Why are people who are Anti- Bush accused as being Anti-American?

Question

As a citizen of the United States I have every right to make grievances about the government and the way it’s managed. Some people argued that it’s a disgrace to bash your president. Personally, I don’t support anything that Bush does, but I still love this nation.

Answer 1

Yes, that bothers me too. We have a right to free speech in this country thanks to our constitution, and should be allowed to voice our opinion without being accused of hating our country. Some people just need to lighten up.

Answer 2

The following quote might help enlighten you:

"Naturally, the common people don't want war...but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a parliament, or a fascist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country"

Do you know who said that? No, it wasn't George W. Bush. He would like to think he came up with the idea, but he's not that eloquent. Those are the words of Nazi general Hermann Goering. How do you feel knowing that our government is using tactics they learned from the Nazis to stay in power? I long for the days when we had presidents who felt more like this:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, 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 any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

-- Theodore Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 149
May 7, 1918

Answer 3

I guess my problem is why do you care what people accuse you of? Why do you care so much what other people think when you don't even know them? If I said that to you would you be offended? Do you have any clue how much power I have over you if you were offended? I mean, the only thing we control in this world is ourselves. Nothing else. If I can make you mad or irritate you with a couple of words I have all the control and you gave it to me. Is this something you want? I don't think so. By the way, I think you have every right to complain about the government and the president, just remember that I also have a right to complain.

Answer 4

I stand firmly beside you on this one! I am a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, an American, and a voter. i love this country and it's people. yet I think that Bush is the worst President I've ever seen in this country. He's even worst than his father. He's done nothing but fund a war!

Answer 5

Democracy depends on dissent to exist. I have a few quotes that show what they are up to and just how wrong they are:

Hermann Goering, second in command of the Third Reich and key founder of the Nazi party, said; “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger”.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
__Josef Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

Quotes regarding Patriotism
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else"
- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

Ben Franklin quote
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Robert Hutchins - Great Books, 1954

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Edward Abbey, Patriotism quotes:
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Declaration of Independence, Patriotism quotes:
But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Patriotism quotes:
Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.

Thomas Jefferson, Patriotism quotes:
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Sidney Hook, Patriotism quotes:
To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

Answer 6

You have absolutely every right to disagree with the President, his administration, his policies, etc...

When it becomes sedition is when your hatred of the President becomes so all-encompassing that you become an apologist for those who are killing US troops, and smugly approve US combat deaths as a political weapon to use against the President.

I have no idea of you personally are one of the people I am describing, but you and I both know it happens. We read those types of Qs and As on here everyday. Many might not come right out and openly cheer for US military deaths, but the ghoulish, almost gleeful daily count of the war dead is evidence of what I'm talking about.

Sadly, many on the left have forgotten the ancient concept of Loyal Opposition.

Answer 7

They probably don't know what America is about. I love to complain. I complain all the time about Clinton when he was President. I will complain about the next president for being incompetent. It's the American way. To sit ourselves infront of the TV and whine about the condition of our world.

Answer 8

Because it is the only way they know how to shut you up. Discredit you as an Anti American for voicing grave concerns about Bushes behavior and your point is turned from something that is truth into something that is alienated in one foul swoop. The words Anti American conjures up visions of terrorists and that is what they want purely to shut you up because they have no real grounds on which to challenge you.

Answer 9

The projected image of the educated liberal and the progressive as the enemy is a well-thought out project decades in the making. Media talking heads and corporate-state "news" constantly castigate liberals as being the problem. Any view, and anyone, left of the neo-conservative agenda is demonized as preventing the populace from moving forward. The meaning of life is pre-ordained and liberals are demons in opposition. Egos sharing common cause rally into action. They squash dissent and orchestrating media events by screening out and hint of opposition. This regime's fascist elements know exactly what they are doing. With the takeover of most radio, television and newspapers by sympathetic corporations the co-optation of public opinion is complete. It exceeds Goebbels' success in shepherding his flock to orchestrated conclusions. "We the people" thus know who to blame for being stuck unable to move forward. We do not see our president and his fascist leaning team as being responsible for any problem. The liberal is. The progressive is. The intellectual is. The environmentalist is. The anti-war activist is. The pro-choice people are. The atheist is. The socialist is. The communist is. The terrorist is. Take your pick. Anyone other than the regime is to blame.

Answer 10

That's a typical Nazi approach, openly advertised by Nazis - label anyone who thinks differently an enemy and instill fear in everyone else. Tells a lot about Dumbya and his followers, and his propaganda parrots, like O'Rilley or Rush. Just look at Francis a few sports above me. Everything different from his brainwashed licking of Dumbya's butt is "unamerican."

Answer 11

During wartime people are sensitive.

Everyone believes that their political views are what's best for the country: therefore they're pro-American.

Those who oppose them are viewed as anti-American in their eyes.

Also, it's much easier to deal with someone you disagree with by margenalizing their. By making them seem disrespectful to our nation, we make them seem very bad and not worth listening to.

It's very manipulative, and we are all capable of it.