Who's Anti-American?

As regular readers know, I sometimes respond to Mark Hyman’s editorials by doing a parody of the particular commentary I’m critiquing. That’s the idea behind the following response to Hyman’s editorial entitled “Anti-Patriotism.”


One can see examples of free speech everywhere. Just about anywhere you go, you see people exercising their right to voice their own ideas, even if they aren’t the ones endorsed by the government.

Letters to the editor take issue with local school boards and zoning commissions. Anti-abortion advocates picket in front of the Supreme Court. Labor unions organize demonstrations. Letter writing and phone call campaigns tell members of Congress what the people think. Commentators on television and radio criticize those in elected office and those running for office. Some even go so far as to question the patriotism of candidates who served their country in wartime.

Even some elected officials themselves criticize the government and talk about how the “bureaucracy” is too big, even as they work to increase it.

Yes, criticizing just about anyone in power is a time-honored American tradition stretching back to the Revolution. Just about anything goes. Except one thing.

Suggest that the war in Iraq is counter productive, that it was started based on flawed and false intelligence, or that the best way to support the troops would be to bring them home (or not have sent them at all), and the criticism flies. The Bush-loving crowd gets incensed toward anyone who objects to the president’s foreign policy. “That’s not criticism,” they argue, “That’s un-American!” Isn’t it funny how only criticism of President Bush sets them off? It makes you wonder if they’re more loyal to their narrow political ideology than to American ideals of free speech and open debate.

And that’s The Counterpoint.

Hyman Index: 3.25