Do they hate America?

I recently was taken to task by a "liberal" acquaintance of mine for saying that the Left hates America.  I use the quotes around the word "liberal" because words mean things, and the word "liberal" no more describes the beliefs of the modern American Left than "skinny" accurately describes Michael Moore.  In any event, this acquaintance was indignant that I accused him of "hating America".

Instead of apologizing, I simply replied that perhaps he doesn't "hate" America, but his positions on issues would be the same if he did.  For example, ask any leftist about the problems that are facing this planet.  Poverty in Africa, caused by Western colonialism and exacerbated by American neo-colonialism.  Yep, the left blames the United States for the fact that socialist and Islamofascist warlords keep a continent in a perpetual state of upheaval and hunger.

Then of course there is the issue of global warming.  According to leftists, the United States government, in concert with evil corporations and ignorant consumers almost single handedly are responsible for a decrease in ozone and an increase in global temperature.  These leftists embrace a Kyoto Treaty which even they admit punishes and limits the United States to a greater extent than any other nation.

Islamoterrorism is even our fault, according to these people.  If we would change our pro-Israel policies and stop "exploiting" the oil of the Middle East, then these people would no longer hate us and would give up any desire to kill us.  Of course, I have to wonder, if we stopped purchasing the oil from that region, which has little else to offer the world, wouldn't they hate us because their economy was wrecked and their people were starving?  As far as Israel is concerned, we have done more than any nation on the planet to try to bring peace to that region.  Yet, according to the American Left, it is still our fault.

Leftists have this ingrained belief that the world would be a peaceful global community if only the big bad United States would unilaterally disarm and stop allowing its businesses to exploit the poor huddled masses of the Third World.  In fact, no less a figure than Nobel Laureate, Jimmy Carter has called on this nation to do just that.

It's the same attitude that the Left had during the Cold War.  They did not believe that we were morally superior to the Soviet Union and therefore our actions had to be viewed as no better, or actually, even worse than those of the Soviets.

The Left decries American consumerism.  They consider it an outrage that this nation consumes 25% of the world's resources.  They somehow believe that the planet would be a better place if we Americans had fewer cell phones, fewer laptops, fewer televisions and fewer automobiles.  Never mind that much of the rest of the world wants to copy our lifestyle, according to our own leftists, we are bad and harmful.

The American Left may not "hate" America, but they sure don't like it very much.  They consider our military power to be a destabilizing force in an otherwise peaceful world (snicker snicker).  They consider our economic expansion to be exploitive of Third World nations, even though, everywhere our businesses go, the standard of living considerably improves.  They consider our foreign policy to be imperialistic and immoral, even though no nation in the history of the world has used its power less and accomplished more good than we have.  They consider our consumer driven lifestyle to be destructive to the planet, despite the fact that our industry has been the impetus to pioneer cleaner and better ways to do business and still meet the demands of our people.

The Left looks at the traditions and institutions of the United States and sees much to criticize.  I look at those same traditions and institutions and see much to praise.  Additionally, I am not ashamed to say that I have an emotional attachment to this nation.  The Left seems to have gotten past this emotional attachment. 

Perhaps "liberals" don't hate America.  However, they certainly have lost the capacity to love and admire it.  They don't know what they're missing.