[detbuch]

Even though it's "old news" (less than two weeks--that tremendous amount of time it took for us to "move on" and totally forget what he said) it also has been enough time to allow us some intelligent reflection on it--as opposed to the media's immediate mindless affectation of shock.

Though, I wonder if it was, rather than mindless, a part of what Spence likes to refer to as a "systemic pattern." Is the shock value of reaction more lucrative for the media than the analytic value would be? Is it more the press mantra "if it bleeds, it leads"? Throwing it out there as red meat, as a negative stupid thing to say, arouses more interest rather than, if it is brought up at all, analyzing and rationally discussing it.

More insidious is if particular media have political intent instead of mere intent to inform. The press's vaunted right to free speech works against itself when its "reports" are implied condemnation rather than simple information. It creates a climate of political speech censorship if it is feared that, even in private meetings, there might be a "spy" who will, out of context, transfer to the media something you say which might uncritically be used to discredit you. The right to free speech withers and fearfully transforms into the right to very careful, bland, unprovocative speech.

So, was what Rudy said "true"? Of course, we have to be mindful that there is no longer such a thing as "true". It's all "relative." At best an opinion. And he did, after all, express what he said as an opinion not a fact-- “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America . . .” Ok, so its just an opinion--but a stupid one and needs to dominate news and air time for a week because . . . well, the news should inform us about his stupid opinion because . . . well, because.

So how stupid is it? What would inspire Rudy to believe Obama doesn't "love America"? My guess is what Rudy has heard Obama say or what he has been reported to say. And what Obama has done. But, what does he mean by "love' and "America"?

Did Rudy mean by "America" the landscape and its wonders? It's boundaries? All of it's various people? What sense would there be to question the love of those things? Whether Obama "loved" those things or not is mostly irrelevant in respect to his job as President. So what is this "America" to which Rudy refers? What is America as a concept that differentiates if from other countries. All have boundaries, and beautiful landscapes, and wonderful, as well as awful, people. I would guess that, among whatever other differences that exist, the difference to which Rudy referred as his concept of America is its distinctive difference in its legal foundation and the character that foundation is meant to promote and protect.


And what did Rudy mean by "love"? Do even most of us think in terms of loving America? Do we actually say we love America? I would think we just assume that if you're an American, you love America. But if you actually have to define or quantify that "love," it might be a different story. What does Rudy mean by "love"? I suspect most of us don't, for sure, know. Love is a slippery word. Not only do I think that most of us go about our life without considering whether we love America or not, I think most of us don't particularly love our job. Most of us who work for somebody else don't see our job as truly who we are, but as a means to pay for who we are. And most of us do our job well, at least to its specifications. Obama could do his job well without "loving" it. A man may feel compelled when he interacts with a woman who is built like a brick chithouse to say he loves her. And she might, in response to his assumed romantic adoration say she loves him. They might even get married and have a few years of the physical, romantic thing going, but eventually the bodies get some flab and age, and the romance wears off and the word love may be spoken less frequently, if at all. But if they have children, and build a life together and around their family, the word love may have a new meaning, or, actually, not so new, just more real. The family, with children, has become united in blood and flesh. It has become an extension of what was two into one flesh. The love of family is ultimately the love of oneself. So, I believe, is love always love of oneself. Especially in a relativistic world in which the only existence even remotely verifiable is oneself.

So then what is love of country, if love is of oneself? Would it be the union of those concepts and ideals that define country to oneself? The extension of the country as self? Would that love, in effect bind one and country? And before that union can occur, must there not be some initial attraction?

And can that attraction occur if the self sees the country as unattractive? As flawed, unjust, inimical at its roots to what the self desires? If the self sees the country's foundation, and its practices, and its face to the world as oppressive and rapacious? In various ways, Obama has said as much.

Can a self express love for America if that self wants to fundamentally transform the concept and foundation that defines America? Can Obama love America if his will is to destroy its charter, "transform" it into its opposite, to eradicate its protection of unalienable individual rights against government usurpation into a charter of government rights which usurp those individual rights and grant it the power to decide all that is right? Obama has said as much in his opinion of the Constitution. And acted in ways to subvert it.

Can Obama see the America which exists as it is before his transformation of it, as an extension of his self? And if he does, can he love such an America which he wants to fundamentally change? If he loves himself, which America would he love, the one he wants to change, or the one he envisions after the change? If he wants to change that which he loves, that which is an extension of himself, does he love himself?