You Can't Claim to Love America if You Hate Americans

The tired conservative contention that liberals hate America is never supported by anything other than vague allusions to alleged contempt for things that aren’t even uniquely American (the free market) or historically accurate (the founding of the country on Judeo-Christian principles), and by deliberately misconstruing legitimate philosophical differences (believing national security is bolstered by strong global alliances) to attempt to frame them as somehow traitorous.

But between a conservative agenda that seeks to undermine protections for average Americans such as Social Security and the 40-hour work week, and the increasing visibility of shockingly rancorous conservative hate groups, I think there is mounting reason to ask the question why so many conservatives seem to hate Americans.


Topeka-based anti-gay protestors show up in Cleveland


Topeka group goes to Dover


The leader of the Topeka group, crypt keeper Fred Phelps


More anti-gay protesters


Neo-Nazis rally in D.C.


The Neo-Nazi group National Alliance takes their message roadside


Protestors show a unique brand of ignorance while hurling insults at undocumented workers who were promoting their reform agenda


A member of the National Socialist Movement, which calls for a "greater America" that would deny citizens to Jews, nonwhites, and homosexuals

That these extreme attitudes are becoming mainstream conservative values is evidenced by the frequency with which polarizing figures such as Pat Buchanan are becoming regarded as reasonable spokesmen of the conservative movement. Pat Buchanan is a regular conservative commentator on a variety of news shows, despite his appalling attitudes on gays and lesbians:

The poor homosexuals -- they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution.

-- discussing AIDS in 1983, quoted from Political Amazon's "Quotes from Hell"

civil rights:

[For President Nixon to visit King's widow on the anniversary of King's assassination because it would] outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse.... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history.

-- while working as a White House adviser to Nixon, reported in the New York Daily News, October 1, 1990, quoted from Political Amazon's "Quotes from Hell"

the Holocaust:

[Despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was] an individual of great courage.... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path.

-- in a 1977 column, The Guardian, January 14, 1992, quoted from Political Amazon's "Quotes from Hell"

and women:

Rail as they will about "discrimination," women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism.

-- November 22, 1983, quoted from Political Amazon's "Quotes from Hell"

Even the bow-tied broadcaster Tucker Carlson, not known for being inflammatory nearly as much as being stupid and annoying, has an abysmal record:

While co-hosting Crossfire, Carlson referred to crossdressing as a "Democratic value" (7/16/03); accused Begala of being homophobic for pointing out that Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) was a cheerleader at the University of Mississippi (9/25/02); regularly made snide remarks about the transgendered community being a constituency of the Democratic Party; and mocked outreach by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) community. Regarding goals to increase GLBT delegate representation at the Democratic National Convention, which Carlson ridiculed, he said, "And if you don't find them at least mildly funny, you're probably a Democrat," while falsely claiming the efforts included the establishment of quotas (5/19/04).

The truth of the matter is, conservatives hate lots and lots of Americans—anyone who isn’t like them, or fails to share their condemnation of people who aren’t like them. Liberals may be roundly perplexed and frustrated by Americans who seem to vote against their own best interests, but when was the last time card-carrying ACLU members were seen marching down Main Street Red State America after a devastating flood, carrying signs declaring that Mother Nature had gotten her revenge against those who sought to pollute her with the exhaust of their behemoth SUVs? It just doesn’t happen.

We need to get tough and brutally honest in our response each time we’re accused of hating America from here on out. We don’t hate America, and we don’t hate Americans, either…but we’re damn sure our accusers can’t say the same.