Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Republican Convention Day 2

Service.

That's what the signs read. That's the theme of the convention and I guess the campaign: we must serve our country. This is a new idea for a Republican campaign. It's new to integrate a campaign around the ideal of serving the country.

When you put service first, then freedom comes second at best. The implication of McCain's hierarchy of values is that you can have freedom, but only if you serve your country. Morality is to be found in sacrifice. Whatever this is, it sure as hell is not the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

John McCain is a nationalist. This is different from being a patriot. The nationalist believes the individual has a duty to subordinate his interests to the nation-state. Country First -- individual rights, if we must bother with them at all, come way down the list. Country First -- liberty is an afterthought.

Tonight we watched the beginning of the end of freedom in America, brought to us by well-meaning Republicans who have not the slightest idea that their perverted hierarchy of values will lead to destruction of individual rights. They were all good people we saw on TV tonight. Good, solid Americans. Their ignorance of economics and philosophy will be the end of the country they love.

If the Democrat Party is a mad farce, the Republican Party is a tragedy. In striving to serve the land they love, America, they will end up destroying it.

15 comments:

Chuck said...

"If the Democrat Party is a mad farce, the Republican Party is a tragedy. In striving to serve the land they love, America, they will end up destroying it."

Excellent summary, Myrhaf. That is exactly the way I see it, too.

Chuck

Myrhaf said...

Thanks, Chuck. I think I'm getting better at blogging.

Kyle Haight said...

Minor spelling comment, but this is an error that really annoys me. The word is "hierarchy", not "heirarchy". It's spelled the way it's pronounced.

Good observation, poor orthography.

Brad Harper said...

Great observation, trivial orthography.

The Motor said...

It brings a tear to my eye that men who fought so uncompromisingly in Vietnam think that they did it simply for some abstract concept of " Country ".

Myrhaf said...

Kyle, thanks for correction. I have fixed the spelling. I don't mind being corrected because I would rather be embarrassed and get it right rather than be protected and left in error.

I always think of ei as having the "aye" sound. But that does not always work, as in Peikoff.

Thanks, all for the kudos. The tragedy we are seeing comes from the sloppy thinking and non-intellectuality of the right. Ignorance of economics is something we cannot afford in politicians.

Anonymous said...

Nationalism is historically the Right's collectivism. It was the principle substituted for individual rights on the Continent ("national" self-determination in lieu of individual self-determination), leading to the rise of fascism there in the 20th century.

That is also the likely source of the Left's erstwhile "transnationalism", a superficial trait they picked up to distinguish their form of tyranny from those of the Right -- but which they have had to abandon when it became apparent that the global integration they pruportedly sought was happening on capitalist terms instead of theirs -- i.e. the rise of one world economy integrated by free trade, instead of one world government integrated by force.

Myrhaf said...

We have a classic fascist-communist election, with McCain as the nationalist and Obama calling himself a citizen of the world. And neither one gives a damn about individual rights. McCain wants Americans to sacrifice to country; Obama wants Americans to sacrifice to the whole world.

Kyle Haight said...

"McCain wants Americans to sacrifice to country; Obama wants Americans to sacrifice to the whole world."

That is a wonderful way to capture both the difference between and the deadly similarity shared by McCain and Obama.

madmax said...

"McCain wants Americans to sacrifice to country; Obama wants Americans to sacrifice to the whole world."

That's awesome. Wasn't it Hitler who hated Communism because it was too international, and thus he offered his own version of national socialism? A socialism the German people could be proud of. Is history repeating itself? And so soon?

Rick "Doc" MacDonald said...

i.e. the rise of one world economy integrated by free trade, instead of one world government integrated by force.

Well said, Jim. Well done, Myrhaf.

Anonymous said...

i "We have a classic fascist-communist election, with McCain as the nationalist and Obama calling himself a citizen of the world. And neither one gives a damn about individual rights. McCain wants Americans to sacrifice to country; Obama wants Americans to sacrifice to the whole world."

This is exactly right.

Myrhaf said...

Hm -- it looks like my best line came in the comments. I'll have to recycle that passage into a post!

Anonymous said...

I'd agree. I've been watching the campaigns in their entirety so keep up the convention posts, and hopefully debates when they come around as well.

Bezzle said...

"....Tonight we watched the beginning of the end of freedom in America....

Oh, nonsense. Cherishing the Zombie.

Both parties have been like that for a century. E.g., Teddy Roosevelt and his "trust-busting" and all that.

It is now just technologically easier for the government to loot you.