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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28050 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Maybe it's cruel, morally, but I fail to see the connection with patriotism at all.

To steal a turn of phrase from someone I spoke to several years ago who was probably quoting someone else without attribution, "the truest form of patriotism is a desire to see your countrymen prosper." A political program which constantly castigates your fellows as parasites, regards their welfare with indifference, incites hate against them, or treats them as means to an end is not, in this paradigm, at all patriotic.

As evidenced by the whole patriotism thing: a Republican is quite literally less likely to listen to you, because they will get the impression that you hate the country and hate their values.

I think this is backwards: American conservatives want to define patriotism as equivalent to conservativism. Patriots must be conservative; conservatives cannot be unpatriotic; liberals are unpatriotic by dint of their politics. This is fundamentally unworkable because it is a paradigm that demands ideological submission as price of entry.

Ideological submission as the price of entry is pretty normal in world historical terms, and American conservatism(like most imperial state ideologies) is a big tent that 95% of people can fit into comfortably(the only non-negotiable are anti child gender transition, pro Trump, and anti communism).

You don't even have to be pro-Trump, you just have to be pro-'Murica. A bridge that Democrats are increasingly loath to cross. Hense the whole 1619 project and endless thinkpieces about how America isnt exceptional.

Ideological submission as the price of entry is pretty normal in world historical terms

This is a tremendously underwhelming endorsement. Being exploited by brutal overlords who demand sycophantic bootlicking is pretty normal in world historical terms. Being a subsistence farming peasant is pretty normal in world historical terms. Fifty percent child mortality is pretty normal in world historical terms. I have no idea why we would accept "normal in world historical terms" when we're presently doing far better and we know we can do better still.

American conservatism(like most imperial state ideologies) is a big tent that 95% of people can fit into comfortably

In the sense that you can always be a submissive peasant with no rights worth respecting. In the sense that it actually accommodates everyone, no.

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