Duck Season

Bryon Scott links to a Daily Telegraph story concerning one MP George Galloway. Galloway, who has been accused of accepting funds from Saddam's regime, was officially expelled from the Labour Party for comments he made on Abu Dhabi television before Operation Iraqi Freedom:

In what the party interpreted as incitement to attack British forces, Mr Galloway said: "Iraq is fighting for all the Arabs. Where are the Arab armies?" After a two-day hearing, a panel from Labour's national constitutional committee decided this breached rules making it an offence to act in a manner "grossly detrimental" to the party.

the Labour Party denies that Galloway was expelled for anything related to Saddam.

This was not a unanimous decision within the Labour Party:

Alice Mahon, an anti-war Labour MP, said the "stupid" expulsion would be seen as "an attack on free speech".

On Thursday I attended a panel discussion on the "Future of Patriotism" at UMass Boston. A former professor of mine gave a very insightful discussion about the construction of the word "patriotism", her only flaw being that perhaps she was too philosophical and discussed only the roles she has observed the word play without actually commenting upon her preferences for the term. (Something to be learned here, philosophers comment while political scientists complain?)

An English professor talked about how it is a mistake for the Left to move beyond nationalism, because it is only through the vocabulary and ideology of the Nation State can Patriotism be understood and put to use. Sounds like a pretty sound argument, right? Well, he seemed to then proceed to disavow any fondness for Patriotism, thus earning him the Senator Splunge award for endorsing something he would never defend.

I can't remember what department the other professor was from, but his argument was basically that Patriotism is often corrupted, so it takes a new brand of Patriots to tell the truth and expose the lies of those who would take us into war because Patriotism is always used to bring about violence, except when it's used by people who want to stop (American) violence and prevent awful things like Gulf War I from happening (His example. Really.) He is very fearful of being called unpatriotic for not wanting to bomb something, even though he's clearly insinuating it is very unpatriotic to want to bomb something.

This brings me to my point: the discussion after the panel was very tame, most people either agreed all too much with the panel to question them, or they had to scurry off to class or something. My one objection was that the panel wasn't worrying about Patriotism per se, they were clearly fearful of policies they disagreed with. Liars were their villains, not patriots. My comments didn't really go over that well. Everyone was clearly of the opinion that the media and the Powers That Be were propelling a wave of corrupt political force through imagery (Why else would they call it the PATRIOT Act? WHY?), and that this was fostering a climate of fear and hysteria.

I've found that James Taranto refutes this argument the best: "the endless chatter about the suppression of dissent is simply laughable, coming as it does from people who speak freely and suffer no consequences for it"

A challenge to the liberal blogosphere: produce evidence of persons who have actually been persecuted for "speaking out" against the current "regime".