Whence Olbermann's America

America: Olbermann's Worst County in the World?         “ “A liberal,” Robert Frost said, “is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” I’ve debated many liberals who clearly took sides…in favor of any antagonist the US might oppose. Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, described this as the worldview of the “blame America first” crowd.  The reflex is often acquired young. Why did those kids think their land was a nasty and oppressive place, like an Olbermannian “Worst Nation in the World!”? Frequent answers include school, where students seem to absorb the lesson that American culture hates women, minorities, poor people, and rain forests; and the media, including news, but especially TV or movies, where cheats and murderers often are businessmen trying to snuff competitors and increase profits, rather than the motley and wretched cases that overwhelmingly fill real crime reports. I encountered it vividly some years back helping judge a school civics competition as a Colorado lawmaker. For part of their project, students from an affluent Denver suburb shared an “updated” Pledge of Allegiance: "I pledge allegiance to the flag—because the Supreme Court doesn’t enforce the First Amendment—of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands—an imperial power that swept the native inhabitants off their land—one nation under God—because the Supreme Court still doesn’t enforce the First Amendment, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all white, male, heterosexual, upper middleclass property owners.” [Comtinued] There's a lesson here.  That lesson is they could care less what we think, or that we're on to them.  Lest you think I'm being defeatist—no.  Things will ultimately sort themselves out, but it will not be pleasant.  I'll be in heaven and really won't care,  what with my single perpetual virgin, endless pizza and bottomless can of beer. ”