unAmerican Revolution

How would you define unAmerican?

A question came up on a forum recently, asking how I would define “unAmerican.” For context, here is a link to the article that sparked this question. Ron Paul proud to be unAmerican, you bet your ass he is!

What does it mean to be unAmerican, anyway?

The word unAmerican is a word coined by political strategists and abused by politicians to derail –if not completely obliterate– any momentum a politician has that poses as an obstacle to achieving specific policy goals. Giuliani tried the strategy against Ron Paul to his detriment. At what point does accusing dissenters of treason become “unAmerican?”.

“unAmerican” used in the Rudy Giuliani context –and recall Republicans did this to democrats in 2004– is nothing more than a continuation of the “You’re either with us or against us” political school of thought.

One more time for the politically challenged among us!

In other words, the word is a political ploy intended to smear an opponent’s reputation in one of the most vile political strategies conceived of since McCarthyism was in! With the fall of the Soviet Union, and an end to the McCarthy era, political brains had to find creative ways to ruin reputations of their political adversaries and a few did it without breaking a sweat!

Consider the damage that Joseph McCarthy did to the accused until it was decided that he was a nut job and had no credibility to stand on? The brilliance of this strategy is that its nothing more than recycling old tactics, Republican strategists were no doubt history buffs, and it paid off marvelously for them in the past, but it won’t last forever.

unAmerican is really just another word for a dissenting opinion.

History buffs and educated Americans know that this country was built on a strong foundation of dissent. The constitution of the United States is one giant in-your-face symbol of dissent, yet today dissent is treated as treason by some. Some of our greatest American minds were opposed to”true American ideals”, among them included Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, Henry David Thoreau, and Antoine Scalia will join Oliver Wendell Holmes, otherwise known as “the great dissenter“ who helped shape American jurisprudence.

Here are some relevant quotes and passages on dissent and war that I found online, enjoy!

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said

• “Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
• “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. “
• “The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
• “Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.- from a Presidential campaign speech, Time Magazine, 10/6/52″
• “The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law. - from an address on the first observance of Law Day, 5/5/58″
• “I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”

Benjamin Franklin once said

• “Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it. “
• “The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs, of his neighbor.”
• “Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He who is content. Who is that? Nobody.”

Book to read: “Why societies need dissent” Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures
More on dissent: “Dissent is American“:

Henry David Thoreau, also protesting the war with Mexico, refused to pay a poll tax because he could not in good conscience support an imperialistic government that sought to expand the institution of slavery into new territory. He was arrested and later, after his release, he wrote his influential essay:

On Resistance to Civil Government

When there is an unjust law, Thoreau wrote, like laws legalizing the institution of slavery, then it is the duty of every just man to break that law. A true patriot would not allow injustice to stand. Thoreau’s friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, visited him the night he spent in jail. Henry, he asked, somewhat scandalized by Thoreau’s outrageous behavior, what are you doing in there? To which Thoreau purportedly replied, Ralph, what are you doing out there?

Theodore Roosevelt, not a man ever to shun a military solution to a crisis, was so critical of Woodrow Wilson’s policies during the Great War that he attacked those who claimed it was wrong to oppose a president in time of war.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, Roosevelt contended, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about anyone else.

Protests of the 1960s against American policies on racism, feminism and war [were] expressed by such prominent dissenters as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Stokeley Carmichael, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Tom Hayden, Mario Savio, Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem, and countless others. All of these individuals believed they were acting in the American tradition for the American people. They were fully dedicated to the ideals of American democracy and believed that they must resist all those who strove to limit democracy. As a consequence they helped shape the nature of our society. Anti-War activist Carl Oglesby hit the nail squarely on the head when he said in 1968 that we’ve come to the point where Democracy is considered a radical idea.

The English colonies in North America were founded on dissent, and almost immediately after religious dissenters arrived in Massachusetts Bay voices of protest rose up against the puritan authorities. Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams were banished for their views during the first decade of settlement. Let us also remember the patriots who fought the American Revolution to establish independence from a government that was not responsive to the needs of its colonial subjects, and reflect on the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. None of this was accomplished without a great deal of debate, dissent, protest, argument, resistance. None of it was easy. But somehow we did evolve into a country of the people, by the people, for the people.  Or did we?
Albert Einstein once said

• Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.

Winston Churchill once said

• Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
• An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
• Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
• Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
• The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
Email this author | All posts by Fred Soto