Somewhere in these bloggospheres it has been said that Conservatives "love" their country like a child loves an abusive parent, right or wrong, and all attempts to correct the abuse are taken as an attack on the child itself, rather than an attempt to right a wrong. Or if it hasn't been said that way, it should. So what happens to that child when the abusive daddy moves to a condo in Texas and a new, shiny, clean, adoptive family steps in promising kisses, love, good food, clean clothes, an education and all that stuff? Unabashed, near incoherent Rage, is what.
Its going to take a long time for the battered children of the right to forgive the new daddy for showing up the old one. For a long time they will continue to act out the old relationship--hoarding food, acting out sexual abuse, lying, hitting the other children. Its to be expected, but its not going to be pretty.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in this petulant post by Patterico, already ably pilloried by Roy, in which Patterico and his posters go ballistic over Obama's anodyne call for his own children not merely to be happy and successful but also noble and good. Incredible presumption! Why, Patterico shrieks, if the entire country were to inculcate in their children a desire for more than mere self interested skill acquisition and material success the entire engine of the American dream would fall, crushed, under the bootheel of liberal programs. Telling your child you hope they give back to America some of what America has given to them is indicted, savagely, as the tip of the Stalinist iceberg.
But more important even than the pragmatic results of all this selflessness is the rage Patterico and the little Pattericites express at the les majeste implicit in any slur that may have been cast on them, I mean on America,
The letter deals with America’s imperfections, and nowhere is that more obvious than in this section where Obama talks about what he learned from his mother:“She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better-and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us. It’s a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.”
The gloves come off over that remark with posters immediately jumping to the obvious flaw in the argument--this was said by a woman (!) who was insufficiently nationalistic (!) and had sex (!) with more than one daddy!
Another lets slip the more central issue--when Obama says "America" he means "me" and if America isn't perfect than what does that make me? And what if he doesn't love me?
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That’s the liberal truth: they love that perfect America that lives only in their imagination. OTOH I love our values, our founding principles, and our generous, self-reliant countrymen.
What will it be like to have a man who doesn’t particularly like his people or his country run the government? As Hotair headlined, “Does he even like us?”
Comment by Patricia — 1/18/2009 @ 5:51 pm
Yeah, that's the problem, the new daddy doesn't really love the old children. He can't be trusted. We want our old daddy back. He may have knocked us around but by gum he never implied we weren't perfect:
When George Bush was President, many liberals viewed America as less of a nation because of his actions on FISA, interrogations, and detentions. Even if everything Bush did was wrong, how does that translate into America being a flawed nation? And how could Obama’s Presidency redeem it?
Comment by DRJ — 1/18/2009 @ 10:08 pm
Watching America's children of the damned score points with each other with increasingly hysterical attacks on Obama's mild appropriation of mom and apple pie is going to be ugly. And we are going to see a lot more of it as Bush's last defenders see their own drunken daddy wave a hearty farewell and go off into a golfing sunset. How long before they figure out he was just not that into them? I can assure you that the Obama Foster Family for damaged and angry youth is going to end up being their rebound family. They won't be able to accept the hand of friendship or the new rules (no grabbing, no shouting, no hitting) and will end up running off to live in the streets until the next abusive pimp daddy of a Republican candidate picks them up and tells them they are beautiful just the way they are and puts them back out on the street to turn tricks. In an unconciously accurate moment of self judgment one commenter observes:
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The Obama Years: an endless stream of platitudes targeted to the historically ignorant and gullible.
Comment by JVW — 1/18/2009 @ 5:56 pm
I'd say, signs are promising.
aimai
Baracky’s mom loved making America better so much she determined to live as far away from it as she could and ball foreigners.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/18/2009 @ 3:28 pm