Patriotism: Obama V. McCain

Time:

How the candidates define their love of country may help determine the election's outcome. Time asked each for his view of the meaning of patriotism. Here's how they responded:

A Cause Greater Than Self
by John McCain

Patriotism means more than holding your hand over your heart during the national anthem. It means more than walking into a voting booth every two or four years and pulling a lever. Patriotism is a love and a duty, a love of country expressed in good citizenship . . .

A Faith in Simple Dreams
by Barack Obama

When I was a child, I lived overseas for a time with my mother. And one of my earliest memories is of her reading to me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, explaining how its ideas applied to every American, black and white and brown alike. She taught me that those words, and the words of the United States Constitution, protected us from the brutal injustices we witnessed other people suffer during those years abroad . . .

Read the whole story: Time

Comments

[SkketerJones]

We seem to be heading toward an economic depression, we're in a hell of a mess in Iraq and this administration is doing its damdest to get us into a war with Iran and a candidate's PATRIOTISM is the big issue . . . REALLY!!!???

Basically, our country is going down the toilet and what . . . we should demand that the candidates show us how patriotic they are - or be cruified if they say the U.S. is less than the most perfectest, greatest place on earth?

Honestly, what we need is a candidate who will wake us out of our slumber, who will be straight with us and tell us the honest truth - and then help us DO SOMETHING about the actual problems.

And for those comments below that suggest that outrage such as mine is part of some "liberal agenda," I'm pretty much beyond this conservative vs. liberal crap. I don't hate America and I don't route for "the enemy." I'm just not into the cozy "God Bless America," cult because well - first of all - should God just damn all the other nations (?) and second - it really doesn't solve the looming crisis.

[V4Vigilance]

Good to see that the end of the primaries means that the serious issues facing America are finally getting their due...NOT.

[reasoniskey]

Obama is light years ahead of McCain in vision, intellect, and inspirational prowess. His essay takes me back to his 2004 DNC speech, as he vehemently attests that America is a nation for all, regardless of one's class, origin, hue, or creed. He highlights our exemplary status among nations, yet clarifies it is more due our commitment to the ideals posited by our founding fathers than our brutish, arrogant hegemonic conquests to subjugate and indoctrinate our neighbors with saber-rattling and overcompensatory machismo.

Obama did not just recapitulate the obvious denotation, but thoughtfully related his patriotic understanding to his global perspective and personal experiences as a non-conventional inhabitant of our great land. He is a visionary with a progressive insight that applies to all and not a select few of great wealth or who have benefited from an adventitiously favorable birthright. He reminds us that we can have dissenting opinions, yet still emerge as a unified people, living out the true meaning of our creed, while protecting and projecting our excellence as a nation.

[Phil123]

Liberals have this strange concept of patriotism. They always are rooting for whomever is against America, and alway scream about injustices that America could possibly be perpetrating. And they think symbols like flag pins are dumb.

Imagine a Yankee fan that always cheered for the other ream, and that always yelled for the umpire to call fouls against the Yankees. Then he tells you that unlike the mindless idiots who cheer for the Yankees and want fouls called against the visiting team, the "TRUE" Yankee fan is just trying to hold the Yankees to a higher standard. He only wants them to aspire to be an even better team. Cheering for the other team makes the Yankees play that much harder, he says. And the Yankees should be held to the strictest interpretation of the rules so that they become even better baseball players. If players on the other team cheat, that's OK. We don't care about them. "Umpire! That Yankee might have fouled! Let's go back and check the slow-mo to see if there is probable cause to disqualify that last homer."

And the TRUE Yankee fan would never wear a hat that said "Yankees." That is stupid symbolism. Only morons would wear hats with the team name on it. That is a an immediate sign of a false fan.

Would you buy this explanation from a baseball fan? Then why do you believe liberals who claim to be patriotic?

[Ramirez]

McCain patriotism asks what you can do for your country.

0bama's patriotism describes what your country can do for you.

[Phil123]

And Obama's wife says that America is an outright mean country. Another great patriot.

[bygollymissmolly]

She taught me that those words, and the words of the United States Constitution, protected us from the brutal injustices we witnessed other people suffer during those years abroad . . .
-----------------
How quickly he forgets. I guess that what his mother taught him didn't apply to our fourth amendment rights to privacy.

[RENREVARD]

How can both of these candidates then turn around and vote for the FISA BILL? The Fisa bill is anti -law and anti-Constitution. Love of country is to uphold the Laws and the Constitution of this nation.

[josephjsalas]

Declaration of Independence. Hmm! NAFTA, Texas Trans-Cori­dore(NAFTA super highway),
Public laws 89-719 and 94-564, District of Columbia being foreign soil , and the new HR 1955. THE SIMPLEST DEFINITION OF PATRIOTISM DICTATES THAT THE AFOREMENTIONED
G-DAMNED PIECES OF PAPER BE DESTROYED.
Heck! Even "I" can do that!

[MemeMagus]

We are bludgeoned with the word 'patriotism' on a daily basis. The republicans use it as a weapon to skewer anyone who disagrees with them. It holds up there blind nationalism and justifies whatever insanity they are working on currently. The Democrats are shuffling behind the Republicans with there heads down, having been beaten into submission with lapel pins. They are so scared of anyone questioning their 'patriotism' that they fall in line at every turn. Just look at the telecom immunity.

Patriotism does not equal nationalism. True patriots stand up for what this country was founded on. This is what Obama was talking about. Sure his essay was politically forced. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

I suspect McCain's essay was pulled from an 11th grade textbook. It feels more inane to me than Obama's.

I define a patriot as someone who will do whatever it takes to defend the ideals of equality and democracy that this country should represent.

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." - Thomas Jefferson.

[Ramirez]

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." - Thomas Jefferson.

Fake quote.
Jefferson never said that.

[Phil123]

Perhaps Obama should have collaborated with his spiritual mentor of 20 years when he wrote this essay.

They could explained how the TRUE patriot doesn't say "God Bless America;" the True partiot says "God -D**n America."

The could then have talked about their love for the USKKKofA.

[bish66]

There you have the difference between the two candidates to a "t":

McCain answers the question by giving his definition and explaining it.

Obama tells (bedtime) stories and evades the question.

"Patriot" or "Patriotism" appears in McCain's article 6 times, in Obama's just once. But we get a full paragraph about Zimbabwe and rioting blacks and quotes from the Declaration of Independence. McCain on the other hand does not use any quotes, just his words and his opinions.

Obama's title sounds like a left-over title suggestion for one of his books: 'Dreams of my father', 'A Faith in Simple Dreams' or 'Change you can believe in'...

[Jahmekyah]

Instead of looking for the faults of the candidate you don't like, and trying to massacre and twist his answer, how about appreciating the fact that both candidates a writing about the same thing from completely different backgrounds and life stories. If everyone had the same idea of what "patriotism" means to them it would mean that your all robots, living the same lives and looking at things from the same perspective...which is not America. Both did a good job in representing what patriotism means to them - McCain from a long family history of service in the Military, Obama a black man from a multi-racial family who has witnessed the evils of the world, and doesn't want to take for granted the fact that his story could not happen anywhere else. Don't hate man!!!

P.S. mentioning patriotism or patriot 6 times doesn't make one essay more patriotic you ignoramus. Even in grade school you're taught not to use the same word in its definition.

[bygollymissmolly]

You really do need to find a class in critical thinking at your local junior college. It will help you understand nuance.

[Phil123]

Uh-oh! "Nuance" again! I thought that was Kerry's word for not really meaning what he said.

[bygollymissmolly]

Why don't you take the time to read the entire article rather than responding to the "cliff notes" version above. It might make you sound a little less foolish if you care to then remark.

BTW, for anyone who thinks that Mc'Cain actually wrote what was in the article as his remark, I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

[Ramirez]

So what is your opinion on the writings of the two candidates?

[Ramirez]

Interesting contrasts.

McCain's patriotism is grounded in the citizens who protect the country. ...Service and sacrifice.

Obama's patriotism is based on the country protecting the citizens. ...Rights and protections.


Obama's America requires less. Just keep asking what the country can do for you.

[joeyp404]

"And one of my earliest memories is of her reading to me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence" - is anyone really buying this?

[dagnew]

Yup.

[bish66]

I second that.
I even third that...;-)

[Ramirez]

No, of course not. But it's no big deal. He talks that way.

[chrisbee]

It is ridiculous.

[bessie1]

I'm posiitive that Barack Obama's earliest memories is of his mother reading the Constitution to him. It makes a great bedtime story, because the kid falls fast asleep immediately. What a crock.

[Chrys]

McCain, like an elementary school kid, looks at patriotism as only joining the Millary and it really feels sickening when such an Old man has a very skewed idea of what Patriotism is.
What McCain is telling everybody is that, if you do not join the Millitary, and be killed in a war or get captured in a war, then you are not patriotic.
This is the person, Americans are evening thinking about, to be the President of the United States of America. Somebody who does not agree with decisions made by the Highest court of the land. Americans should look at this now, to know what McCain is all about.
An Old Man who thinks life is all about wars.

[evgolightly]

BORING!


OFFENSIVE! Patronizing!


It's a way for the McCain camp to waste Obama's time, cause Obama
will actually WRITE the stupid thing!


I suggest they keep it short, but powerful:

"Red white and blue"
No other hue!
I love America
Much more than you.


"The People" should chip in for a National Refrigerator we can stick these on, (with flag and eagle magnets, of course),

[Ramirez]

evgolightly:

Good point. Republicans enjoy discussing the concept of patriotism, while many Democrats find that discussion offensive.

[Eoin45]

Republicans do not discuss patriotism. They march in lock step under one definition and demonize anyone who disagrees with it. Your statement that many Democrats find discussion of patriotism offensive is patent nonsense and exaggeration. we enjoy real discussion an understand that patriotism is more than just blind obedience, as did the people who founded this nation. You also wrote: "McCain's patriotism is grounded in the citizens who protect the country. ...Service and sacrifice." If this is true then why does he support an administration in which not a single major player has ever served in the armed forces or been in harm's way?

[sandiegoconservative]

I got a subscription to Time after a kid came to my door to sell his wares to help him go to camp. I bought one subscription and chose Time because it was the least offensive of the "political" choices and I have a subscription to a car magazine already.

Last time I checked, that magazine was not run by the Republican party. In fact, Time spends most of the Time pandering to Dems in general and especially to Obama.