American and Proud of It – That’s Why I Write These Posts

Some visiting my site have suggested that my posts are un-American or unpatriotic. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most Americans get their news from televised newscasts on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox News. If those networks refuse to carry or adequately cover important news items that the American People deserve to know, then US citizens need to find out this information from other sources. How can the people of our nation make informed decisions about our future if we are not fully informed about the present and the past? If I can help facilitate that in even a small way I look upon this as a very patriotic pro-American enterprise. Being critical of the decisions of a particular president does not constitute disloyalty to the United States. Many patriotic Americans including several Republican leaders of the past have made that point. Teddy Roosevelt made that clear when he, as a former Republican US President, often criticized then Democratic US President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt wrote in a famous quote:

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonous to the American public.”
- Teddy Roosevelt, in 1918 during the First World War

His point was that even in a time of war the US people must be allowed to criticize elected officials including the President, and anyone who tries to prevent or block such criticism is the un-American unpatriotic even treasonous one. This is because our nation became the greatest nation on earth because we allow the citizens to openly criticize the President even in a time of a declared war. And to block that will ultimately result in a less great United States. Anyone who participates in the lessoning of the US by blocking criticism was, in Teddy Roosevelt’s estimation, a traitor.

Another Republican leader said much the same during World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese:

"Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy... if that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments they are welcome to it... because the maintenance of the right to criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a good deal more good than it will do the enemy."
- Republican Senator Robert A. Taft, after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Here Republican Robert Taft was saying that the excuse that critism of the Government duing time of war is giving aid and confort to the enemy is nonesense. Since any confort the enemy may take in the criticism is more than made up for by the benefit to the United States of having the free right to make such criticism. Republican Taft was highly critical of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.

Another former Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, said much the same:

“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower really hit the nail on the head with that quote. Our country was founded by men and women who had the guts to criticize and oppose polices that were against the best interest of the people of our country. Continuing with that process is quintessentially American and patriotic and therefore beneficial and essential to the bettering of our nation. Opposing the right to do so is naturally the opposite of that. Case closed!

Joe