Invoking the Declaration of Independence, in order to rationalize as patriotic the call for a revolution, is a pathetic old communist trick. The Declaration was written to call into being a new nation, not to destroy that nation.
On October 5, Intellectual Conservative published ldquo; , rdquo; by Andrea Clemons, who identified herself as a science teacher.
At first I thought: Oh, a patriot. And that was your intention. But when you started complaining of patriots that they were ldquo;racist, rdquo; ldquo;homophobic, rdquo; and ldquo;nationalist and militaristic, rdquo; and holding up illegal immigrants as greater patriots than those who support and defend America, it became clear that you are an anti-American.
Do you really think anyone is going to read your screed through, and think you are a patriot who cares about America, rather than a communist and/or traitor?
You aren rsquo;t even a trenchant critic of President Bush and his ldquo;program. rdquo; (What that ldquo;program rdquo; consists of, you never tell us.
) Your criticisms are variously contradictory, vague, exaggerated and dishonest.
[My] ancestors worked their entire lives in factories, in offices, in fields, in homes, and even in the military to create. They created the wealth of this country and upheld the early ideals of this country and served this country in whatever ways they knew how .
. .
Well, which is it?
Are you saying your ancestors were slaves? I don rsquo;t think so. Are you saying that your ancestors were slave owners?
That too, seems doubtful. You don rsquo;t follow up the logical implications of your bold statements. Apparently, you think that you can make any statement in any context, as long as it makes you sound morally superior, logic be damned.
In any event, the claim about ldquo;slaves rdquo; is a gross exaggeration, and the one about ldquo;people in developing countries rdquo; is a lie.
But I also recognize that many Americans today and many Americans in the past didn t realize these scaled power structures, repeated from international dynamics to class dynamics and race dynamics, etc.
ldquo;Scaled power structures?
rdquo; ldquo;International dynamics to class dynamics and race dynamics? rdquo;
Let me guess. You picked up the preceding dogmatic catch phrases in college.
In the immortal words of the philosopher Sonny Corleone, ldquo;What do you go to college to learn to be stupid? rdquo;
You are only able to throw around dogmatic catch phrases, because your professors never provided any facts in support of them. They ldquo;addressed rdquo; skeptical students by variously flunking them, expelling them, and seeing to it that they were whitelisted from ever becoming teachers, thus leaving the field increasingly to totalitarians like yourself.
You also falsely claim that America was founded as a democracy. Aside from the falsity of your claim, I rsquo;m at a loss to see how that would be something praiseworthy to you, seeing that as a Marxist, you are yourself violently opposed to democracy, and in favor of a dictatorship. (As the Founding Fathers were well aware, democracy is an undesirable form of government, which is why they founded the U.
S.A. as a republic ldquo;If you can keep it, rdquo; in Ben Franklin rsquo;s immortal warning but Marxists like yourself have this thing about presenting themselves as democrats.
)
And yet, before my very eyes, the Bush regime is bucking all of those protective devices against intolerance and despotism the right to one s own religion, the separation of powers, the right to privacy and fair trial . . .
the list doesn t end. It is time to throw off this government.
If anything, via an overly liberal application of freedom of religion, Bush is permitting Moslems to seek to slowly impose Sharia.
If I were president, your beef might have some substance. But then, had the Founding Fathers been confronted with the Religion of Terror, they would have expressly outlawed Islam, and Moslem immigrants.
As for the separation of powers, I rsquo;d like to see some proof that President Bush has usurped either the legislative or the judicial branch; you provide not so much as a single example.
In fact, it is the judicial branch that continues to usurp power from the other branches, as in for example, the recent case of , in which the Supreme Court usurped the prerogative of the Commander-in-Chief in running a war, while inventing new, unjustifiable rights for unlawful combatants in the bargain.
Your invocation of the Declaration of Independence, in order to rationalize as patriotic your call for a revolution, is a pathetic old communist trick. The Declaration was written to call into being a new nation, not to destroy that nation.
When you do get specific, it is to deride as a ldquo;violent homophobe rdquo; someone who mocked Frenchmen rsquo;s manhood for refusing to fight in the War in Iraq. But even then, you expect the reader to take your word that a joke that you can rsquo;t even remember was so offensive that we should hold an entire patriotic organization, and indeed, the very notion of American patriotism, in contempt.
Sophistry is not your strength, Ms.
Clemons. Don rsquo;t give up your day job.
On the other hand, if your letter is any indication, you are doubtless propagandizing your students to death, and expecting the taxpayers whom you hate, to subsidize your revolution.
So, I wish you would give up your day job . . .
but I know you won rsquo;t.
New York-based freelancer Nicholas Stix has written for Toogood Reports, Middle American News, the New York Post, Daily News, American Enterprise, Insight, Chronicles, Newsday and many other publications. Bravo.
A well thought out rebuke that more fully addresses Ms. Clemons illogical, irrational and inane trash than the many such comments following her letter did. Comment by Patrick Mulligan | October 14, 2006
Thank you for your kind words.
By the way, I just googled under Andrea Clemons, and came up with a USC teacher ed commissar who sounds suspiciously similar to the Andrea Clemons I responded to.
Comment by | October 14, 2006
Bush won. Clemons, get use to it.
Comment by sedonaman | October 14, 2006
I, too, googled Ms. Clemons and found the following beneath a photo of a blond-haired, blue-eyed late 40ish woman. If her bio doesn t conjure up John Lennon s Imagine, I don t know what does.
Her Navy vet father must be very proud indeed.
Andrea Clemons is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Education and the Program Lead for the Master s programs in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She received her Ph.
D. in International/Intercultural education and M.S.
in TESOL from USC and an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto.
Her research aims to explore how language in education policies and practices impact equitable socio-political relations and social change. She has experience in formal and non-formal education in West Africa. Her most recent publications include a chapter in Globalized Governance and Grassroots Participation in School Decentralization, forthcoming from Kluwer Press (2005); Appropriating Diversity: Current Trends in the Accreditation of Teacher Education Programs in The International Journal of Diversity in Nations, Organizations and Communities, vol.
4, with Marta Baltodano (2005); and Post 9-11 Language Policies in The Multilingual Educator (2003). She is the inaugural President of the Language Issues Special Interest Group of the Comparative and International Education Society and is the co-Chair of the Committee for the Study of Culture and Schooling in the American Anthropological Association. Comment by RSB | October 16, 2006
I think all of Mr.
Stix s arguments are excellent, and his use of logic is impeccable. He points out the many weaknesses of Ms. Clemon s statements with surgical precision.
However, I think this all misses the point. Mr. Stix is assuming that Ms.
Clemons used logic in the formation of her article. He also assumes that she will evaluate his response using logic. His premise is faulty, for clearly she is not employing logic or reason.
If a man rushed into the room and began raving hysterically that there were purple hippos riding pink bicycles outside, would we rush out to look? Would we take the time to explain logically that his claims are impossible? Would we bring out charts and graphs that demonstrate that such a thing could not occur?
Of course not.
It is the very same thing regarding Ms. Clemons.
Her article is prima facia evidence that was not thinking logically. The statements she makes are the simple parroting of nonsensical phrases. If she wrote about purple hippos, it would be no different.
We must understand that to Ms. Clemons, her statements are self-evident. They need no proof.
They are the very foundation of her entire world view, and to question them would be akin to questioning that the sun sets in the west.
It may well be impossible to reason with Ms. Clemons, but one can hold out hope.
However, at present, challenging her on the basis of logic, reason, and evidence is a fruitless pursuit. Comment by Mountain Man | October 16, 2006
I found it more interesting Clemons answers bigotry with bigotry. Her intolerance of Bush is founded upon the rabid distaste of her political association.
It is an intolerance she accepts without question, without bothering to corroborate objections made by her fellow liberals, or comparing his policies against those of liberal icons such as JFK and FDR. Liberals like Clemons love equating conservatives with fascism, segregation, and slavery with a revisionist myopia that ignores their own culpability in those evils.
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