But no one is offering any answer to the question posed in the topic, which I believe is: "When neoconservatives succeeded in capitalizing on 9/11 as a means to gradually move a large segment of the nation from apathy to patrioitism to chauvinism/jingoism, at which point it began to be viewed as unAmerican to question not only current US policies and actions, but any previous ones."
Don't believe me? At the furthest extremes of this, you'll find some who will barely be willing to admit, and only with a laundry list of qualifications and rationalizations, that the US did any wrong in the following:
[*]the genocide of the "Native Americans"
[*]the enslavement of Africans
[*]the oppression and exploitation of "indentured servants" of various other nationalities
[*]the continued oppression and/or subjugation of African Americans and of women through the 20th century
[*]the internment of first- and second-generation American-born citizens of Japanese descent
[*]the persecution and demonization of anyone who spoke against any US actions during the McCarthy era
[*]the direct and/or indirect involvement/support of the United States in various coups that destablized sovereign nations, even to the point of ignoring and/or overturning democratically-elected governments (Vietnam, Iran, Algeria, et al.)
Try it out. Ask some of the most so-called "patriotic" posters or people you know (on this forum or IRL) if these were wrong, and I guarantee at least some will defend each. Now we should bear in mind that some are simply ignorant of their own nation's history; but many others are unwilling to find fault in any of it, even when presented with clear evidence that wrong has been done. Does this make the US bad? Absolutely not... only God (for those who believe in Him) is without flaw; and it is not God, but men, who commit acts and perpetuate institutions such as those mentioned above. And you'll find that remarkably few of us who acknowledge that wrong has been done and continues to be done, and who speak against it, are "anti-American." Rather, we love America because of the principles it stands for, and we speak against unjust actions committed in its name... in our name.
This nation was founded on the principle of equal representation of disparate views... on the principle that when something is unjust, you fight against the injustice. And yet, we regularly go through times when living up to the ideals of Americanism gets people labelled as being unAmerican. In various threads, we see specific people being villified for speaking against the current military actions or previous ones; in one thread, we see a poster demonize an entire religion, along with its one and a half billion adherents. Any who fail to match the ideal of the self and who, by being different than ourselves, represent the other are denied any respect for their beliefs, their actions, their words. Is this what it is to be American? Is this what the forefathers of this nation envisioned as our future?
I think it's time for people who view any questioning of our elected representatives as being unAmerican to pick up some books... and not just those written by people whose positions match their own. I think it's time for us to be reminded, as a nation, that this nation was founded because voices were ignored, ideals were suppressed, people were subjugated, rights were denied; and when evolution was prevented, revolution became the only alternative. Those who fail to learn from history, to paraphrase and modify the old adage, aren't just doomed to repeat it... they're destined to be left behind as the rest of it gets written.
cumhail
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread
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