are today without the U.S. having putthem on their feet.

  7. It’s pathological non-conformism.

    They not only prefer everything alien (Xenophilia), they are openly hostile to anything familiar (Oikophobia).

    It’s a collective mental disorder that revolves around delusions of persecution, and that exhibits all the excitement of mass hysteria.
    .

  8. One of my experiments is to be in a group of liberals –which is pretty well everyone I know in San Francisco!– and make a disparaging remark about America or Americans, and wait to see if anyone defends the “homeland”. They never do. Instead, they join in and amplify.

  10. Following the chain of links gets us to a great Cathy Young quote from a few years ago:

    The left’s reluctance to acknowledge that Communism wasn’t just a failure but an evil is due to more than stubbornness. Such an acknowledgment would amount to (1) validating a view of the West, Communism’s Cold War adversary, as good (albeit imperfect), and (2) admitting that the left spent much of the 20th century cozying up to mass murderers and therefore has precious little moral authority to criticize the West today.

    That’s right. These self-hating, “blame America first” American leftists, have *no moral authority whatever* to criticize America.

    I’m not saying America is beyond criticism. America should be subjected to constructive criticism. I’m saying, with Cathy Young, that *hardcore leftists* (people who suck up to favored left-wing dictators, mass murderers and terrorists) have no moral authority to criticize America.

  11. It’s called CORF (cutting off reflecting failure). America is a huge embarrassment to them so they try to distance themselves from it as much as possible. So much so they end up thinking every other country, with the exception of Israel, is better than American in every category. So they point the finger and say “See! See! I’m not part of that. It’s them and not me!”

    Maybe if they practiced some humility they wouldn’t feel so insecure.

  12. Every population has their assholes. Michael Moore wanting to bail out the Wikileaks self-promoter is an example of an American hating pud willing to sell out the rest of America for his own self-gratification. The grand propagandist, of whom I originally thought was “great” after viewing “Roger and Me” back in the early 90’s, is a stain on America.

  13. You’re conflating ‘America’ with ‘certain American leaders.’ There is no intrinsic quality about the United States that creates problems and destruction, but a couple of our Presidents have definitely done some terrible, terrible stuff. The Indonesians killed about 100,000 East Timorese with the blessing and financial support of Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. Read about what happened at El Mozote in El Salvador; American-trained and funded soldiers raped and killed nearly a thousand men, women and children. And our latest Republican President decided he was going to eliminate the middle man and has wreaked all kinds of havoc and misery across the Middle East.

    And this is spelled out in liberal criticisms – we don’t hate America and we don’t consider America to be the biggest troublemaker in the world, but we do think that certain leaders have been implementing particularly destructive policies. I know that it’s easier for you to dismiss our specific criticisms if you completely misrepresent our argument and insist we’re blaming all of America, but allow me to set you straight; we’re blaming individuals and their faulty leadership.

    I also thinks it’s worth noting your seemingly endless patience with the government when it comes to foreign policies that result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – but when it comes to domestic issues, the government is always this cumbersome, inefficient, corrupt, invasive bureaucracy. Why don’t you apply your supposedly critical and suspicious attitude about government in the foreign policy realm? Could it be because you’re hypocrites that have a completely incoherent ideology?

  15. Could it be because you’re hypocrites that have a completely incoherent ideology?

    But it’s TOTALLY cool to bomb the hell out of a country over a lie of 400,000 “massacred” Albanian Muslims. Operation Keelhaul is another high point. Not to mention the internment of American citizens. Or handing over China and Vietnam to the Communists.

    Tell me, are you wearing your Che t-shirt today?

  17. Levi: I don’t buy your conspiratorial talking points. American leaders were not responsible for what happened in East Timor. Bloodthirsty Indonesians killed innocent East Timorese citizens and some of my fellow Australians, period. What’s more, Bush liberated millions of persecuted women, neglected by the Left.

    I wonder too: How many anti-American quotes made by American leftists are you open to reading? Read Treason by Ann Coulter, she has so much to teach you. Certainly, you’re not open to listening to representative East Timorese and Kurdish voices.

    I also wonder what motivates people like you to throw America under the bus so quickly. If you told me you loved her, I’d laugh. Whores are given more respect.

  18. Why don’t you apply your supposedly critical and suspicious attitude about government in the foreign policy realm? Could it be because you’re hypocrites that have a completely incoherent ideology?

    Sir, I’m really going to have to insist that you cease screaming into your mirror and address this forum directly.

    You’re beginning to scare the children.

  19. Levi just can’t handle it that President Bush believes that brown people can understand democracy.

    He also did more for the environment than Levi’s entire global warming BS.

    Of course, if he’s going to try to hold the US responsible for the deaths in east timor, it’s only fair to hold him responsible for every death from his socialist beliefs.

  20. @ ThatGayConservative: Please refrain from recycling the phrase “handing over China and Vietnam to the Communists…” no matter your understandable frustration at the U.S. role in those two countries. Neither one was the U.S.’ to “handover.” Unlike the New Territories of Hong Kong. That phrase is not historically accurate, and plays into the hands of those who would find imperialistic tendencies by America in every foreign incursion. Sometimes we are asked to help out our allies. Of course a few less tin-horn dictators set up by the CIA decades ago is in our favor given their rapidly approaching demises.

  21. What’s telling is that even though lefties like Levi deny hating America, they always seem to have something like East Timor within arm’s reach to cite as an example of American awfulness… and they always seem to accept the version of history that makes America seem terrible.

  22. What’s telling is that even though lefties like Levi deny hating America, they always seem to have something like East Timor within arm’s reach to cite as an example of American awfulness… and they always seem to accept the version of history that makes America seem terrible.

    Again, I don’t hate America, I hate certain decisions by certain American leaders that have turned out terribly. Can you not appreciate the enormous chasm dividing those two statements?

    The bottom line is that we have been a global superpower for the past 70+ years and the sole superpower for the past 20 – we simply must accept more responsibility for the state of global politics and economics. I don’t think we’re doing a very good job at the moment based on our recent leadership – Obama and Bush are two of the worst presidents we’ve ever had. The war on terror is alienating allies, creating widespread international resentment, destroying our credibility, and demonstrating the limits of American power. I’m actually willing to cut Kissinger, Ford, and Reagan a little bit slack for their transgressions against human rights – the Soviet Union was a scary country and that we’ve made mistakes along the way is understandable. But this recent business, where we invent reasons to spend a decade in foreign countries getting innocent people killed, is just unforgivable.

    Again – don’t hate America, don’t think America is responsible for all the worlds problems – but specific American leaders and specific American ideologies are. I mean, it isn’t as if this is some terribly nuanced argument.

  24. Neither one was the U.S.’ to “handover.”

    And I didn’t mean it in that way. However, our hostility to Japan stemmed from their invasion of China. We essentially booted Japan and left China in the hands of Mao. The Allies fought to oust Germany from Poland and Czechoslovakia and they wound up in the hands of Stalin. In Vietnam, the liberals spun major US victories into crushing defeats and pushed hard to get us out thereby letting the Communists have at it.

    So one begs to ask why democrats allow despots to rule and make life easier for them.

  25. Again, I don’t hate America, I hate certain decisions by certain American leaders that have turned out terribly. Can you not appreciate the enormous chasm dividing those two statements?

    No.

    Mainly because when you and your Obama Party are screaming, “God damn America”, you’re clearly not making any nuance.

    You continue to try to lie and spin every time your clear words are brought forward, Levi. Why is that?

  26. Levi,

    When dealing the US into East Timor in 1975, you conveniently overlook that Timor was a partitioned island and East Timor had a colonial government under Portugal which had a history of forced labor of the entire male population. Portugal took it back from the Japanese after WWII and reestablished colonial rule. Timor in the west was Dutch ruled and became part of Indonesia when the Dutch East Indies lands were dissolved after WWII.

    In 1974, the military in Portugal staged a coup against Salazar and brought his fascist government down. They set Angola, Mozambique and East Timor free. Freedom factions within East Timor squabbled and connived and the Indonesians invaded to take the entire island back to its pre-1915 status and expand Indonesian rule to the entire island. Suharto of Indonesia had obtained an understanding that Australia would not interfere and the United States aligned with Australia.

    The Indonesian military is charged with killing over 100,000 East Timorese fighting a guerilla war and aligned with the Fretlin independence movement. The fighting and killing continued from 1976 to 1999. It outlasted Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton.

    When the East Timor mess was starting, the world and the United States in particular was far more focused on the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the atrocities of Pol Pot.

    Having just been slogged into stalemate and defeat by the Democrat Congress, the United States had no intention of going into another campaign of jungle guerilla warfare in either Cambodia (Kampuchea) or East Timor.

    So, Levi, are you sure you want to argue about East Timor, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and the malevolent male chauvinism of radical Islam? These are all radical examples of modern genocide or gendercide. They are also glaring examples of the UN barking up a storm from its tower of babbling eunuchs.

    What is the principle in East Timor against which you wish to stake your claim?

  27. Heliotrope, it’s a worthless effort. Keep in mind our resident racist doesn’t care if brown people kill brown people, or if they destroy the environment. Indeed, he likely thinks they’re incapable of doing anything but that.

    It’s when we liberate brown people and repair the damage the brown people did to the environment he gets all upset.

    But Levi’s willing to accept the blood on his hands of 159,000,000+ people. He’s immune to facts.

  28. I don’t hate America

    Like a wife-beater saying he doesn’t hate his wife, she just pisses him off sometimes and he has to smack her around … perhaps to “drag her kicking and screaming” … into a state where her behavior is acceptable.

  29. I think the Chinese might not have been as appreciative of the Japanese invasion in the 1920’s as your comment suggests. And Mao won the Civil War because the Nationalists were incredibly corrupt.

    But…we were discussing U.S. haters. Anti-Americanism is always for the simple-minded. Yet I would not excuse our many foreign adventures since Geo. Washington’s Farewell as so much disinterested charity. Looking south of the border, we seem unable to resist entanglements in former Nueva España. Twice even. Not to mention Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and, our greatest “Liberation”, Grenada. It might be understandable, thus, if the Yanquí is given fewer abrazos than he/she might anticipate. And I’m speaking only of our neighbors in this hemisphere.

    It’s not simply Democrats who foment anti-Americanism. Recent Republican governments have added their own share of Hamiltonian ingredients. A bit of humility from the Shining City in the Hill gang is in order. After all, the U.S. installed Sadaam Hussein and the Shah (the latter after we toppled the elected government of Mossadegh). Not to mention La Piña, General Noriega. So, no matter which Party, aids and abets the despots, we will ultimately send in the Marines to remove them.

    Now, I have to buy some more Halliburton shares.

  31. #30 Right?

    Now, I have to buy some more Halliburton shares.

    You’d be better served finding whomever you’ve been learning history from and kicking them square in the balls.

  32. TGC…I’d never be so uncouth. History is after all a serious process of weighing facts, heresay, and gossip from primary and secondary sources to create a narrative. I don’t subscribe to the currently faddish theme of “American exceptionalism” as a proper yardstick by which to critique U.S. foreign policy. America is a beautiful experiment even though we have not always upheld our sacred stewardship of our land and our ideals. I wish the GOP would recall Theodore Roosevelt (while remembering that Manifest Destiny is long past) rather than some politicos of late who lack both conviction and vision. Yet I do have hope.

    And, with the pangs of crying all the way to the bank, I’ve never lost by investing for the U.S. military-industrial complex. Which is really amusing to me.

  33. Levi,

    What the hell do you know about El Mazote? What do you know about El Salvador? Only what you read by leftest reporters. Mi familia vive en El Salvador y siempre ha sido.. I now live in El Salvador. If you want to blame somebody; blame Jimmy Carter, that commie lover of terrorists. El Mazote would never have happened if he didn´t give the green light to the communist FMLN to overthrow the democratically elected government. El Mazote was a communist stronghold. As tragic as it was, it was similar to Viet Nam where combatants were of all ages and sexes. As a Viet Nam era vet, if I were ordered to wipe out a village I would have for the defense of my fellow soldiers and the greater good of the country we were defending against communism. As the saying goes, War is hell. Since WWII, (Hitler buzz bombing London) civilians became collateral damage. As for the U:S haveing trained the Atlcatl Brigade, other countries also have sent their best troops to be trained at Ft. Benning.

  34. What the hell do you know about El Mazote? What do you know about El Salvador? Only what you read by leftest reporters. Mi familia vive en El Salvador y siempre ha sido.. I now live in El Salvador. If you want to blame somebody; blame Jimmy Carter, that commie lover of terrorists. El Mazote would never have happened if he didn´t give the green light to the communist FMLN to overthrow the democratically elected government. El Mazote was a communist stronghold. As tragic as it was, it was similar to Viet Nam where combatants were of all ages and sexes. As a Viet Nam era vet, if I were ordered to wipe out a village I would have for the defense of my fellow soldiers and the greater good of the country we were defending against communism. As the saying goes, War is hell. Since WWII, (Hitler buzz bombing London) civilians became collateral damage. As for the U:S haveing trained the Atlcatl Brigade, other countries also have sent their best troops to be trained at Ft. Benning.

    Well, I can’t argue with that, can I? If you’d merrily separate the women and girls from the rest of the village so they could be raped and murdered, and if you’d gleefully lock up toddlers and pre-teens in a church and set fire to the building – well then! You’re just right out of the dark ages buddy. To say something stupid like ‘war is hell’ in defense of what happened at El Mozote is to completely miss the point of the civilized world’s response to Hitler’s war crimes. Do you really think that deliberately raping young girls and burning children alive is so much collateral damage?

    That’s terrorism – and it was financed, excused, and covered up by the US government. You don’t think it’s a big deal, that’s fine, but I don’t think you know what happened at El Mozote if you’re so dismissive. That, or you’re a sociopath.

  35. Yet again, our leftard friend, having been denied his Chrismahanakawamadan wish of the peaceful death of the Palin family, simply can’t resist the fervent compulsion to demonstrate the utter hypocrisy of the modern moonbat.

    They’re tolerant, as long as they like you.

  37. 8: Why don’t we start with this term “homeland”. It’s always sounded a little too creepy; fatherland always comes to mind – you know, the Nazis? What’s wrong with United States Security?

  38. Of course, he then chooses to espouse his moral inferiority by proving how completely ignorant most leftards are when faced with the fact that not everything they’re told by their leaders about the world is true.

    The massacre at El Mozote is a matter of scientific fact. Anthropologists excavated the site and meticulously cataloged the dead there – it happened just as the handful of surviving witnesses said it had happened. They pulled something like 25 children’s skeletons out of the ground on the first day. This isn’t a missive from Michael Moore or Susan Sarandon, you can read about it on the internet, which I suggest you do.

    Of course, the Reagan administration denied it ever happened too, because they were of course on the side of the El Salvadoran government and contributed millions of dollars to their military over the years. Their attitude and yours (which is far less excusable given the amount of time that has passed and the wealth of evidence proving the massacre) is exactly what contributes to anti-American sentiment around the world; even when faced with incontrovertible evidence that some component of American foreign policy has been destructive in the most horrifying of ways, conservatives will reflexively defend American actions by making tenuous claims about Communism and denying outright consensus. We don’t get better by pretending like we never make mistakes, we get worse.

  39. We don’t get better by pretending like we never make mistakes, we get worse.

    Of course, were can only conclude that this clown believes we are somehow ill, and need of “healing.”

    How miserable must he be, wandering the streets each day in a country he’s convinced will NEVER be fully realized until each and every one of his warped ideas are made law.

  40. Who are you going to believe. A Socialist like Levi who applauds the slaughter of innocents, or a man who lives there and has family there?

    If it were Communists doing the slaughtering, he’d be cheering that they dragged the proles ‘kicking and screaming’ into the future.

    Also Levi saying “Scientific Fact” is about like me saying “successful diet tips.”

  41. Also Levi saying “Scientific Fact” is about like me saying “successful diet tips.”

    Lyndhurst, NJ has received just over 28 inches of snow, and most of the east coast is buried this morning.

    Meanwhile, levi and the leftards claim global warming is a “scientific fact.”

    You can’t make this idiocy up, folks!!!

  42. Lyndhurst, NJ has received just over 28 inches of snow, and most of the east coast is buried this morning.

    Meanwhile, levi and the leftards claim global warming is a “scientific fact.”

    You can’t make this idiocy up, folks!!!

    ‘

    Sure, that’s it. All those scientists with their fancy degrees and their glacier maps and their ice cores have been getting it all wrong – it snowed in New Jersey in the middle of winter and therefore global warming isn’t real!

    I have to say, I do love this time of the year, when all the scientifically illiterate conservatives come out to dismiss all of modern climate science because it snowed again. I know you dopes look forward to it all year. Your commitment to ignorance is breathtaking.

  43. Your commitment to ignorance is breathtaking.

    Having my intellect called into question by perhaps the vilest example of blind liberal idiocy since the guy who planted cabbage next door to Auschwitz is almost a compliment.

    The only thing “breathtaking” here is the scope of levi’s “tolerance” for dissent.

  44. Nothing angers me more than the hypocriisy of the self righteous left wing who pontificate as though they are the guardians of truth. Numbn*ts who probably has never been no further south of the border the TJ has the consummate gall to blame the U.S. for El Mazote. He depends on left wing propaganda for his information. They will never tell how the FMLN destroyed infrastructure, blew up towers that threw parts in darkness and without power.. Most of all, they won´t tell about how the FMLN massacred mayors and councilpersons who supported the government. If Levi wants to blame an American, blame Carter. A large segment of the population here hate the man. Op ed and editorials in some newspapers refer to him as ¨El Nefasto¨ Carter. Freedom loving salvadorians revered as a saint. As I have been told on various occasions, ¨if it weren´t for Ronald Reagan, we wouldn´t be free today.¨Of course, the left doesn´t like to hear that. They prefer that people live in virtual concentration camps like Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. Speaking of Venezuela, the opposition has won the majoreity of the seats in the National Assmebly, so what does the lame duck session do, but grant Hugo Chavez the authority to rule by decree for eighteen months thus nullifying the result of the past election. A venezuelan journalist is seeking politcal asylum in Honduras because of death threats from Chavez´s henchmen. That´s the world they want. They applaude islamic leaders ignoring the fact the execute gays and lesbians, simply for being. They´re always on the wrong side of every issue.

  45. It’s Liberal fundamentalism. (A fear of personal responsibility?)

    It has every characteristic in common with a religious cult. They see all their subjective truths as objective facts. They reject their own individual perceptions for the sake of the collective agenda.

    Does one have to be a climatologist to know when it’s cold outside?

    I think that American socialists see ‘the state’ in the role of their parents. They desperately want to be taken care of because their feel inadequate (they fear leaving the nest), and they blame their parents for everything that’s wrong in their life.

    Liberals don’t trust their own perception and they rationalize their confusion as ‘normal’ by questioning the perception of everyone else. Because they feel unqualified to make their own decisions, they conclude that everyone must be unqualified.

    ——————

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

    Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions.[2] Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
    .

  47. Remember folks, Levi supports the lies of the administration to try to get Copenhagen passed.

    Levi, meet Piers Cobyrn. An actual scientist who shows how you’re wrong. (Maybe if he came to you with cell phone questions, you’d come to him for weather tips, like farmers and other businessmen do)

    Or maybe you’d like the words of Joe Bastardi (coolest name ever!) explaining science to you.

    Here’s more science with pictures so you won’t have to ask your mom to come down to the basement for all the hard words. Note the temp graph showing the cooling. BTW, this is using your own (flawed) NASA data to shred your theories.

    More shredding of computer models by scientists.

    Now hush Levi, adults are talking.