Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Dept. of Understatement

My friend Andrew Breitbart is doing a Breakfast Table-like dialogue in the LAT with a writer named David Ehrenstein. In today's entry, Breitbart attributes to Ehrenstein, in passing, a love of America. Here's Ehrenstein's response:

I'm not so sure about the "love my country" bit as I'm markedly disenchanted with the entire concept of all nation-states. Move an inch beyond language and culture and their meaning and purpose almost invariably mirrors that of the Crips and the Bloods.


I can't tell if he's putting us on here, because putting aside "language and culture" is like putting aside oxygen and water. Sure, without those two things, the moon is just like Earth!

Mr. Ehrenstein is gay. I wonder if he would find culture to be such a minor thing if he lived in Iran. Here is one summary of Iranian law on homosexuality (remember, laws are derived from culture):

Iranian law dictates that penetrative male homosexual activity be punished with death, while non-penetrative activity is punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when death becomes the punishment. Female homosexuality is punished with lashes, also until the fourth offense, when death becomes the punishment.


But sure, other than little stuff like that, all nations are just big groups of gang-bangers.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoever is responsible for the current cover of the Weekly Standard deserves some Iranian-style lashings.

The Mechanical Eye said...

Ehrenstein, to put it mildly, goes a few bridges and several towns too far with that statement, but Breitbart doesn't come off looking golden in that exchange either. Here's a perspective criticism:

http://alicublog.blogspot.com

And by the way, if Breitbart hates the celebrity culture so much, why his long-term affiliation with Matt Drudge, who happily puts on as much celebrity news as political rumblings on his site? It's like a paparazzo who thinks tabloids are such tripe, in between his trips to Britney Spears' garbage cans.

DU

Jacob said...

But I heard that there weren't any Homosexuals in Iran?

Anonymous said...

Is "penetrative" really a word? FX

Anonymous said...

I get why Ehrenstein, a gay man, does not like/love America and like many if not most gay men actively dislikes it.

Frank Miller wrote that after 9/11 he finally got it -- that Patriotism and the nation state was a compact between society and the individual, for mutual association and protection.

The sum of human existence is competition between groups over who is more effective in wiping the other out or deterring same. So much for end of history, yadda yadda yadda.

Patriotism, love of country, and nationalism much less the nation-state works to the advantage of the ordinary guy and gal. It protects you from planes flying into buildings, or someone of the same religion locally beheading you because some attribute: uncovered woman, gay, atheist, Christian, Jew, etc. of your existence offends his God.

A gay man exists in the stew of multi-culti nonsense brewed up by rich "priests" like the Catholic Church circa 1100 or so. Of course Ehrenstein does not like America much and considers himself "a citizen of the world" the same way Priests, Bishops, and Cardinals did not consider themselves French or English subjects.

Because rich, sheltered, men don't need or don't think they need protection. Of the Nation. Swiss villas are just as nice as Westwood. And money always buys power and protection (unless someone just takes it from you). Add to this the gay culture that takes transgressive acts and denigration of everything traditional including America and the concept of the nation, and it's not surprising.

Shocker -- rich Americans, and various subgroups could care less about America. If they are not actively hostile. That's the downside of globalization. The other downside of globalization is that it produces losers who are likely to look to the nation-state for protection and punish in one form or another those who denigrate the nation.

Put it this way: why should any Patriot if gays are viewed as generally anti-American support Gay Marriage or Gays in the Military? Or Hate Crime legislation? Given that gays are of course free to choose in a general way anti-Americanism. And Patriots are not obliged in any way to support the agendas (which otherwise matter not one way or another to them) of groups hostile to THEIR values.

[If the gay community is smart they will stamp out attitudes like this thoroughly and ask for reciprocity by the "Patriot" group -- it was essentially Dr. King's political strategy. I don't see any political acumen however, merely Identity Politics.]