Regarding a 3,000 person John McCain rally in Denver:
Half a dozen protesters interrupted McCain several times with chants about rights for the disabled. Each time, the crowd drowned them out with louder chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
When police led the group away, including two people in wheelchairs, the arena erupted in angry boos and catcalls. McCain held out his hands to try to calm the crowd.
There is so much going on in this story that I don’t even know where to begin. So what we have here is a group of 6 protesters, 2 of whom were in wheelchairs. And they were protesting on behalf of people with disabilities. I’d like to know a little bit more about why these people were targeting John McCain … for as much time as I’ve spent reading about this election, I’ve never heard that people in wheelchairs had a bone to pick with either of the candidates. Regardless, I would say in polite company, a pissed-off dude in a wheelchair probably deserves a tiny bit of sympathy.
But the fact that the crowd didn’t hear them out politely isn’t really what gets me. What gets me is how the crowd responded — by chanting “U.S.A.” Why “U.S.A.”? This concept is so fascinating to me that I started creating a list of discussion points in my head as soon as I read it, which I will share with you now. Prepare to be dazzled by some deep philosophical shit!
Point 1. If you chant the name of your country at a rally, you believe your country is the best country in the world. Which is a perfectly legitimate thing to believe — as long as you have something to compare it to. Imagine, for instance, the person who had never eaten a single hamburger besides the Big Mac. Not a Whopper, not an In n’ Out Burger, not even a burger off the grill. And that person was so committed to the Big Mac, he refused to even consider the possibility that another kind of hamburger might taste better. That person would seem pretty close-minded, right? And yet, for some reason, there is a great big percentage of the country who thinks when it comes to politics, there is nothing wrong with blind allegiance.
I would love to know if anyone who had immigrated to America had ever taken part in a U.S.A. chanting mob. It would make sense to me that the people who love America the most would probably be people who moved here from elsewhere, right? Because they’ve actually made the choice to leave someplace else and become citizens of America. Would the U.S.A. chanting mob agree with me? Almost certainly, they would not. Which brings me to my second point:
Point 2. Inherent in the U.S.A. chant is the idea that it’s not enough to live in America — one most also have been born in America. And if you believe that you are somehow special for being born in America, then you also believe that you were chosen to be born as you are. It is not an accident that you are a white male from Denver; it is god’s will. People who were born in other countries, therefore, are fulfilling god’s plan by being less than those of us who were chosen to be born in the United States. And by this reasoning, you could say everything is god’s will, including the time you slammed your finger in the car door, the genocide in Darfur, and the unopposed deliciousness of the Big Mac.
So then, if at the end of the day you believe that god chose you to live in America and god chose America to be the best country on Earth and god punished all the other people in every other country in the world to suffer by having to live without individual freedom in some horrible backwards place then what the hell are you doing hanging out at a rally chanting “U.S.A.”? If god is in control of every aspect of life, then why don’t you sit this one out and let god take over?
Point 3. When the U.S.A. chant is used to drown out others, the chanters are setting up an opposition between whatever those others are doing and the concept of America. So if one side says, “support the rights of people with disabilities!” and the other side responds by saying, “U.S.A.,” then you are saying A) protest is opposed to your idea of America and B) people with disabilities are opposed to your idea of America. And if your idea of America is that everything about it, including your existence, is preordained by god, then your chant is really saying that people in wheelchairs who protest your presidential candidate are against god. But hasn’t god put them there, too?
And this gets to the heart of the matter that is so mind-boggling to me. If you ask any U.S.A. chanter to explain why he or she is so pro-America, that U.S.A. chanter would probably tell you “freedom.” Yet in my conception, freedom means the ability to make choices. Clearly, your chants of “U.S.A.” to the wheelchair-bound protester is not meant as a sign of solidarity — as in, “God bless you for exercising your ability to make choices in the correct venue.” It is meant to say, “you are opposed to what we stand for, which is freedom.”
No matter how much I think about it, I keep running up against the same mental wall. There’s no doubt that these people believe god chose for them to be born as white males in Denver. If you have even a tiny bit of doubt that your birth was preordained, then you’re bringing into question the existence of god, period. Because if god doesn’t determine who you will be and how you are born, then what does? Random chance? Then you’d have to believe that you could have just as easily been born a Muslim in Iraq, thus calling into question your entire America-centric world view. Clearly, you were chosen to be born a white male in Denver.
So okay, then let’s say that god determines when and where and how you’re going to be born, but after that, it’s up to you to make the right choices that fit into god’s plans. In this scenario, people do have free will. But, dig this: if everything you do has to fit god’s plans, then anyone who chooses the other path is making the wrong choice. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if we didn’t have freedom? God has set up a bunch of rules that we have to live by. He clearly thinks America’s the best, Christianity’s the one true religion, abortion is wrong, homosexuals are wicked, and fossil fuels should be taken out of the earth and used to run our cars. So when it comes to how we live our lives, there is really only one correct choice … and all other possible choices should be made illegal.
I guess the only thing I can see as freedom within this world view is our ability to choose things like consumer products and cell phone plans. God is totally cool with us exercising our right to choose between Clorox and Tide. As long as they don’t give any money to causes He’s not into.
In closing, god bless America!
