Defining American and Anti-American
In another thread, I asked whether there was any debate that Hollywood movies push a depraved and left-leaning, anti-American political agenda. Rather than answer, Zach deflected the question. I asked again. Zach deflected again. I suppose he could hardly deny it and didn’t want to admit it. Anyway, it occurred to me that it would be useful to define what American and anti-American mean. I’ll get the ball rolling and I’d like your help, both in fleshing things out and in resolving whether there is an American or anti-American position on certain issues.
American: Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press.
Anti-American: Political correctness. Discrimination based on ideas.
American: Racial Equality. No governmental or government mandated discrimination.
Anti-American: Discrimination against anyone based on race. Includes both discrimination against minorities and “affirmative action.”
American: Gender equality. No governmental or government mandated discrimination.
Anti-American: Comparable worth. Probably Muslim beliefs that do not accord equal rights to women.
American: Either direct or competitive multi-party democracy.
Anti-American: Dictatorship. Single-party “democracies” in which the vote is essentially a meaningless formality.
American: Pride in America and American exceptionalism.
Anti-American: Shame in American.
American: Learning from our mistakes.
Anti-American: Dwelling on our mistakes.
American: Individual responsibility.
Anti-American: Collectivism and culture of victimhood.
American: Capitalism.
Anti-American: Socialism.
American: Government designed to help Americans succeed.
Anti:American: Government designed to allow Americans to fail without bearing the consequences of failure.
American: Government only as big as is needed to protect private citizens and their rights.
Anti-American: Government as a force for political and social change and as big as its supporters can make it. There is no area of our lives in which the anti-Americans believe the government has no role.
American: Private solutions to our problems whenever possible.
Anti- American: Governmental solutions to our problems.
American: Law at the lowest possible practical level, close to the people.
Anti-American: International law.
American: Balanced budgets.
Anti-American: Large deficits, leaving our children to pay the bill for our failure to live within our means. [Note: While this certainly should be a value, I wonder if it is, because we continue not to hold our politicians accountable for their routine failures in this area. And they do routinely fail.]
American: Freedom of religion. Respect for all religions, including non-belief. [Note: this causes a difficult problem when the religions violate the other American values — The Muslim treatment of women for example. How do we reconcile such conflicting beliefs?]
Anti-American: Ridicule of religion, especially of Judeo-Christian religion. abc’s comments on this site are a good example of this.
American: Traditionally, nuclear, two-parent, heterosexual family. I suppose this is still the ideal, but is the American viewpoint shifting, to acknowledge the widespread reality of divorce, if not homosexuality? What do you think?
Anti-American: Complete rejection of the nuclear family. “It takes a village.” Children born out of wedlock.
American: Lawful immigration. Indeed, a country built on immigration.
Anti-American: Illegal immigration and rewarding illegal immigrants with benefits and amnesty instead of treating them as the lawbreakers they are.
I don’t know if it is fair to say that there is an American position on several other important issues. For example, I don’t think there is an American position on abortion. Americanism is not static. American values change over time. As noted, American learn from their mistakes. What do you think about this issue? What else would you add to the list of American and anti-American position and beliefs? I look forward to your comments.
