Alex Massie ponders the question. Myself, I don't care what they say or do--"they" are a bunch of troglodyte enemies of freedom whose outsized envy of a success motivates them, not to try to surpass our achievement, but only to tear down ours. I will never denounce, much less renounce, the proud franchise I was born to. Nor will I permit others to do so in my presence. And no matter what Alex may argue, I will never, ever bring myself to believe that a rank political opportunist like Hillary Clinton could possibly get us out of the mess we are in.
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Why do they hate us?
11 Oct 2007 07:59 am
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Comments (34)
If Hillary Clinton is an opportunist, what does that make Mitt Romney? Or John McCain? Or Rudy Giuliani, a recent convert to judicial originalism? As for Isocrates, what leftists don't believe we face a threat?
Er, did either of you guys actually click through the link?
(apropos of nothing, my dad thought that the rise of mercenary contracts spelled the end of all that we hold dear. But then again, he never liked Reggie Jackson when he played for the A's, either)
Just remember, folks...If you don't vote for Hillary, then you're a knuckle-dragging bastard who hates women.
If there is no Hillary bumper sticker on your car, then you obviously have a lime pit in your basement filled with hookers and smart assertive women who can do your job blindfolded while raising 2.3 children.
If you cannot produce a large cardboard box filled with canceled checks made out to the DNC, then you are probably trying to build a time machine to travel back to February 15,1820, so you can strangle Susan B. Anthony in her crib.
Ever hear of Lysistrata? Well that's nothing compared to what you'll get (or NOT get) if Hillary isn't crowned, er elected President.
So vote Hillary and no one gets hurt.
never visited here b4.....
cute
a short putt from clever
your personal
road to hayekian smurfdom
well rutted with iron rims
i suspect i'll decide
the sites not worth two more visits
If Hillary is elected, we need to convince her that the continued existence of Islamofacism will be a threat to her re-election.
Problem solved?
Proto-Socialist screed comes to sportswriting--No wonder TNR is trying to give away its magazine.
Something tells me that A. Massie has an, as yet, unrequited desire to become the Handicapper General.
Ahrrr. This country's been going downhill since they came up with damned designated hitter!!!
Where is Cactus? Just when you really need someone to post a graph showing whether the Yankees do better under Democratic administrations,[*] he goes awol.
[*] Which would in turn draw a delightful explanation of the lag time caused by the farm team system from Megan, I am sure.
I'm usually a supporter of yours, Megan, but this comment seems particularly obtuse, and pretty well sums up the problems with the Bush strategy (and also, by contrast, the far-left strategy) for the GWOT:
"Myself, I don't care what they say or do--"they" are a bunch of troglodyte enemies of freedom whose outsized envy of a success motivates them, not to try to surpass our achievement, but only to tear down ours."
The question "why" strikes me as pretty crucial to defeating terrorism, particularly for strategic purposes. Both your answer and Alex's answer are far too simplistic and show a general unwillingness to make a real inquiry.
Fact is, if we give the wrong answer to the question "Why do they hate us?", then we run the real risk of creating more of "them." It's also pretty apparent that there is not just one group of "them", but several, each of which presents a different type of threat and/or challenge, and each of which requires a different response.
For some, a well-tailored military response certainly makes sense because it will kill more of "them" than it creates. For other groups, containment will be more effective, for others it may be best to just ignore them, and for some it may even be the case that they have a pretty good point (though this group is likely to be the least violent).
Hey, y'all, it might be better to read the link before commenting.
J Mann . . . touche
Sorry- I read the article, but misinterpreted your comment. I stink.
But that doesn't change the fact that the Yankee mercenary Roger Clemens committed two unprovoked and intentional acts of imperialist aggression against the Mets' democratically elected leader, Mike Piazza. Nor does it change the fact that the Yankees and their satellite fans act as imperialistic bullies when they attempt to prohibit less-prosperous franchises from obtaining appropriate music for their closer. And, finally, it does nothing to change the problems caused by their McDonaldization of territory owned by smaller franchises with particularly proud cultural traditions.
It is typical arrogance for Megan to claim her opponents merely seek to tear down others' achievement rather than surpass it. Recent events have shown that even a rag-tag Tribe from the hinterlands can bring her empire to its knees. These defeats have shown the folly of sending high-paid, recently-acquired mercenaries to battle young talent carefully nurtured from their youth to carry true passion in their hearts.
Having been born into the other franchise, I've been taught to hate your franchise. However, in recent years, I've come to see many redeeming qualities in the people that work for and support your franchise. I've even come to appreciate some of their actions. Nevertheless, the overarching dominant indifferenece towards others that your franchise represents is something that continues to attract my abhorrence. The leader of your franchise is a miscreant and the true troglodyte. He alone is a symbol of all that is wrong with your franchise, greed, lack of appreciation for nuances, and utter arrogance. Buy that man a muzzle!
Niall makes a good point about Megan's "King George." The tragic events of 9/11 turned the hearts of even the most ardent haters and brought George and his followers sympathy and solidarity. "King George" squandered an unprecedented opportunity to lead with grace and to work toward a system of fairness and equality of opportunity for all, and has instead brought disaster and failure, and earned the rightful scorn of millions (billions?) worldwide.
You mean you're a Patriot's fan?
Whoops, should have clicked through the link.
Like the United States (to extend the metaphor), the Yankees are hated for a variety of reasons that vary from place to place.
In Kansas City, the Yankees are hated in part because in the 1950's the Yankees treated the Kansas City A's like a farm team, working sweetheart trades for the good young players developed by the A's in exchange for washouts and has-beens the Yankees wanted to get rid of. Arguably this contributed to the Yankee dynasty in the 50's.
The modern Yankees are hated not so much for their success as for the perception of how they achieved that success. If there were no free agency and/or no Yankee money imagine the following teams:
The Phillies with Bobby Abreu in right field instead of Shane Victorino (though I dearly love the Flyin' Hawaiian);
The Mariners with A-Rod at short instead of Yuniesky Betancourt;
The Orioles with Mike Mussina in the rotation instead of Steve Trachsel;
The Kansas City Royals with Johnny Damon in left instead of Emil Brown;
Speaking of Damon, how about the Boston Red Sox with Johnny Damon in center instead of Cuckoo for Coco Crisp;
And so on. The ability of the Yankees to spend oodles of cash to buy other teams' star players off the free agent market rather than having to rely on signing and developing their own players (which, as Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano, and Phil Hughes prove the Yankees are as capable of doing as any other team) has created a vast storehouse of resentment. Combined with the arrogance of George Steinbrenner (which may perfectly exemplify the attitude of New Yorkers, don't get me wrong), I think it's no surprise that there are a lot of Yankee-haters out there who rejoice when the Yankees go one-and-done in the playoffs they keep trying to buy their way into.
The stink of money taints their every success.
Speaking of the Red Sox, how about the Seibu Lions with Daisuke Matsuzaka as their ace pitcher instead of Fumiya Nishiguchi.
I'm a Red Sox fan, but there's nothing the Yankees do that they don't.
Should have written "Patriots" above. Don't know where that apostrophe came from.
If Megan's a Yankee fan, does she have one of those cheesy little mustaches most of them sport?
One more time - Yankee fans root for the warden in prison movies.
Liberalrob- thanks for salvaging my idiocy.
Continuing on:
The Rangers fans hate the Yankees because the Yankees continue to extort money from their franchise in order to pay for the Yankees' most precious and underappreciated resource.
The Royals, Marlins and D-Rays fans for either: Failing to provide sufficient foreign aid to provide an opportunity to live a reasonable existence (thus assuring the Yankees a cheap pool of labor) OR providing aid to these franchises with too many strings attached (thus forcing these franchises to spend their money in ways that do not adequately account for the local fan environment).
Phillies fans because, well, they hate everybody (think of Philadelphia fans as the sports world's version of France)
No, MLJ, I had to shave it off and sell the hair in order to help my relatives in Boston pay for new "Jeter has AIDS" signs to wave at their recent outing against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Who can follow baseball these days? I haven't had a favorite team since my team left Brooklyn.
Hahaha...glad others pointed out that Megan was talking baseball, dudes.
I watched the first Bad News Bears movie again a couple of months ago for the first time since I was a kid, and I was struck that it was no coincidence that the villainous team in the movie was the Yankees.
There was a minor tempest when LeBron James showed up for the first game of the ALDS at Jacobs Field in a Yankees cap. It was puzzling to me, because the guy grew up in Akron during an era when the Indians were worth rooting for, even for front-runner types. Clevelanders, to their credit, seemed to take it in stride.
I'm a lifelong Indians fan, even during the dark days of the 70's and 80's when being one was more-or-less futile. I always thought that that if someone's a Yankees/Cowboys/Lakers/Raiders/Celtics/Steelers fan with no connection to the region that those teams played in, that said something about the person--namely that he was a tool.
No, MLJ, I had to shave it off and sell the hair in order to help my relatives in Boston pay for new "Jeter has AIDS" signs to wave at their recent outing against the Toronto Blue Jays.
That is awful! Jeets has herpes, not AIDS.
OK, I read the link.
Would you believe my comment was 'inside baseball'?
(I didn't think so...)
Hey, y'all, it might be better to read the link before commenting.
I was in a hurry this morning. I thought this was a substantive post on foreign policy--instead it's another of these fluffy "My friends tell me how good I look in white jeans" posts. I try to ignore those.
I used to think Megan was a serious libertarian writer; I've come to see that she's a flaky liberal who sometimes has sensible things to say about economic policy. Thats okay, but it certainly takes this blog out of the Mankiw/Becker-Posner league.
Woody Bombay quotes and writes: "No, MLJ, I had to shave it off and sell the hair in order to help my relatives in Boston pay for new "Jeter has AIDS" signs to wave at their recent outing against the Toronto Blue Jays.
That is awful! Jeets has herpes, not AIDS."
Of course, everyone knows that. A-Rod's the one with AIDS.
Isocrates, with all due respect to Megan, why would you have ever thought her writing would belong in the same league as Becker / Posner (Nobel prize winning economist and extremely well-regarded intellectual federal judge) or Mankiw (former Chairman of the CEA and Harvard economics professor)? I mean, which bloggers *would* be in that league?
Note that I say this as a fan of Megan's writing, if not always her politics.
I just want to say, I oppose suicide bombings against the Yankees. It's an awful waste of resources that could better go into carbombing the Yankees.
One again you typify corporate-controlled, rightist bias. Right coast, that is. Go Rockies!!!
A wise man once said, "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack."
A not-so-wise, but very funny man summed up his feelings for the Bombers as follows, "If the Yankees were playing the Mass Murderer All-Stars with Hitler on the mound, I'd be rooting for Der Fuherer to strike out Jeter."
So the rank political opportunists in the GOP will get us out?
A wise man once said, "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack."
And here I always thought that the quote was "rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel".
Not that many people would get that joke anymore. Dunno what you'd update it to.
Hi folks
| 
I will never, ever bring myself to believe that a rank political opportunist like Hillary Clinton could possibly get us out of the mess we are in.
Every now and then Megan suprises me pleasantly. This is evidently one of her better mornings. I agree that Hillary is not the best person to take on our enemies. She is too beholden to the leftists who don't want to believe we face much of a threat at all. And, like her husband, she is too willing to sacrifice principle for approval ratings.
It's possible that she would be okay on foreign policy though. Unlikely, but possible.
Posted by Isocrates | October 11, 2007 8:28 AM