Thursday, July 03, 2003

How To Love Your Country: A Primer

Dinesh D'Souza wants to help you count the ways.

Worried that clueless Americans are getting all the wrong clues from the forces of negativity, both left AND right, (he's nothing if not fair and balanced) Dinesh has prepared sort of a "Patriotism For Dummies" in the form of a list of "Ten Great Things About America," subtitled, "What to love about the United States."

They include:

America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy.:

Work and trade are respectable in America, which is not true elsewhere

People live longer, fuller lives in America

America, the freest nation on earth, is also the most virtuous nation on earth

Each reason comes with its own commentary. It's easy to make fun of D'Souza, much less easy to critique his writings:he has this knack of sounding so reasonable. What's noticeable here is the sheer lack of energy he is able to bring to his task.

For some genuine inspiration - in a comment to my 4th of July suggestions, Michelle explained who is behind that flyer which caught my attention, and provided this link to their homepage, "The Peace Pretzel," where their more partisan loyalities are clearly on view. Here's a hint:

"Counterpropoganda For The People"