Good point, benning. Contrast that mindset with the true patriots who pledged “Our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”1 to establish this country.

Declaration of Independence [back]

The only response to “You’re questioning my Patriotism,” should be something like, “That’s a perfectly stupid response!”

The power of stupid people needs reduced and that requires actions by real Americans, as well as others throughout the world, vested in freedom.

I wouldn’t even grant them that much.

For the complaint to be valid, I would have to rephrase it to something less judgmental, like “it is intellectually dishonest to label a strategy as unpatriotic, or the intent behind it as unpatriotic, just because you don’t agree with it.” I think that’s where you and I would agree with the liberals.

But to say “You can’t do it…”

That, coming from an ideological camp that has spent half a century, or more, as a paladin for “free speech” rights no matter how ridiculous and hateful the speech may be. For them to start telling me what I can’t question. My beef with that should be obvious.

This is how left-wingers tend to win even when they haven’t put any thought into the issue at hand. If you aren’t a hard-core liberal, intentions are kind of like…eh. They don’t really matter. And so along they come and say, “you are to infer that our intentions are such-and-such and you aren’t allowed to conclude our intentions are so-and-so.” And so normal red-blooded people are all like, “ah, okay whatever.” But it’s an important part of the discussion. There are some right-wingers who hate gay people, and it’s fair for left-wingers to point that out; at the same time, there are some left-wingers who HATE AMERICA. And if there’s anything inappropriate to those kinds of discussions, it’s people running around handing out these rules about what others are supposed to be thinking and aren’t supposed to be thinking — and getting away with it.

Personally, I don’t think anyone should be labelled “unpatriotic” until they’ve demonstrated a genuine desire for their country to lose the war, or to suffer in some way. Then I’m cool with it; but if someone else wants to be more sensitive about it, and slap the label on a little sooner, more power to ‘em. They got a right to their opinion, just as I’ve got a right to mine.