But the term fascist just needs a little PR?

For those confused about this, it is an offshoot of the comments to this post.

I suppose that I get to start by denying -- as I've never been even remotely close to having to deny before -- that I'm a Nazi. The actual Nazi's were evil and the mental midgets who play at Nazism in the US, though they can be dangerous, are wholly contemptible. But does that mean that we should abandon the word "nationalism" to them? No, it doesn't.

OJ says that words matter, and so they do. But they only matter because the ideas that they embody matter. It is trite to say that the United States, unique among the nations, was first an idea before it was a nation. That idea made the nation, and that is the key to America.

My son was set last week to learn the Declaration of Independence, or at least the first two paragraphs, by heart so I've been reciting it over and over. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected it with another...." Notice that the people of the united States are one people, and the people of Great Britain are a seperate people. This is the revolutionary idea; that out of many disparate peoples we shall form, as Lincoln said, one nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Lincoln closes his speech by speaking to American nationalism:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

There are other words we can use to describe our dedication to the nation: American exceptionalism, for example, or patriotism. The Nazi's nationalism, a nationalism of blood, is to be abhored, and so perhaps we should put aside the word. I suspect, though, that the campaign against the word "nationalism" is part of the left's project to convince us that we are not exceptional, that American patriotism is mere chauvinism, that there is no special Providence for the United States. That, I reject completely.

Any man can be my brother, and any woman my sister. All they need do is join in the American project: To help make more perfect and more secure the American nation.

Bravo, David.

For the left, the word nationalism is probably indistinct from nativism. It has become a slur (as we have seen with patriotism). The dimwits who appropriate it (like our Nazi wannabe) are equally as ignorant. He just kept the party name about 3 words too short, and put American in front.

He would have done better to call his group the Pitchfork party. He might even have picked up an endorsement from a dabbler at Presidential politics.

It is a special sickness that drives an 11 year-old to change his name.

Thanks, David.

Bart should have some choice advice for this guy.

KOF almost sounds like an abbreviation for kartoffeln (German for potato). The Potato Party! I like it. But the Irish may take offense.

joe:

Very much the point.

Perhaps I missed this in the other thread, but why use the obviously tainted word "nationalism," when we have the word "patriotism" that fits nicely in its place?

Additionally, "nationalism," if taken along with "racism" and "sexism" sounds like it means "thinking poorly of other nations." Patriotism has no such connotations here in the States, outside of academia, anyway.

David:

Why are you denying it now? It's not a question of Nazism but of vocabulary.

The idea that all men are created equal is, of course, anithetical to nationalism.

Timothy: If we don't fight for "nationalism", they will come for "patriotism." Besides which, "nationalism" better expresses our pride in our nation and our devotion to her ideals.

OJ: That all men are created equal is the ideal that made our nation. It is that ideal, and the other essential American ideas, that define the nation. This is particularly important to those of us who support immigration. Immigration should never be allowed to change the essential nature of the nation.

For a nation that is defined by being white, or Protestant, than obviously mass immigration by people who are brown, or Muslim, Catholic or Jewish, is an essential change and will be resisted. But for our nation, the essential characteristic is allegiance to the national mythos. Anyone can come here and be an American, but there must be a distinction between an American and a non-American, or we will necessarily lose our distinctive national character.

I'm left with the question about why you care so much. Is it simply that you think the use of the word ill-advised, but otherwise agree with me? Your reaction seems a little outsized for that. I've teased you about this for, geez, almost four years now, but let me ask straight out: Do you see the United States as an instrument for bringing on the Millenium; that is, for rescuing the remaking the world in our essential image?

Yes, nationalism doesn't proceed from ideals. It has no character. Immigration is always anathema to nationalism. It is a word with no value for conservatives.

Yes, the United States is merely an instrument, not an end in itself.

Thus, this is not mere semantics, as "nationalism" captures something in which I believe that you do not believe. The United States, properly understood, is an end in itself. We wish the rest of the world well, but their salvation is in their own hands.

Yes, if you think salvation can come from your nation then you are a nationalist. And, obviously, it can make no difference what sort of nation it is.

I believe that the nation only has value to the extent that it vindicates the Founding principles. One that conforms to them is worthwhile.

David,

'Patriotism' comes to us from the Latin 'Patria' meaning 'land' or 'country', while 'Nationalism' is from the Latin 'natio', meaning 'nation' or 'tribe.'

America is most definitely a place but the American people are most definitely not a nation or tribe. We are an assembly of different folks of different backgrounds sharing a common set of ideals. What makes one an American is not whether one is born here or has a specific ethnicity but whether one subscribes to those ideals. Thus, the immigrant who comes across the Rio Grande in the dark of night and works three jobs to make a go of things, follows the law, raises a family that contributes is a better American than David Duke.

'Nation' requires us to have a more Volkist concept of Americanism than would ever be appropriate.

There is nothing Millenarian about this view. Simply, we have a model for other nations to emulate or reject as they see fit. Our problems with other nations are less about how they govern themselves, than about how they affect our interests across the globe, how they may threaten our security. Normally but not always, societies that freely elect their leaders will not engage in the kind of military adventurism which can be threatening to us. It strains credulity to think that a democratic DPRK would be building nukes while making the voters subsist on boiled grass.

David:

I can never forgive you for making me agree with bart.

OJ: Bart does seem to think that he's agreeing with you, but his arguments are mine.

I agree, obviously, with the derivation of patriotism and nationalism. That just underscores why we are nationalists. None of us are from this land, and we are in fact the most mobile, least land bound of nations. We are a nation defined by our shared set of ideals. Obviously, immigrants can't come in and simply become of the patria in countries who care about that sort of thing. The Koreans in Japan, for example, are considered Koreans regardless of how many generations have been born or died. Immigrants can easily come in and adopt our ideals and become American even if they are not citizens.

Bart says that nationalism has a volkist component, but that's what I deny. Nazism, obviously, did have a volkist component but nationalism need not. The point, and I find myself becoming more and more wedded to it, is that a good nation has a good nationalism, just as an evil nation has an evil nationalsim. The war against the very concept of nationalism, though, comes from the left, which wishes to break down the very concept of the nation-state so that we can all live in international harmony. But which facet of America are we willing to give up in order to join some EU writ large? I'm not willing to give up any, because I am a nationalist.

The pay-off is Bart's statement that: Simply, we have a model for other nations to emulate or reject as they see fit. Our problems with other nations are less about how they govern themselves, than about how they affect our interests across the globe, how they may threaten our security. That is nationalism. We are a nation. There exist "other nations." We are different from them and our concern with them is "how they affect our interests across the globe, how they may threaten our security." In other words, we do it right, they do it wrong, but that's ok as long as they don't get in our way. A nice concise statement of American nationalism.

But it doesn't much matter what our nation is or where or how big or how little. Anyplace can be as good or better than America by fulfilling its purposes. Only Canada can be Canadian.

That's a nice theological question, but the pragmatic answer is that America could only have happened in North America in the 17th and 18th centuries.

except that it had already happened in Britain.

No, that's a completely seperate delusion.

Yet Britain existed and the colonists demanded their rights as British citizens. Not getting them they created an America that guarded them.