The Judge Misunderstands

“America, love it or leave it.”  Judge Andrew Napolitano says this about that statement:

The phrase itself—with its command of the government’s way or the highway—admits no dissenting opinions, suggests that all is well and proper here, and insinuates that moral norms and cultural values cannot be improved. The phrase itself is un-American.

This is nonsense, and Napolitano is projecting, or he’s dissembling. The phrase has no government’s way or the highway meaning, and it calls forth dissenting opinions.  Especially contrary to Napolitano’s distortion, the phrase insists not only that “norms and cultural values” can be improved, but that those with dissenting opinions have an obligation to offer their ideas for solutions.  And thereby does not at all suggest that “all is well and proper here.”  In fine, it demands, all it demands, is American-ness—loyalty to America.

Except in the fetid imaginations of the Left, and apparently of Napolitano.

The phrase simply suggests that if a man is miserable here, he’s free to leave, and it wonders why he does not.

Of course, loving America necessarily includes wanting to make us better, which involves praise for the things we are doing better or already do well, and criticism of those things we do wrong or not well enough, while offering solutions for the corrections.

But if all a man wants to do is sit in the safety of the sidelines and carp and wallow in the misery of his location, why stay? We don’t have walls keeping anyone in. Why shouldn’t the man go somewhere where he will not have to face the misery, which is all that he sees?

As to the torrent of hatred Napolitano fears has been unleashed, that certainly has been.  The loosening of the fetters began with Obama’s and his Party henchmen’s open contempt for bitter religion- and gun-clinging denizens of flyover country.

They were loosened very much further with Obama’s State Department Secretary and staffers insulting the intelligence of Americans by insisting that the terrorist murders in Benghazi were the result of a YouTube movie

The fetters were taken off altogether by then-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton calling tens of millions of Americans irredeemably deplorable racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic homophobes.

The sharks of hatred currently are chummed by the racist and anti-Semitic statements of Progressive-Democratic Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, Congresswomen and behaviors that Party actively condones if not openly embraces.

America, love it, indeed, and help us do yet better.  Or leave, if you’re so miserable and find us to hateful.

Bigotry or Cowardice

You decide.  In connection with a UEFA Europa League qualifying match between Israel’s Maccabi Haifa and RC Strasbourg, in Strasbourg, France, the French police barred the Maccabi fans from waving the Israeli flag or wearing club or Israeli paraphernalia in the area around the stadium.

Because of, claimed the police,

fears of violence following anti-Semitic actions against fans of the Israeli club.

On top of that,

Just 600 Haifa fans were allowed into the Stade de la Meinau for the match.

In other words, the Strasbourg police either restricted the Israelis out of bigotry, or they surrendered to anti-Semitic terrorist wannabes.

It was only after extensive objections from the Israeli government and the Maccabi fans that the police relented. Sort of.

…fans could now wave the Israeli flag inside of the venue starting around 6:30 p.m. local time. However, the restriction was kept in place outside the stadium and on the streets of Strasbourg[.]

Either way, this stinks. And restrictions of any sort never should have been retained. It never should have happened, and it mustn’t be allowed to happen again.  Nor bigotry nor cowardice can be allowed to prevail.

Gun Registration (Control)

The New Zealand government, enthusiastically led in this by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, intends to create a law requiring New Zealanders to register with the government the gun licenses they have and the guns they have.  This new…law…also is intended to make it harder to get, and keep, a gun license.

Other provisions of the thing include

  • establishment of new licensing for around 260 shooting clubs and ranges
  • expansion police authority to confiscate weapons if an individual shows (government defined) warning signs
  • require a separate license to purchase ammunition

Ardern, et al., claim that this thing is intended solely to “stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.”

Right.  Today, the “wrong hands” is terrorists and mass-shooters.  Sadly, “wrong hands” works out to whatever Government decides is wrong.

But, wait—this is New Zealand.  No worries.  No.  This is New Zealand today.  What about tomorrow’s government? Or the government the day after tomorrow?

These folks choose not to say what their limiting principle is.

PRC, “Armored Weapons,” and Hong Kong

Recall the People’s Republic of China’s use of tanks to suppress the Tiananmen Square protests that resulted in some 2,000 civilian deaths.

Here’s the PRC’s new anti-protest armor: truncheons.  With the official police standing around, watching:

Media in Hong Kong have released footage of masked men in white shirts beating black-clad protesters with steel pipes and wooden poles in a subway station and on public transit. The protesters attempted to defend themselves with umbrellas.
Passengers said police did not intervene in Sunday’s attacks by the men, which left 45 people injured.

Forty-five injured by those truncheon-wielders.  Notice, too, that the thugs were masked, but the protestors were not afraid to show their faces.

Were the masks to conceal their Beijing origin?  The opposition party in Hong Kong, the Democratic Party, is taking (publicly, at least) a more generous position.  It’s investigating

the attacks amid suspicion that they involved the triad, a Chinese organized crime group.

I’m not so sanguine; although I don’t discount the idea that, rather than being sent by PRC President Xi Jinping’s supporters from the mainland, Xi caused the triad to be hired for the strong-arming.

Nationalism

In his Wall Street Journal piece on this, Christopher DeMuth (Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow) had this:

the nationalist claim is…government has abdicated basic responsibilities…:

failed to secure national borders and provide regular procedures for immigration and assimilation.

delegated lawmaking to foreign and international bodies, and domestic bureaucracies…

…acquiesced in, or actively promoted, the splintering of the nation into contending racial, religious and other groups and has favored some at the expense of others.

On the contrary, these aren’t abdications. The first two are by Progressive-Democrat design. The third is a deliberately wielded tool of the Progressive-Democrats to achieve the first two.

One has only to hear the bigoted spew of Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, Omar to understand this. One has only to see the Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates, almost to a man, favor decriminalizing illegal entry into our nation, and then giving illegal aliens free health care at our expense. One has only to see the Progressive-Democrat Congressmen do their best to block funding for supporting our borders.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines nationalism as

The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
The belief that a particular cultural or ethnic group constitutes a distinct people deserving of political self-determination.

There are no downsides to nationalism.