Unmitigated chutzpah

 

Americans of my generation have been very lucky. We live in a free and prosperous country, one that has become increasingly free and prosperous during our lifetimes. We’ve enjoyed this freedom and prosperity without having to fight a civil war or world wars. And we’ve been able to take pride in the twin facts that our liberties have expanded here at home, and that, most of the time and at times decisively, we’ve been on the side of liberty abroad.

So for many of us it’s been easy to be patriotic. It’s been easy to be proud to be an American. It’s been easy to “thank my lucky stars / To be living here today.”

But it’s more complicated today. What happens when the government of the United States is no longer clearly on the side of freedom, at home or abroad?

  The Bulwark

Unreal that they are "negotiating" the future of a sovereign country. AND believe they can force elections on it.

What happens when we can no longer be proud of the behavior of our own government and its leaders? How are we to react when bigotry is given sanction, when lying is routine, when corruption is rampant, when public-spirited officials are forced to resign? [...] [T]here’s been nothing, at least in my experience, that’s challenged our basic pride in our own government until now.

[...]

Can we really say the government of the United States stands with those fighting for liberty and against dictatorship? Our president expresses admiration for dictators, and our vice president goes to Germany to make the case for the Alternative für Deutschland. Between Russia and Ukraine, between a brutal and dictatorial invader and a brave people defending their nation and its freedom, this administration is—at best—neutral.

Yeah, I don't think neutral is what this country is.

And so we place our hopes for freedom abroad not in the actions of America but in those of our European allies and the people of Ukraine. And we who are used to rooting for American diplomats abroad hope their talks fail.

[...]

I take hope from the words of the greatest American, Abraham Lincoln, eulogizing his “beau ideal of a statesman,” the great senator Henry Clay, in 1852:

[...]

“He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country.”

[...]

We love our country in large part because it is a free country. We oppose the actions of the current administration because we want this nation to remain a free country and once again to become a friend of freedom abroad. We oppose the current administration not because we’re ashamed of America but because we’re proud of America.

UPDATE 11:09 am:

And I'm more disgusted than ever with Joe Biden and the Democrats for not giving Zelensky what he said he needed the day Russian invaded his country.