L&T Publisher Earl Watt
In the age of hijacked language, the words we use are being manipulated for political purposes, and those who write the dictionaries are in on the game.
I was surprised when I looked up the definition of woman and found the definition to be “an adult female human being.” I fully expected to find something else.
Just to be safe, I looked up female which is defined as “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.”
Again, these are very simple definitions that have somehow become confused with feelings and identities rather than biological realities.
But the bigger concern is the way we define patriotism.
While not a direct quote, Thomas Jefferson stated that when a government becomes destructive of protecting the unalienable rights of the people, it is the right of the people to change or abolish that form of government. Stated another way, Jefferson alluded to the concept that when tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes necessary.
History is told from the perspective of the winners, and so when we look back at the nation’s founding, we know that George Washington, Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and many others we know as the founding fathers were patriots. Lose and they’re traitors.
Their revolution was not just to create a new nation, it was to revolutionize how we define freedom.
Many considered their lives under the British crown to be free while others considered themselves shackled by a foreign power.
That’s how definitions evolve, and when Franklin was called before the House of Lords to explain the uprisings in the colonies, he told the British leadership in London that they needed to work with the colonists to establish peace. When the Lords ripped Franklin for his tepid loyalty to the crown, it is said that was the day Franklin transformed from being a British subject to becoming an American.
In our nation today, we have an ongoing battle for what is best for America. Our political divisions run deep, perhaps as deep as those colonists in the 1770s felt.
Those differences are rising to the point where the two sides cannot be considered patriotic at the same time.
There is an effort to redefine what patriotism means, and some are trying to bend the concept to define some as nationalists rather than patriotic Americans.
What’s the difference? Let’s go back to the dictionary.
A patriot is “a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.”
A nationalist is “a person who strongly identifies with their own nation and vigorously supports its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.”
Very close, for sure, but the nuance is what is being manipulated. Being a patriot or a nationalist can be considered noble, until you unjustly inject race into the definition.
Many believe in American Exceptionalism, the concept that the United States is different than other nations in a special way. Whether it is how we have been able to function as a multi-cultural nation, or how we have included women, or how people like Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton can come from abject poverty and become president, or how the Constitution limits the government in a way that protects each of us as individuals, American Exceptionalism, while it may seem arrogant to other nations, is grounded in realities of our capitalist system that rewards individual initiative like no other.
But some on the left are trying to equate feelings of national pride, or nationalism, with “white nationalism” or even the nationalism stirred up by Hitler in Germany.
Hitler’s nationalist views were racist. He was pushing the Aryan Race as the dominant race.
American nationalism is very different. One of the areas of pride we have is our multicultural make-up. As said by Bill Murray’s character in the comedy Stripes, “Our forefathers were kicked out of every decent nation in the world. We are the retched refuse. We’re underdogs. We’re mutts. But there’s no animal that’s more faithful, more loyal or more lovable. ”
America’s nationalistic patriotism is the opposite of racism. The nationalistic view of America rejects racism.
But for those who truly do not like America because they have been given false information about its past, who have decided to live in a Civil War-era mentality instead of a 2024 reality, they need to convince people to reject patriotism as the only way to push socialist policies.
They know they cannot do that without alienating the masses, so they try to separate patriotism from nationalism.
It’s the same tactic Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky used in Russia to bring about the Bolshevik Revolution — love your country by instituting socialist policy.
Nationalism and patriotism are connected no matter how much the far left wants to try to claim nationalism is racism.
In some countries that are homogenous, that may be true. But America cannot be loved nationally without embracing our cultural diversity. And we have done that.
Be vigilant about claims to attack national patriotism. And that’s not a partisan claim. There are patriotic Democrats and Republicans.
But only Democrats are claiming nationalism is racist. Embracing the exceptionalism of America is not racist. It can’t be by definition.
But by making people believe loving America is racist is another attempt at socialism.
