Like most of you who visit and comment at JinC, columnist and scholar Thosmas Sowell loves America; and he's worried about the decline in patriotism. Sowell calls patriotism the "glue" that holds America together. This from his July 3 column:
On the eve of a holiday that used to stir patriotic emotions -- the Fourth of July -- it has been painful to see examples of how little remains of that glue that holds a society together.Folks, to help our country - to do something for the men and women defending us - please call, write or email you local editor ASAP.
Perhaps the worst of these signs of national disintegration was the New York Times' recent revealing to the whole world the covert methods by which the American government has been tracking the money that finances international terrorism.
The usual excuses about "the public's right to know" ring even more hollow than usual in this case. The public was not dying to know the methods by which their lives were being safeguarded. Only the terrorists were helped by these revelations.
Americans may in fact be dying literally now because of what the terrorists have been told -- and ultimately because a jerk inherited the New York Times. As usual, the mainstream media circled the wagons around one of their own.
Tell him or her what you think about the Times handing out national security secrets to terrorists with a "we know best and the safety of our service men and women be damned" attitude.
If you get stuck for words, just tell the editor you sending along a copy of Sowell's column.
Let's stay at it. We need to turn things around.
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Post URL:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell070306.asp
1 comments:
There is no sign in the Northeastern corner of the US that patriotism is obsolete. Lots of cars have those "Support our Troops" stickers, especially the cars that are large and probably use a lot of gas.
At the local high school that my younger sons have attended, the military recruiters are treated with respect, even by the teachers that are not especially pro-Iraq War. The recruiters I talk to have no complaints about the cooperation in the local community and seem to find the youth here to be as positive about the military are the recruiters found their classmates to be when they themselves were in high school.
On the other hand, we are seeing some journalists, on both sides of the political spectrum, that seem to be making litmus tests of patriotism out of certain newspaper stories. Personally, I am pretty cautious about accusing another person or institution about being unpatriotic.
After carefully researching the disclosure of US Government spying on bank records, I cannot for the life of me figure out what damage to national security was actually done by these disclosure by several major US newspapers.
On the other hand, the current national administration has a significant record of apparently abusing our individual freedoms - freedoms I thought I was fighting for when I joined up many years ago. Vets from Iraq that talk to me every week have not stated why the disclosures were actually going to harm our country. Since the Congress appears to be a rubber stamp for these transgressions by the executive branch, I appreciate the efforts of these newspapers.
Cheers
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