PrintOctober 22, 2007
NYT: 'Ain't That America?'
An editorial in the New York Times nakedly displays the paper's contempt for those who disagree with its worldview. Entitled "Ain't that America?", the Times' narcissistic view of America as composed of vile and mean-spirited racists, in need of restraint by enlightened New York Times true believers, who surely really are the real Americans.
The lede paragraph is a classic of breast-beating about America's evil:
Think of America's greatest historical shames. Most have involved the singling out of groups of people for abuse. Name a distinguishing feature - skin color, religion, nationality, language - and it's likely that people here have suffered unjustly for it, either through the freelance hatred of citizens or as a matter of official government policy.
But all is not lost. The Times acknowledges near the end of the piece that
Americans are a practical and generous people, with a tolerant streak a mile wide. But there is a combustible strain of nativism in this country, and it takes only a handful of match tossers to ignite it.
The subject matter of this piece almost doesn't matter, because the same viewpoint would hold for a range of issues. The wrong sort of people (you know who I mean: the kind of people you should get vaccinated against if you have to visit one of their large gatherings) need lecturing about immigration today, so they are called nativists. Tomorrow it might be fundamentalists or free market extremists.
Ed Lasky adds:
That is such a wonderful view of America to wake up to on a Monday morning. No nation is without blemishes-but if America was so ridden with xenophobia and hatred, why do immigrants keep streaming to our shores? The use of language is over the top: A "reckless campaign of home invasions"? "Mythically air tight border"? Have we tried such a border barrier? Such a security barrier seems to work quite well.
