Responding to an article about Patriotism at Robert Prather's site, Spoons raises an interesting point in SPEAKING ILL OF THE LEFT
Should conservatives really not question the patriotism of much of the Left? Frankly, I've never understood the taboo. To my way of thinking, this is a really neat trick that the Left has pulled off. They take their most vulnerable weakness, and convince everyone that it's rude to talk about it.Spoons is correct in noting that the Left running a pretty good street hustle in moving this item off the table. But then language control is one of their favorite tricks and they are quite good at it. (Having been a member of the Left in the distant past gave me a number of opportunities to watch this tool used to great effectiveness.)I'll give an example: Jimmy Carter. The man cozies up to the worst of America's enemies, and bad-mouths us all around the world. I absolutely do question his patriotism, and won't apologize for it. I do not believe that he thinks the United States is a fundamentally good country. The same would go for Dennis Kucinich, or Al Sharpton, or Sheila Jackson Lee, to name a few others. I likewise don't see how any of those involved with the communist anti-American anti-semites at A.N.S.W.E.R. can be called patriots. I don't believe any of these people honestly love this country. Is it wrong to say so?
Perhaps we shouldn't be too ready to give up the point that there is such a thing as being unpatriotic in this day and age. Perhaps we need to see that there are acts that reasonable Americans can see as not only unpatriotic but treasonous. That's not to say that seeing treason and trying Treason are the same thing.
To conflate the two is another slight of hand item the left is good at. One the one hand "Treason" considered as a crime is something for a Federal Court. As we learned in the Johnny Taliban from Marin episode, Treason has very specific requirements in order to be prosecuted.
But the crime of Treason on the part of the government and the perception of attitudes, actions and expressions that seem to the private individual to be treasonous are not the same. I could, if I wished, stand in front of the Carter Library announcing Jimmy Carter as a traitor to his country and his God. That would be within my right. I would, however, have no power to try and punish Mr. Carter. That would be only within the gift of the government and I don't think they're up for it at the present time.
Likewise a charge of being "unpatriotic" is the same only, I imagine, of a softer key. While a traitor is obviously unpatriotic, a person may be unpatriotic but not be a traitor.
In a way, the confusion of this is similar to the "innocent until proven guilty" meme that permeates talk shows and converstation. A court must treat an accused person as innocent until proven guilty. A citizen is under no such obligation.
Convincing people that one can criticize the United States and never, ever, be tagged as "unpatriotic" is a neat trick. But it only works as long as people buy it.
Me, I'm fresh out of spare change for this bit of linguistic 3-card monte.
The next time I'm confronted with a person who tells me, "You cannot question my patriotism!," I'm going to ask him just what part of the right to free speech he fails to understand.
Posted by Vanderleun at December 6, 2003 2:37 PM | TrackBackHat trick is a phrase that describes making three goals in a single hockey game (or wickets in cricket). I would suggest that the author of an article criticizing the language of his opponents would be well advised to use a dictionary while writing.
Posted by: A. Morris at December 6, 2003 10:11 PMYou're right. The author stands corrected as does the article.
Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at December 7, 2003 8:03 AMAdhere to File Locations. Make sure that when your users save documents, your application knows where to put them and also gives users flexibility.
Posted by: Heneage at January 13, 2004 12:31 AMBut limit your animations to whatever is required to communicate the necessary information. Avoid annoying animations that discourage ease of use. Ask yourself, "What do I need to show the user, and what is the cleanest way possible to achieve that?" A good example is the Mail application for Mac OS X. Whenever a new message arrives, the Dock icon changes appearance to indicate a changed state.
Posted by: Juliana at January 13, 2004 12:32 AMAdhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"
Posted by: Watkin at January 13, 2004 12:32 AMAdhere to File Locations. Make sure that when your users save documents, your application knows where to put them and also gives users flexibility.
Posted by: John at January 13, 2004 12:35 AMThis is the first thing your users see, and probably the single most important visible part of your application. It is the first chance you have at making an impression and the best chance to help establish your brand.
Posted by: Marmaduke at January 13, 2004 12:35 AMClicking an application in the dock should always bring forward an active window. If the user clicks on an open app's icon in the Dock, the application is active and all unminimized windows come along with it. I have found a few problems with windows behaving independently of their application.
Posted by: Brian at January 13, 2004 12:36 AMAdopt Sheets. I really like the use of Sheets in OS X. The use of Sheets lets me know which window my dialogue belongs to without hijacking my system.
Posted by: Eli at January 13, 2004 12:37 AMFor my Paint application, I created a series of icons to simulate a rendering algorithm. While the application is performing this CPU-intensive task, you can always see the status of the document by the icon changing in the Dock.
Posted by: Ellis at January 13, 2004 12:37 AMOther examples of these animations might be to show the status of an FTP transfer, the progress of media being digitized, or an updated time signature. And don't forget that users may want to have some control over this, so give them plenty of options, including the ability to turn these functions off.
Posted by: Grace at January 13, 2004 12:38 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.