Mrs. Obama: FINALLY Proud of Her Country?

If you prefer to dwell on the past, be my guest. I don't get too worked up about any injustices my great-grandparents experienced; it just isn't worthwhile.

If despite all the good this country has done, a person can't muster anything but a low opinion of it, that person doesn't belong anywhere near the White House.

That's the only part you got right, the rest was you putting words in my mouth.
Lot of that in this thread.

Or maybe a person who thinks the nation could be much more than it is rather than already thinking it's is the best possible person for the White House.

Who is to say?

If it's the voters (and OMG...it is ! ), then change would definitely seem to be "in".

But there's a definite difference between "this place sucks and if you vote for me I can fix it" and "there are problems, but dammit, we're Americans and we can fix them".

Any material difference?
Or just warm fuzzies?

The difference is in the approach and the attitudes of those doing the fixing. Either they're fixing America because it's shit or their fixing America because they love it and want it to be better. Someone that constantly attacks something will be hard pressed to convince me that they actually care for that thing.

What does that have to do with what Michelle Obama said? I can hardly believe the lengths people are going to in this thread to take offense at this...it's akin to sticking your finger in your throat to induce vomiting

Essentially the people who, in this election cycle, are looking for change, or the people who say in those polls that occasionally come out that the country is "heading in the wrong direction" are less than proud of the country.

It means precisely that, nothing more and nothing less.

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Honestly?
I really don't care if the plumber loves my sink or not, just get your asscrack under there, and get to work.

I am.

And, no, I don't accept the idea that anyone who--gasp!--actually likes this country is . I could just as easily say--and, in fact, I will--that someone who has no pride in America has no pride in the Bill of Rights, or self-government, or individual liberty, or limited government, or any of a number of other positives associated with America. At least, when speaking her mind freely, Mrs. Obama couldn't come up with any of these.

"Change" is always in--"Vote Smith for more of the same!" is never going to be a winning campaign slogan. But we'll see how much change Obama's actually putting on offer once he gets specific about his plans to change us--to fill the "holes in our souls."

I'm still finding it ironic that these things that keep getting namedropped as evidence are the very things that they didn't share in for a huge chunk of US history, and yet unbridled pride in that same entity that denied them for all that time is still being demanded from them.

The very things that make America America. But not for you. Now be proud!

Anyone? come on, stop being a binary logic dumbass.

You're capable of better when the subject isn't partisan jackassery, then you're right on board for it.

More binary logic.

I like all those things.

I just hate our culture, and our societal attitudes.

Nothing but slogans and superstitions.

I mean, there is a culture, our literature and art, etc, but it's not in the mainstream.

Call me elitist scum, I don't like yahoo-ism.

I refuse to swallow I gotta take that with the rest.
Well, I sort of do in a realistic utilitarian sense, but I refuse to take it with a smile.

It's completely irrelevent that "they" didn't share in them; that historically blacks were mistreated in no way makes these qualities passe.

I expect a President to uphold and strenuously defend these values. If the candidate loathes these ideas because of some historical slight to his race, he's unsuitable to be President as far as I'm concerned.

Now show me where Michelle Obama said that she loathes these ideas. I suspect she values them more than most, for obvious reasons.

Which values? Democracy, self governance, etc?

Fine.

The rest is warm fuzzies, and I don't give a shit about warm fuzzies in politics.

Clinton shoveled warm fuzzies, Reagan shoveled warm fuzzies, they were both fuckin idiots from different directions, I'm sick of the warm fuzzies.

Bad enough they all shovel 'em regardless to earn the votes of the stupid, but when I see electors DEMANDING warm fuzzies, I...I wanna fucking punch you people.

Are you lemmings?? Don't you fuckin learn anything??

Fuckin-a!!

Ok...since we're keeping score, and we're not counting the enormous reversals made in favor of blacks, not counting the fact that half the country went to war to end slavery, we have to concede that yes, at one point in history, blacks got the short end of the stick.

If we're going to start talking about grievous wrongs, chew on this one: Accepting a popular theory of pre-slavery lineage, many of those whom claim to be the descendants of slaves in this country also trace their own roots to Egyptian royalty.

Egyptian royalty.

Ok....so some Americans, during a certain portion of their history, did grievous wrong to the descendants of Egyptian royalty, keeping them as slaves or indentured servants for a couple hundred years.

In all fairness, we need to accept the guilt that all of you are whining about, and get out our checkbooks to make some reparations.

Before that happens though, in the spirit of fairness, every person who lays claim to a royal Egyptian ancestry, needs to accept the guilt that no one is foisting upon them, and get out their checkbooks to make reparations for the THOUSANDS of years that Nile region bluebloods kept Hebrews as slaves, building a legendary empire upon their backs.

Or is the claim of such lineage just a bunch of horseshit, and we forget the whole thing?

Or do we just learn from the fact that, at one time or another in history, every people on the planet have been sons-of-bitches to some other people on the planet, and try to move forward in the spirit of improving a future which we control instead of pissing and moaning about a past which we can't change?

She said herself she hasn't had any pride in this country until now.

That's not remotely the same thing as saying she loathes those ideas. Where'd she say that?

They're more than "warm fuzzies" to me. If a candidate doesn't share my core values, I'm almost certainly not going to like his or her political agenda. I want to hear them espouse these values, so they can be called on it later if they try to do otherwise.

What's to learn? A person wants the most powerful job in the world, a position that entails considerable power over me. I want to know what they believe, what they think is good, what they think is worth fighting for. Because if it they're not the right things, I don't want to see that person get into office.

I detect in Mrs. Obama's choice of words that loathing that many liberals have for this country and I don't like it. No sir, I don't like it one bit.

What I find most amusing in this discussions is how many "Americans" suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Most of the time this place is full of Texans and West Virginians and Oklahomans and even *Western* North Carolinians (to distinguish them, I suppose, from *Eastern* North Carolinians).

"America" seems to be like Odo, able to shift itself into a cohesive whole for a few seconds before it turns into a blob again...

I guess not.

To me it is. If she couldn't find anything to be proud of about this country, that says to me she has a pretty incredible disdain for it.

Ah, and finally, we come to the Fox News fairy tales.

If you want to hear something that no one said, that's certainly your choice.

All her comments really tell me is that she is but one of the millions of people in the country who think the nation has been heading in the wrong direction.

It isn't a fairy tale if it's true. And that was well-established long before there was a FoxNews.

Then there's nothing left of you but ideology, and there's nothing left to say, for you're completely lost.

She said she'd never been proud of her country until now. If you don't hear the disdain in that, that's fine. To me, it comes through loud and clear.

Why? Because I think a woman's remark is very telling about her attitude toward the country?

Those words weren't accidental. In fact, they were used again. They're very specific. They're intended to amplify the idea "America is really a bad, bad place...but Osama can make it better."

Gee, guess I didn't get my Little Orphan Annie decoder pin that everyone else did...

Those words weren't accidental either. Will you talk about your president that way?