"Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance."— Donald R. Koelper (@Donald_from_HI) October 5, 2020
- Dan Rather, "What Unites Us" (2020) https://t.co/tILhFUtYj4
Seen because the name Dan Rather is trending on Twitter this morning. He seems to have a new book.
Do you like that aphorism? "Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance."
Patriotism is rooted in _________________.
ADDED: Let's also use a survey to examine the other half of the aphorism:
AND: As long as we're doing surveys...
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205 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 205 of 205Dan Rather looked down on humanity from his self-appointed and self-important throne on Olympus, and said:
"Nothing says 'I work hard' to America more than signing blank sheets of paper. But the real question is whether it was the same 'magical Sharpie' the president uses for his hurricane forecasting."
Oh, the blather of Rather. He was made a spectacle by Bush Pere, lost his job due to shoddy, biased reporting on Bush Menor, and now seeks to continue his swan dive into irrelevance by slamming Trump. Assuming he even wrote these words, he is a small-minded man whose day passed long ago.
Patriotism is rooted in pride.
But pride has two sides.
The good pride causes us to continually make more perfect this republic - to work hard for liberty, freedom, and opportunity - even when means tough change. The civil rights movement is, to me, one of the finest examples of this pride manifest. It means we take pride in our contribution as we respect and are deeply grateful to the contributions that came before us.
The bad pride prevents us from changing as we cling to the accomplishments of past generations. The bad pride causes us to take on past accomplishments by others as our own and prevents change.
Patriotism is a bit of both prides. It’s an imperfect driver of improvement and an equally imperfect governor against change.
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Nationalism is a form of collectivism - often a very ugly form. It’s assigning characteristics of the individual to a group and using those characteristics to drive superiority. It places the state above the individual.
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Fabricating evidence and then doubling down to promote a false narrative should be the end of a journalist’s career. Dan Rather didn’t get the George W Bush National Guard story wrong - he fabricated a story with forged documents - easily identifiable forged documents. Dan Rather is no longer a journalist to me. He’s a guy with an opinion which may or may not have any relationship to the truth. If he was washing my car, I’d listen to his ramblings, pay him, and be gone. He broke that trust in broad daylight.
Gk1 said...I haven't watched the revisionist movie "Truth" but I thought it wound up being less of a hagiographic fiasco as we were initially led to believe.
The final scene of the movie is Mary Mapes and Dan asserting the story was accurate. As Dan's subsequent public statements show they still believe (a) the story was correct and (b) their misjudgments were minor and irrelevant.
TreeJoe,
Dan Rather put forward an anti-Bush story that was laughably easy to disprove. So far from being an "elite" journalist of national importance, he showed himself to be totally amateur hour.
I say, Dan Rather is a fool.
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