One intuits that Michael Kinsley had a lot of lunch money taken from him during his high school years. This election year the pundit is offering tough love to the American electorate, telling them – explicitly – that the US is not the greatest country ever.
It’s all a part of shattering the “myth” of American exceptionalism, that whole “city on a hill” thing that prevents a free people from remaining constant to the vision of “free” healthcare and class warfare Hope and Change® as embodied in President Obama’s historic election. This is all somehow tied up in fat-free chocolate cake, in Kinsely’s view. And ice cream.
This conceit that we’re the greatest country ever may be self-immolating. If people believe it’s true, they won’t do what’s necessary to make it true. The Brits, who suffer no such delusion (and who, in fact, cherish the national myth of being people who smile through adversity), have just accepted cuts in government spending that no American politician — even a tea bagger — would dream of proposing. Maybe these cuts are a mistake or badly timed, but when the British voted for “change,” they really got it.
“Making it true” in Kinsely’s eyes means that America should keep progressing in the direction of European socialism, despite the fact that 1) the European-style social welfare state is in retreat, and 2) Americans have never much wanted any.Which is one of the things that made us, you know: Exceptional.
It’s fair for progressives to get peeved and waspish (or more peeved and waspish) when the country rows back from the liberal abyss – they were so close! But also I think it’s fair for Kinsley, having baldly asserted his thesis, to at least try and prove it: If America is not the world’s greatest, Michael, which is?
And give me your lunch money.
“Oh yeah? Hold mah beer an’ watch THIS, pal!…”
I’d like to drop a bunch of these Liberal Weenies in Helmand Province and watch them wet their pink panties and the USMC drove away and left them to meet up with their newest best buddies, the Taliban….after all, they feel that all people just need some more understanding, Right??
” This may have given us the impression that we could ignore the other kind of rules —the ones that are imposed by reality and therefore are self-enforcing.”
I would LOVE to enforce some reality upon these Elite Liberal Weenies with the help of the Tali-tubbies…That would be something I’d pay to see.
“TEA BAGGER”? Hmmm. I’d give a fair amount of money for the opportunity to have Mr. Kinsley address me directly with that label…the money to be paid in reparations for his nose and jaw reconstruction. Kinsley has not been one of my favorites at any time, and were he to choose to insult me like this it’d be a pleasure to ‘educate’ his ‘elitist’ person as to what constitutes manners in addressing people.
Not much surprises me about the thinking of the group he represents. They just need to be relegated to permanent mosquito status…limited presence and annoying when around.
WRT to 2) Americans have never much wanted any. See:
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=18557
Here’s where he makes his mistake. If people believe it is true, they’ll do what is required to keep it true. People rise to the standard or fall to the lowest common denominator. In the absence of the whip, it is only the desire be judged worthy those who came before you that drives the high standard. Of course, the desire to be judged worthy is the harshest of all taskmasters.
Just another liberal who hates America.
Amen, brother. His article summarizes all that sucks about American liberalism.
Yep, just another privileged, well-to-do liberal, courtesy of the opportunities afforded him by our country.
What a dink.
Wasn’t he merely stating that, “Pride goeth before the fall?”
No, Flit, he was saying there was literally nothing exceptional about our country all. He literally considers the concept “nonsense.” Considering his constant whinge about “ignoring the rules” I expect he was the hall monitor in school, too. Kinsley, I have a news flash for you: sometimes rules are just guidelines, and only an idiot would take the UN seriously these days.
Then again, considering his resume (Slate, The New Republic, Harper’s, LA Times, and The Atlantic) and his careless use of slurs like “teabagger,” I expect idiot is an accurate analysis.
Flit, where on God’s green earth do you come up with this nonsense so often. There is nothing in Kinsley’s silly screed that comes any where close to “pride goeth before the fall.” Nothing!
Kinsely is of the same smarmy all-too-predictable PC intellectual stripe as those multi-culti “cosmopolitan” types who constantly defend Islam as a “religion of peace” and black-top those critical of Islamists as knuckle-dragging Islamophobic ethno-centric racist/fascist “know-nothing” neanderthals, while simultaneously being afraid to publish or write anything mocking or critical of Muslims out of fear of being murdered by those very same adherents of the “religion of peace.” I was the farthest thing in the world from a grade-school/HS “bully” one can think of; but if an irritating self-important condescending wuss like Michael Kinsley had been in my class I would have strongly felt the urge..I could have used the extra lunch money…
One commentator some time ago nicknamed Kinsley “Missy”. That seems to fit. Was it Imus?
And yes, he is trying to have his revenge for being the kid in gym class with the striped black socks and saddle shoes.
I think the Cap’n is wrong on the lunch money thing. People like Kinsley are entirely TOO socially facile, and that’s what I dislike the most about them. Some of us skinny nerdy geeky people do believe quite strongly in American Exceptionalism, and this one here typing this just got back from voting for Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, among others of their ilk.
Good move, JTG!
There ain’t nothin’ wrong with being a skinny geek. Being a skinny geeky facile moron who has an inflated opinion of himself, like Kinsley is a different matter.
Kinsley is like an aspie with none of the endearing traits (the grandson I recovered from the fascist state of Georgia’s CPS is an aspie, so I know they have endearing traits).
Endearing, eh? Like preferring the pre-Macnamara nomenclature for Naval aircraft to the new one? Or just being a chronic, severe aerophile in every way? (Today I went OMG that’s a radial! and ran out to see what it was; it was an all-yellow SNJ)
Yeah! That’s what I mean!
Oh, we can be a PITA, too. There’s also the “Just won’t shut up” trait.
Before he was ostracized by his own kind for doing it, Kinsley managed to utter their forbidden truth once.
Uh-oh, “hate facts!”
Wonder how often truly unexceptional countries take smack about how “unexceptional” they are.
“Hey Peru! You’re not the greatest so stop thinking you are! Neer!”
We’ll take that under advisement, thanks.
It’s a compliment really….
Okay, I read the article. I mostly agree with the sentiments above. I do, however, think this fellow has a point here:
But the question isn’t whether Americans can or should cherish our country, its culture and its values. Gingrich is saying that only Americans can do so. His message to the world is, “Hey, buddy, we’ll do the cherishing around here.” And the country he cherishes isn’t 2010 America — it’s some fantasyland populated by frontiersmen and “sturdy, independent farmers.”
I think he’s correct on two points –
1. There are Americans, like Gingrich, who think the only culture and country to be cherished is ours. I’m not sure that sort of mentality is helpful. It is a subtle difference from cherishing America as being exceptional and also noting the good elements in other societies/countries/etc.
2. And he’s correct about the fantasyland – do we really want to go back to the days of everyone for themselves and screw the rest? Haven’t we, as a society, changed for the better in that aspect?
But yeah otherwise he sounds like the overbearing hall monitor. Or, as we used to call the types back in the days when I played Advanced Squad Leader, a “rules lawyer”.
“the days of everyone for themselves and screw the rest? ”
When exactly were those days?
In some places, those times are now. Afghanistan is a libertarian paradise.
Absolutely, So. I was just trying figure out when he thought those days were here in the U.S.
Mr. FbL,
Pretty much how society was pre-1920′s in this country.
Phalanx, old chap, FBL is not only a highly respected Lex Babe, she has flown air to air combat with our Most Noble Host. Most definately not a Mr.
Maybe an anarchists paradise, but decidedly no libertarian’s paradise.
What’s the difference?
So? : “What’s the difference?”
Rule of law. Afghanistan’s, from what I can see, is tenuous at best, and its enforcement is far from impartial.
Update: according to the radio things are going really well for our guys, at least in FL. I have of course cued up “Hail to the Spirit of Liberty” by Sousa. There really _is_ a Sousa march for any and every occasion. I have it on endless repeat, too, ’cause I’m neurally divergent that way.
P.s. We’re gonna make Frederik Pohl cry.
P.p.s. And, we’ll warm the cockles of Herman Wouk. They are about the same age.
I think Pohl is dead, if I remember correcly from Jerry Pournelle.
Not yet, and while Mr. Pohl is 90, any reports of his demise are, as they say, “…greatly exaggerated.”
Kinsley could be 9 years old back at Sharpstein Elementary, and I could be 7 and I’d still clean the little twerp’s clock. Let’s do a little teleportation over the years and get back there in that small town. And he might wind up having to walk home with his pants around his ankles.
If the oft mentioned quote by Einstein about the definition of insanity doesn’t fit, what do we call “Seeing someone else’s mistake and try to screw it up even worse” mode of thought, such as mentioned above: “b@t$hit crazy?”
I’m open to suggestions, thinking the word hasn’t been invented yet, but it may be here, tonight, on this very threaded conversation.
I do not pay much attention to the gentlemen in question, having early on pegged him as a quisling without Quisling’s “bet the ranch” commitment to his own lust for power; i.e., a talker not a doer, though no less a lickspittle. Therefore not an open traitor, lacks the stomach for it.
Since I mostly don’t suffer those of his ilk, gladly – or any other way, I must confess I know little of him.
Now I am curious. Has he ever done anything involving risk, much less service to the Republic?
Ever?
My position is the antithesis of his…
“My country right or wrong, my mother drunk or sober.”
Just idle curiosity.
Gramp, I’ll drink the Decatur toast at any time or place. Oh, and the Montrose one, too!
“lickspittle.”—–Now THERE’s a term that fits PERFECTLY. (chortle)
PS: Herman Wouk…now there is a man, and a great writer.
A funny story about the man: He was the only Jew aboard his ship, and prolly the only seriously Orthodox one within hundreds of miles. He stuck to his principles and did his daily prayers with appropriate regalia and apparatus. One day he was reciting his prayers and felt something. He turned around and saw a sailor just drawing back from touching one of his phylacteries. Sailor said something like, “Sorry, Sir, just touching it for good luck!” Sailors _are_ famously superstitious.
Admiral Gallery, who captured U-505, was a buddy of his. He invited Wouk out to his ship once and made sure there was plentiful yummy Kosher food.
Read his “War and Remembrance” and weep when he stops the narrative to list the names of the guys who died in the torpedo squadrons at Midway. There are other weepful moments in the book, but that’s the one which got to me most.
Read “Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” and “The Caine Mutiny” and
laugh and shudder and smile and weep.
All three are love stories about his head over heels besottedness with the US Navy and the USA, despite his complete knowlege of both them and their manifold flaws and frustrations.
I know EXACTLY how he feels, yet every time I read them again I find a new insight. Never met the man. God, it would be a privilege to share one beer with the guy in a busy airport between planes.
Oh, yeah. Queeg was a classic case of an unsupervised Aspie, complete with stim toy. (Memo to self: Must get a pair of Queeg balls.)
He wasn’t the best possible Captain by any measure, but he might have been adequate had the wardroom helped instead of hindered him. That book is like a Greek tragedy; you can see the train wreck coming, but all of the characters are totally oblivious.
Oh, yeah, and his description of the Battle off Samar, as “This is how Americans fight when their backs are to the wall” or something like that. They say that Samuel B. Roberts was doing about 30 knots, toward the end, with safety valves on boilers screwed shut. And went down with empty magazines.
I’m no apologist for Kinsley. And whatever his background, it is secondary to me. But he does raise some interesting issues, whether agreeable and valid, or not.
But instead of an intelligent discussion, I find here a bully-fest of piling on this messenger, instead of debating and countering his issues. While Lex and a few others do counter Kinsley, mostly of what I have learned here is irrelevant, and dissapointing. It’s about the author, not the issue:
Elite Liberal Weenies
nose and jaw reconstruction
liberal who hates america
a well-too-do liberal
a dink
idiot
smarmy PC intellectual
Cosmopolitan
wuss
Missy
Skinny nerdy geek
Overbearing Hall monitor
Clean the little twerps clock.
People with a poverty of prose and lacking intellectual curiousity, those who cannot or will not come up with a good counterpoint, often sheepishly resort to ad hominems. The commenters here on Lex’s forum I know are much better than that. Indeed I wonder how many here actually read Kinsley’s editorial, or just decided to jump on him without even reading? Fun sport, I suppose if you are into that.
Any unquestioning acceptance of American Exceptionalism is dangerous hubris. It is a character flaw not only of individuals, but also of nations. And it can lead to Greek Tragedies for both.
I doubt any readers here have read The Limits of Power; The End of American Exceptionalism, but they should to better understand the issues.
I believe Alexis de Tocqueville would be very surprised and sorely disappointed if alive today, with what America has become. Sadly, his Democracy in America sequel today would not be so sanguine, I’m afraid.
We as a nation are certainly still capable of exceptionalism. But it is, and has been, slipping away.
Bottom line: It is still my country regardless of how exceptional it is; one I love, one I fought for, one where I raised my children, and where I will die. These things I know. My country’s future in 50 years, I cannot know. But I see its trend within the world diminishing, partly because of our dangerous hubris. But I will still love it.
Does that include the dangerous hubris of the Commander-in-Chief, who certainly communicates to the rest of the world, from the Bully Pulpit, that America has been wrong in so many ways?
I guess not, because, after all, too many agree with him in the ruling class, and therefore, funnel people towards that belief. If you believe, you begin to act on it, if you act on it…well, I think that’s what they call the Pygmalion Effect, or a “self fulfilling prophesy.”
Why can’t someone tell him we can be great and humble at the same time. How about reminding him that there are those who are allowed to voice their opinion that they don’t like the US, at home and abroad, because of the blood shed and industrial might, and the minds that solved problems in wars, warlike and not, that have then been provided to others in the form of,,,well, lets say the Internet. Computers. Agricultural methods and products and tools, and public health, and drugs to rescue people from disease and pain and to extend their lives. To being an example, that millions upon millions and now billions (China and India) people want to emulate?
But then, I guess if you see what we did as wrong/immoral, then to want to follow in our path is to be dismissed as foolhardy and greedy.
It’s all in the grind, isn’t it?
Jokes on them. When the rest of the world gets what they are clamoring for, who will fund their paychecks? Oops…yeah…little detail to work out, but, as usual, what the Fore Fathers thought out, the most of the rest of the world, which could not pull itself up by their boot straps, like the West did, after evaluating their methods and abandoning the immoral ones (such as slavery), thinks is the cause of their poverty. They are the cause of their misfortune. Personal accountability. Works both ways.
As a skinny nerdy geek (and probable Aspie, yay!), I say… well. I can’t say to you what I want to say to you within the bounds of civility on this here family blog, Flit.
flit, as three of those phrases/terms you listed are mine, I’ll have a go. America is the ONLY nation in history whose foundation is dedicated to a proposition–an ideal if you will–and not the result of an ethnic anthropological make-up resulting from simple genetics combined with geography of place and time. In that sense this nation IS “exceptional.” Like Athena sprung fully armored from the forehead of Zeus (or Minerva from Jupiter–take your pick) the government of America was consciously *created* anew out of nothing from a blank slate with much considered debate and forethought–as opposed to historically/culturally evolving over eons of time in an almost absent-minded way as has been the case with every other national culture and resultant government–governments which grew and mutated more or less willy-nilly many times with really no fixed constant philosophical star as a guiding principle; more or less at the mercy of the ebb and flow of conquering armies/cultures, each of which leaving their permanent haphazard sociocultural mark on the original inhabitants of those various geographical spots on the earth that eventually developed into what we now call nation-states.
As such flit. America is almost totally unique among modern nations–and should be celebrated for that fact alone if for no other. But further, it is also the very make-up of our government that is so doubly exceptional: First, our very governmental structure as a Constitutional Republic alone makes us unique–but beyond that are the principles to which it is dedicated: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These simple but profoundly unique concepts not only make the individual–and not the state–the center around which society revolves,
and thus make the State the servant of the individual to help secure these *blessings,* these concepts also put the ultimate onus on the efforts of the individual to *pursue* and secure these things, NOT the State to provide them via diktat to impose a gilded protective cage. “All men are born free but everywhere they are in chains” wrote Rousseau. By this Rousseau meant that for the avg. man the State proceeds him. Man is born into an existing social contract which pre-exists his birth and which he had no hand in making; and to which he had no chance to chose to acquiesce in or no.
The American Revolution and the creation of the Republic gave the citoyen the chance to both be politically reborn anew every few years with a political tabla raza (mas o menos) before him, but also to be protected from governmental monsters of his own inadvertent making that arise from his refashioning governmental clay–this being done via a Bill of Rights, divided government and a Federal Structure. Ben Wattenberg once labeled America: “…the first universal nation.” Indeed. That no other nation besides America has managed to not only create such a unique democratic form of government, but to make it work for so long without widespread bloodshed despite the presence of a hugely disparate ethnic/religious social mix is, well, ……..EXCEPTIONAL.
PS: When listing your terms,you missed Grandpa Bluewater’s “likspittle.” You’re slipping, flit–back to remedial reading comprehension classes for you…
No, not really. I actually got a laugh out of his “likspittle” comment. And I (secretly) appreciate his comments.
what VX said.
Shorter Flit: why don’t the unwashed masses agree with me!? {rolls eyes}
Dude, this is beneath you.
Would “casting pearls before swine” be ad hominem Flit?
I, like de Tocqueville, am disappointed in where America is today -though far less so than I was yesterday.
I rather doubt that you are happier today than you were yesterday.
Mr. Flit,
You and I would probably agree on many things. And I thank you for pointing out the Overbearing Hall Monitor comment; I feel honored.
But dude, I’ve followed Kinsley for years. He’s most certainly more interested in following the “rules” even to the point of absurdity all in the name of legality. And that mind set will eventually cause a lot of problems.
“The commenters here on Lex’s forum I know are much better than that.”
And far, FAR better than you are willing to give them credit for as well Flit.
It’s self evident why you would say much of what you say. Even to the point of ascribing to people what they did not say, or saying they didn’t say what they did. The criticism of you, so often, is that you get stuff from things that simply aren’t there. I’ve pointed this out above, and many times before, so it isn’t news to you. Quick and dirty comments may come across as ad hominem to you, but I’ve seen enough your posts that I have to say you haven’t a clue as to what ad hominem is. No one above has engaged in it, and certainly Kinsley isn’t here to debate. I doubt he would much of a reception as Kinsley has shown himself on CNN and in other venues to have an over inflated view of himself, and has proven beyond all doubt that he is a sneering little man that can’t acknowledge his betters. I saw Pat Buchanan rip him to shreds repeatedly, and he didn’t have the knowledge to know what had been done to him. It was very sad to watch, even sadder than seeing you embarass your self here repeatedly.
It is one thing to make mistakes. We all do that. You are far beyuond that point Flit, and I’m sure you are better than that. That’s the worst part, knowing you can do better yet you keep showing that won’t. Not from inability, but from willful perversity.
I may quibble with VX, but his points are refreshingly persuasive and thankfully relevant.
Unfortunately, I see QM is more hung up on me, than more important issues.
QM: I am but a mere speck in the sand on the shores of America. To critique me is to ignore the inevitable ebb and flow of the tides that relentlessly impact and change our ever changing, sandy shores.
I like having you around, Flit, differences are what keeps us fresh. Even though I disagree with you most of the time, I must say that you are a grain of sand that has not been rubbed smooth by the other grains on the beach. YAY, Flit!
Flit, you have a massively inflated view of yourself. Most of the time you are simply wrong because you are disconnected from reality.
As I said, “perversity.”
Don’t flatter yourself. It’s unbecoming of a supposed intellectual.
ADDENDUM to RANT: I should also point out that in the “proof is in the pudding” dept, America is the envy of the world and uniquely exceptional in providing an unmatched combination of unlimited financial opportunity and protected personal freedoms that no other nation in the world seems to be able to master–or even create–as witnessed by the millions of immigrants–both legal and illegal–who voluntarily brave both bureaucratic hardships (in the case of the former) and physical hardships/dangers (in the case of the latter) to come to America annually.
Yes, I believe a good measure of a country is to look at the number of people trying to get in and compare to the number of people trying to get out.
And, honestly, I always think it’s great when a nation takes pride in “itself” (unless that pride is centered around killing us or something). You see it every soccer (excuse me “football”) season in Europe. Doesn’t bother me why should our pride bother them?