There is something that can rightly be called neoconservatism that’s overbearing and abusive by nature. It tries to establish its principles by acting as if everything’s already been settled and yelling at people who seem to have doubts. An excess of bile spills over into all one’s views, it seems. Veteran neocon-basher Paul Gottfried has come up with a really extraordinary example of neocon bigotry here in my home town newspaper: Hating the Krauts. Be sure to read the New York Post piece he’s complaining about. It beggars description.
…at a loss here. The
…at a loss here. The columnist was complaining about what he thought to be most Germans in Germany—not people of German descent in the USA.
A few months ago, I posted an socially conservative piece to the Free Republic site. The column was authored by a good writer who has a French last name. The French bashing was on. They ridiculed me, too. I tossed a facetious reply his way.
My first French ancestors fought in various wars for thousands of years and were driven out of France because of their religion. They arrived in America several hundred years ago.
There was also once a marriage to an Italian woman in an old mining and university community. Needless to say,…well, needless to say. There was much animosity. She drifted off in the night, eventually, and it was to be expected (because of the displaced nationalism/identity paradigm there, and because of leftover glamorization of the Mob in only a few of the families in that particular community).
I’m mostly of European descent—English, German, Irish, Viking and French (with a tad bit of Cherokee). The obviousness of so much ethnic/religious clique-ish-ness in the USA is what’s puzzling. Why are so many people here so full of feelings of ethnic vainglory from the Old Country from ~ 100 years ago?
Oops. My reply was very
Oops. My reply was very hastily, poorly written. …trying to do too many things at once.
My point is that without much of an ethnic/racial identity, it’s more difficult to be bothered by contemp or ridicule along such lines. I’m more bothered by anti-American rhetoric.
Screeds against Saxons are pathetic, just as similar generalization against any whole ethnic group is. And with regard to my own past experience with a few, Little Balkan Catholics are most welcome in my home. My best friend for History discussions is an older Croation-German man who went through European WWII war and refugee torment. We talk and barbeque every other weekend or so. Joe is quite a man. After all of that, he made it. Remarkably, he’s whole.
The left/liberal cancer has invaded every kind of ethnic/religious community.