Say Amen

Liberal Culture                    AMERICA: EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD OR EXCEPTIONALLY EVIL?

Dinesh D'Souza zeroes in on 2 competing, utterly opposite visions for America “ Contrary to what we frequently read and hear, the great American divide is not a clash between conservatives who advocate liberty versus progressives who oppose liberty. Rather, the two sides each affirm a certain type of liberty. One side, for example, cherishes economic liberty while the other champions liberty in the sexual and social domain. Nor is it a clash between patriots and anti-patriots. Both sides love America, but they love a different type of America. One sides loves the America of Columbus and the Fourth of July, of innovation and work and the “animal spirit” of capitalism, of the Boy Scouts and parochial schools, of traditional families and flag-saluting veterans. The other side loves the America of tolerance and social entitlements, of income and wealth redistribution, of slave-revolts and the civil rights movement, of Indian rights and women’s rights, of sexual liberation and abortion, of gay rights and gay marriage. I recently debated Bill Ayers – 1960s radical and Obama mentor – at Dartmouth College. Our topic was “What’s So Great About America?” Ayers began by celebrating what he considered to be great about America. He did not, in this context, make any reference to the Founding Fathers. He didn’t mention Abraham Lincoln. Rather, he invoked a protest tradition in America, going back to the 19th-century socialists and continuing through the 20th-century progressives right up to, well, himself. “While Americans cherish their freedom, Tocqueville emphasizes that they do not consider themselves immune from moral obligation or moral law. “It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases.” Americans, however, derive their obligations not from government mandate but from religious morality and social pressure. There are innumerable religious sects in America, but “all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.” Dinesh D’Souza’s bestselling books are available at the WND SuperstoreSimilarly in a recent book, Howard Zinn calls for America’s existing pantheon of heroes – such as the Founding Fathers – to be replaced by such figures as the Seminole leader Osceola, who fought a guerrilla campaign against the U.S. government, anarchist and social activist Emma Goldman, and the Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan. This is their America; this is the America progressives celebrate on the Fourth of July. If patriotism isn’t the dividing line, neither is American exceptionalism. Again, both sides believe America is exceptional, but one side believes America is exceptionally good while the other believes that America is exceptionally evil. Even here, the former group hates certain aspects of contemporary America while the latter affirms those same aspects, such as government-administered national health care or heterosexual and homosexual promiscuity advanced under the banner of “moral freedom.” Read more "All our trials would be over" As a happenstance:  I have been watching "Commune," the 2006 hippie film that Variety hyped as "Finally, and honest appraisal of the '60s."  Two minutes of the trailer brings life to D’Souza’s depiction of our dark side.  To me this whole movement would never have happened without mind altering drugs and KGB funding.  Ahem. ”