Samuel Johnson once said: Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.?
Answer:
I absolutely agree. Everyone who has disagreed with the President has been called unpatriotic, even certified war heroes. I think it's cowardly, shameful and unamerican.
smart man, i guess. he was an english poet, i believe.
Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel on the evening of April 7, 1775. He doesn't provide any context for how the remark arose, so we don't really know for sure what was on Johnson's mind at the time.
However, Boswell assures us that Johnson was not indicting patriotism in general, only false patriotism.
He can't be right all the time.
You are hiding behind the flag
Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self- interest.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson
There's a misleading syllogism apparently hiding in those words for many uncareful readers. Let's tease the syllogism apart:
I am a patriot.
Patriots are all scoundrels.
Therefore, I am a scoundrel.
When you read the sentence carefully, you'll find that Johnson made no such claim. A refuge is not necessarily a place for all like-minded people. Actually, if we use a little set theory, we could argue persuasively that:
There is a set of people who are patriots.
Some scoundrels like to claim they are members of that set in order to burnish their reputations.
Those scoundrels aren't really patriots.
That is a much closer, and IMHO, a much more accurate reading of the meaning of the quote.
Samuel Johnson was an interesting person with a way with words. However, while patriotism may be a ruse to hide behind, it can also be sincere.
Personally, I think globalism is bad for the individual worldwide to the extent they aren't rich. It fragments bargaining units in society, so to speak.
I have nothing against patriotism.
Samuel Johnson was a drunk.
Do some history research.
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...
There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1919
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