People, especially self-proclaimed Democrats, often chided the Bush administration for using patriotism to silence their opposition. Now that Bush is out of office and the tables have turn the Obama administration is trying its damnedest to show that there is only one party, the party of the state, by using Bush’s exact tactics to silence its opposition:
In the eight years since then, Democrats haven’t learned how to beat Bush’s tactics. What they’ve learned instead is how to mimic them. “There were very important moments in the discussion about Libya,” Obama adviser David Plouffe told CNN last night. “Gov. Romney looked like someone playing politics, and I think the president looked like a resolute commander-in-chief.” On MSNBC, Obama strategist David Axelrod said the president “is aware every single moment that he’s responsible for the lives of the Americans he sends overseas. … He feels that intensely. So it is offensive, the suggestion that somehow he would play politics with this issue.” Today on Good Morning America, Vice President Biden added:
It became so clear to the American people how Gov. Romney and the campaign continue to try to politicize a tragedy. … The president was clear: We are going to get to the bottom of this. The whole world will know it. And I think when the president turned and looked at Gov. Romney and made that assertion, saying, basically, “Don’t question me on this, in terms of my caring,” I thought it was a powerful moment.
Patriotism is a powerful and frightening tool. It allows the state to great a religious zealotry in those it expropriates from. Instead of fighting against the exploiters the people defend and even worship them. When you speak out against the exploiters the people throw out accusations of treason and being unpatriotic (as if that is supposed to be bad). The state itself uses this reverence for all it’s worth in an attempt to silence all critics. Unfortunately people often fail to see “their” party use patriotism to silence opposition, they only see it when “the other” party does it.
We must avoid succumbing to patriotism. If we allow yourselves to worship the state, to see the state as benevolent, then it becomes far easier to sucker us into supporting heinous crimes such as the stripping of liberties, wars, and ever increasing expropriation.