Of course, because by the new definition, the leader is "peak American", so everything in collision with his view is naturally "anti-American".
The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use. On the spot, immediately.
Is it anti-American to brush your teeth after breakfast? or rather before? Is both American? Neither of it?
It's like the John Birth society are back in charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C...
I'm pretty sure that's the idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unhumans
History sure does rhyme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
If unsure, ask the House Un-American Activities Committee.
(P.s. don't ask any questions that they don't like, that would be Un-American).
While the exact point at which it becomes "anti-american" isn't clear there's certainly a category of rhetoric in which people peddle subservience to the state (usually dressed up in obfuscating words, like they'll use "society" instead of "the government") that is undeniably "anti-american" except perhaps by some obtuse technical interpretation of all the words. And I will die on the hill that those who peddle such ideals are bad people and ought to be looked down upon the same way we'd look down upon someone peddling phrenology as a basis for racism.
100% agree. Also because the view, preferences, and cultural norms of America change over time. A law should not rely on such a dynamic definition.
Im not quite following. Things can be mislabeled as anti American, but everyone has some idea of whats anti-American in principle. Anti free speech for example is anti American.
How that gets applied is a matter of debate. But I think all public officials should agree with that.
Its kind of a fundamental thing to have an idea about the nation’s values. If that’s too taboo for someone then they are quite literally anti American. Having a country means organizing around a core set of values. We can debate what those are but arguing you can’t stand for anything?
What I'm saying is literally The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use.
Especially when glanced-over mid-sentence, the term evokes the inversion of your idea what being "American" means, without ever clarifying whether your assumption is correct.
Me saying "the liberties of the banking sector are deeply anti-American, we will revert those changes to relieve the increased tension they cause in American households" might evoke an association of "less debt" or "owning a home" in a listener, while I might actually mean "women shouldn't be allowed to own credit cards" (because they weren't until 1974 and MY American values are some form of "vanilla constitution")
I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death.
The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore.
Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and think it, or the fact that their constituents don't know the difference.
It doesn’t have to have an agreed upon meaning. My point is its not inherently bad to think something is anti-American.
In fact, treating the very idea of judging something as “anti-American” as inherently illegitimate is quite literally anti-American. Its saying Americans shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions about what their country stands for.
Fundamentally I agree. But my point is that while it isnt inherently bad to think of something as anti-American, it is bad when politicians use that terminology to create divides and further their agendas. My statement about Islam being anti-American is just one example.
Honestly I think because there is no agreed upon meaning, the term "anti-American" is meaningless and means whatever the speaker/listener wants it to mean, and is just used to score political points.
"Enemy of the people" is also not inherently illegitimate - I mean, the people can surely have enemies, right?
But words and phrases like that have a history of actual use and the resulting connotations.
I’m as atheist as they come and I see the tenets of Islam — as widely practiced throughout the world, and self-reported in a litany of surveys — to be clearly anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-free speech, pro blasphemy-law, et al … and as a result, anti-American.
Charlie Hebdo was not that long ago. Anti-women practices are the predominant norm. The list of regressive and oppressive political norms is practically endless.
Nothing here absolves Christianity or any other religion of its crimes either, but (1) the sexism is on another scale entirely, and (2) we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.
> the sexism is on another scale entirely
Several nations that are predominantly Muslim have had female heads of state before the US has. If your perception of Islam is based on how Middle Eastern countries practice it then you are only looking at the countries that choose a theocratic way of ruling. Islam mandates that women (and men!) cover certain parts of your body but the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) you'll see women in hijabs wearing short sleeves or low cut shirts.
Additionally, Christians are the predominant voice on many female-regressive laws in the US, such as the overturning of Roe. Women have been arrested for having miscarriages. If that isn't "anti-woman" i dont know what is.
> we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.
Have we though? Just a few years ago right-wing politicians were complaining that the woke left wanted to cancel Christmas. As mentioned above, Christians won the lobby on overturning Roe. Christians won the lobby on banning same sex marriage.
A religion taking over a country isnt every citizen bowing down to that religions faith. Its everyone in the country being subject to that religion's laws and beliefs regardless of your faith.
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> your faith is also a political institution
This is half-right. Islam does have its own political system, but the faith is largely divorced from that system.
I'm fairly active in my mosque and ive met a lot of community members running for various levels of public office. None of them are calling for Islamic jurisprudence, and none of the policies they promote are obviously "anti-American," unless you consider a higher standard of living for the lower and middle class or higher accountability for the ruling class anti-American. I suppose historically speaking those concepts are anti-American but whether that's a good or bad thing can be left as an exercise to the reader.
Nowadays there's a lot of Muslims practicing their faith very differently from what most do. They might drink or smoke, and live a more "flexible" version, their own version of their own faith.
Even if, in fine, you are right despite the downvotes. Islam is also a political and legal system that cannot cohabit with another system (no system can cohabit with another one, you can't have a democracy and a dictature at the same place)
> Islam is also a political and legal system that cannot cohabit with another system (no system can cohabit with another one, you can't have a democracy and a dictature at the same place)
How much of an aversion to objective reality is required to believe this, as you’ve worded it?
As I mentioned in the other comment, Islam the faith and Islam the political system are largely different. Most Muslims (myself included) know a lot about the faith but know nothing about the jurisprudence. So I agree that Islamic jurisprudence is unlikely able to cohabit with American democracy, its pointless to talk about because no Muslim running for public office is trying to introduce such concepts into American politics.
If they're not trying, it's because it would fail due to lack of "faithist" Muslims to support them. Islamist politicians do push for that when they have popular support, and they do have popular support in Muslim majority countries, as well as local areas in other countries. The average Pakistani might not know much about that jurisprudence thing, but the law still prohibits him from having gay sex or insulting Mohammed.
Where are all the secular Muslim countries? Turkey? Why are they so few and so weakly secular?
When Trump calls Democrats "enemies from within," that's anti-American.
When Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power to his victorious opponent and instead plays "heads I win tails you cheated," that's anti-American.
When Trump sends the FCC chair to suppress speech "we can do this the easy way or the hard way," or yucks it up with the president of El Salvador over suspending Habeas Corpus, that's anti-American.
The "American Experiment" isn't an empty concept, but it is about democracy and law and rights as opposed to conservative cultural values, and when people in power start to argue that the former must be sacrificed for the latter they certainly deserve to be clowned on. Not because they are wrong to imagine an American Ideal, but because they have its contents exactly backwards.
While I understand the intention of what you're saying, you're still attempting a definition of the term "anti-American", which needs no definition as the term should be rejected as a whole.
It's just the idea that vague terms get misused so much I demand the specific. "Anti" anything can just mean you aren't "pro" it enough, or not pro a particular version.
So for restricting speech, you could say not honoring the first amendment or something like that.
I think about this because sometimes people or ideas are described as "problematic". Sometimes for very good reason, but sometimes you find out the speaker has trouble being specific. I like to hear the specific reason when I can to understand the facts or logic. Sometimes these classifications come third hand.
I disagree.
I would define confidently that Anti-American is aligned with Anti-Constitutional. By definition, it is this nation's founding document and treatise.
An the Supreme Court's ultimate role is to affirm or deny nebulous case law as aligned with the Constitution.
For you that might be a confident definition, for others it might not mean "anti-constitutional" but "against the declaration of independence", for even others it might not create any clear association at all.
That's because something being "American"/"anti-American" is not sufficiently defined in this context. It triggers a highly subjective assumption of what it means, allowing people to evoke "us vs. them" solidarity without actually taking a position.
Example: I can (probably) break your assumed association by stating "women owning credit-cards is anti-American". It (probably) doesn't fit your mental model of what being "anti-American" means, but women were in fact not allowed to own credit cards in US until 1974. So my definition might be more in-line with the era of the constitution than yours.
That's a blunt example. Now imagine I use "anti-American" in a context of "law and order" and then keep talking. People instinctively glance over it because they create the meaning by taking their personal association of being "American" and invert it. You may feel like agreeing but I might actually say the complete opposite of what you think.
That's why IMO the phrase should be rejected from people in a public role.
Not really. America stands for something, they wrote a whole document about it.
There is a big difference between being "American" and being something like "German" because Germany has existed for so long as different governments and the thing that ties it together is not an ethos, but an ethnicity. Being American is different, there's no ethnicity that makes one American, there is only it's ethos. The ideals written in the declaration of independence are American values.
And that's the weak link of tying ideals and values to a location like a country:
The group elected to lead and represent this location also represent ideals and values, so THEIR ideals and values become inseparable of the location they were elected to represent.
For a certain period in the mid-1900s, "German values" meant something different than it did before and after, because Germany was represented by a different leader...
> And that's the weak link of tying ideals and values to a location like a country
My entire post is about exactly how this is not the case, American values are defined in a document[1].
[1]https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...
And what I'm trying to explain is, that this paper doesn't matter if it is represented by someone who doesn't uphold its content.
Germany had the Paulskirche-, the Bismarck- and the Weymar-Constitution, all of them before that certain Leader elected into power. He got to define who is worthy/unworthy, decide how to read the document his party represents and change the definition of "un-German"
> this paper doesn't matter if it is represented by someone who doesn't uphold its content.
Not at all...that's when the paper matters the most, because the electorate can see that the person in charge is not upholding our values, purely in contrast to the document. The document sets the baseline. Writing things down has value.
The words on the paper represent the ideas of what it means to be American. Trump has nothing to do with that. His actions, when the do not align with that paper, can be described as "anti-American".
The US has had a total of _one_ government and what it means to be American is in the founding document of that government. To be German is to lay claim to a history and cultural lineage that is filled with many different governments and even different states all-together.
The US has distinct regional and cultural identities as well, to be a Texan means something more akin to being German. Texas has a history that extends beyond the US. One can be American and Texan precisely because they are describe a different thing.
To be American is to ascribe to a certain set of ideals and, as far as someone isn't living up to those ideals, they are "anti-American".
Technically, the US has had multiple governments: the original 1781 Articles of Confederation qualifies, as it had a Congress (although a weak one).
What I read is "what it means to be American" is more clear in ideology and values as "what it means to be German", and I can only wholeheartedly disagree with that.
As someone who is neither born American nor German, I can tell you that both terms describe a subjective feeling and not objective facts. Moreover, they are terms to create unity/solidarity among those who identify with them and exclude those who don't.
Unlike of course someone born Italian telling you that it's clear for everyone what it means to be anti-Italian: ...don't know, doesn't eat pasta or sthg...? /s
Germany specifically hasnt existed for very long. its a younger country than the US, but it was made to combine people of an ethnicity
That kind of gets at my point. To be "German" means something different than being "American".
I mean, there are American values. The country was built around the idea of limiting the federal government's power, and adherence not a person, but to a set of values (like freedom of speech). We're explictly founded on the concept of rule of law.
Through that lens, it is very clear what anti-American means: adherence and loyalty to a person instead of a set of values, expansive government overreach, erosion of individual liberties, including the ability to express dissent.
It was also built around a process by which those values can be codified and changed to reflect changing times, i.e. the amendment process. Which we have forgotten about entirely.
What Trump and his followers mean by it, though, is that any disagreement with Trump on policy, strategy, tactics, procedure, or belief is anti-American. The way they use the term "anti-American" is anti-American. Therefore the term outside of context is meaningless. It's been coopted, twisted, and perverted.
Is it exists, something must be antithetical to it.
(Truth is its just rhetoric and it doesn't mean much of anything. That's why its main use is as a cudgel).
Clearly, the southern Indian Ocean and a tiny slice of the Antarctic coast are the most anti-(US of) American.
It only involves a swathe of South-East Asia and China once you are inclusive of South America... ;-)
If you will not say what something is against, then it is by definition for nothing.
on edit: fixed grammatical error, based on bad keyboard gesture moving stuff around.
I mean, to pick what is perhaps the easiest example, wanting to abridge speech is anti-American by its very definition.
It is possible to have a thing that is anti-American. So I'm not sure what good it is to reject the term altogether.
It could e.g. be "anti-democratic" by a universal definition of democracy and civil liberties which no single country then gets to fork and redefine...
its encoded in the US constitution, so its anti-american.
it can be anti-other things too, but its certainly anti-american
Let's suppose you had your way and the cultural concept of America as a set of ideas and values related to democracy was erased. Would the universal non-national concepts of democracy and civil liberties have been able to inspire Mike Pence to stand up to Donald Trump on January 6th?
Sorry, I don't know what this conversation is about. This is not about a "concept", it is about the label itself.
When the term "anti-American" is used, it is a placeholder for "against my values". Noone is ever anti-American himself, it is only a label applied upon others.
That's why IMO it should be rejected when used by people in a public role, see original comment.
You are free to think otherwise, which I may then label as "anti-American" in passing, while quickly moving on to you mentioning Mike Pence and some random conspiracy I have /s
Again, /s/s/s/s
"Trump is misusing a term, better roll over and let him do it!"
Gross.
Which is not what I'm saying, I'm saying to NOT let him use this term.
How can you miss this fundamental aspect of what I'm repeatedly stating?
"Sad."
Ah, I see, it's the same as "un-American", only without being a word too onerous to use (yet) due to obvious historical implications.
I'm not sure what point your trying to make? I would also say trying to abridge speech is generally "un-American" as well as "anti-American." Are you trying to differentiate between the two terms? Or are you saying because HUAC existed half a century ago that nothing can possibly be considered un/anti-American?
> The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives created in 1938. Their goal was to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties. It was abolished in 1975.
I'd heard of this but didn't realize it went on for decades.
Turning it around, I'd say persecuting political enemies for being "un-American" - or as a recent book declared, "unhuman" - is a very un-American thing to do. At least according to the values for which the nation stands (or supposed to stand).
> I'd say persecuting political enemies for being "un-American" - or as a recent book declared, "unhuman" - is a very un-American thing to do
Dude. Dude. You've said yourself: this Congress committee went on for almost four decades. And before it, it was Yellow Peril, or anti-Irish sentiments, or manifest destiny with its "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". So, no, it's a very American thing to do, has been since the foundation of the US and arguably from even before than that.
> The "American Experiment" isn't an empty concept, but it is about democracy and law and rights as opposed to conservative cultural values, and when people in power start to argue that the former must be sacrificed for the latter they certainly deserve to be clowned on. Not because they are wrong to imagine an American Ideal, but because they have its contents exactly backwards.
From the many responses on this thread, it appears that many either don't want a defintion of "pro-American" or "anti-American" or "an American Ideal" or don't have one but these are core to your point.
How would you define each?
if you're explaining, you're losing
> When Trump calls Democrats "enemies from within,"
He did not say this.
Please spare me the part where you show me the things that you think establish the claim. I have already seen them and they do not establish the claim. At best you are intentionally conflating "Democrats" collectively with specific individuals who happen to be part of the Democratic party.
I could continue on with the rest but you get the idea.
> When Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power to his victorious opponent
When did this happen? I didn't realize Biden wasn't inaugurated. I could have sworn he was the President for 4 years.
When a coup fails, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You are literally claiming the Jan. 6 murder of police officers was "peacefully transferring power".
It was never claimed that it was successful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_January_6_Unit...
If you go far into the user you’re replying to’s post history, you’ll find them unambiguously referring to the Jan 6 crowd as terrorists. They are very aware.
I know there’s a pretty strong norm against dragging people for their posting history here, but that’s in service of maximizing light vs. heat and I feel like pretending to be ignorant of recent events in order to relitigate something unrelated in the comments is wholly unproductive.
> you’ll find them unambiguously referring to the Jan 6 crowd as terrorists.
While I wouldn't agree with that, there is no contradiction between that claim and Trump himself "not refusing" to "make a peaceful transition of power" (putting aside the downthread arguments about how the transition of power is actually made).
> pretending to be ignorant of recent events
Disagreement on interpretation is not the same thing as ignorance.
I'm skimming the "Aftermath" section and I'm not seeing where Biden's inauguration was cancelled or Trump retained power or anything else? If Trump "refused to peacefully transfer power" how was power peacefully transferred to Biden exactly on schedule the same way it's happened in every other election?
I do see this happened on Jan 7th though:
> 7:10 p.m.: Shortly after Twitter unlocked Trump's account, Trump released a video statement condemning the violence at the Capitol, saying that "a new administration will be inaugurated" and that his "focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power" to the Biden administration.
that an inssurection was stopped doesnt make it a peaceful transfer of power.
the thing about the US system is that the president doesnt do the transfer of power. they just lose power on a certain day, and congress grants it to somebody new
The peaceful tour of the capital by pro American demonstrators (sorry, peak Americans) interrupted the proceedings. They were very close to pulling off a strategy of having the senate override the vote, if they hadn’t reconvened before midnight and had Pence left the Capitol like secret service were urging him to do.
Anyway this argument has occurred a thousand times on these boards so if you saw January 6 as peaceful and harmless I can’t change your mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot
Show me where this happened in every other election.
That the fate of our entire democracy briefly rested in the hands of Mike Pence is bad enough in and of itself
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Don’t give them any ideas.