Americans

My earlier post on “The Way We Were” took issue with Dorothy Rabinowitz’s characterization of president Obama as “The Alien in the White House.” She described a gulf between his actions and what she sees as the sensibilities of Americans.

My point is that Americans defy categorization: Each of us is different. Characterizing us in some way – see My Profile – can be offensive. When a person attempts to classify Americans by their feelings, that person typically exposes his or her own values and biases, not those of “Americans.”

De Tocqueville probably got it right a couple of centuries ago, but imagine what he would think now? Maybe he could take some lessons from a Canadian…

Mark Steyn, the embodiment of the description “brilliant satirist,” captures the essence of the issue. He views America from that time-honored vantage point of a person born on foreign shores, and provides perfect insight into the issues raised by Ms. Rabinowitz.

John Hinderaker from Power Line highlights the key points from Mr. Steyn’s article:

Many Americans are beginning to pick up the strange vibe that for Barack Obama, governing America is "an interesting sociological experiment", too. He would doubtless agree that the United States is "the place on Earth that, if I needed one, I would call home." But he doesn't, not really: It is hard to imagine Obama wandering along to watch a Memorial Day or Fourth of July parade until the job required him to. That's not to say he's un-American or anti-American, but merely that he's beyond all that. Way beyond. He's the first president to give off the pronounced whiff that he's condescending to the job - that it's really too small for him, and he's just killing time until something more commensurate with his stature comes along.

And so the Gulf spill was an irritation, but he dutifully went through the motions of flying in to be photographed looking presidentially concerned. As he wearily explained to Matt Lauer, "I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain, talking..." Good grief, what more do you people want? Alas, he's not a good enough actor to fake it.

Contrast the Republican concept of a special place called America (with The Constitution as its defining document) against the idea of America as an abstraction; a transient anomaly in a world destined for some type of elite centralization.

It’s sad to see the idea of world domination never losing its luster. It is a recurring theme in political movements, where a greater “good” always allows the current transgressions to be accommodated.

In the last ten years, our attention has been drawn to affairs of the Middle East. We have seen the power of combining politics with religious zeal, and observe the daily evidence of death being legitimized. We watch a political/religious movement (the “Religion of Peace”) maintain its power by teaching people to hate, and see vestiges of that sentiment in our anti-Republican culture.

Americans no longer have the luxury of holding complacency as a proper course of action. Life is complicated, but we have to make choices. Here is the first one:

Where does your allegiance lie?

UPDATE 6/13/2010:
Linked by The Other McCain.  Thanks, Stacy!
Also linked by Irish Cicero in Washington Rebel.  "Retrosexual Sunday"?
And now bestowed the prestigious "Quote of the Weekend" by Left Coast Rebel!  I appreciate the kind thoughts, Tim.