Don’t Accuse Me of Blaming America When I Blame the Government
By Robert Higgs • Sunday January 2, 2011 5:20 PM PDT • 44 Comments
In discourse about public affairs, words matter much more than most people appreciate. We live immersed in language so twisted and abused, in part by the design of interested parties and in part by the sloth of inattentive speakers and listeners, that we often fail to notice or object to linguistic miscarriages that pass for intelligent expression. The examples are legion, but here I have in mind a particular turn of phrase that American conservatives, especially neocons, have employed in recent years as a counterstrike against critics of U.S. foreign and defense policy: They describe such critics as “blaming America” or sometimes as “blaming America first” for attacks against this country or its citizens abroad.
Thus, for example, those who fault U.S. Middle East policies for creating the conditions that caused Muslim fanatics to attack Americans, both at home and overseas, are said to be blaming America for what the policy’s defenders’ take to be the unprovoked acts of terrorists bent on imposing Sharia on the United States, destroying this country’s freedoms, or attaining another such farfetched objective.
Applications to earlier events and policies include use of the expression to fend off the arguments and evidence of those who maintain that the Roosevelt administration waged economic warfare in 1940-41 to provoke a Japanese attack that would justify and lead directly to full-fledged U.S. engagement in World War II; and use of the expression against those who argue that the Truman administration bore at least partial responsibility for the onset of the Cold War. People accused of blaming America are commonly called “America haters.”
Although this riposte to criticism is the rhetorical tactic of first resort for the more simple-minded, flag-waving species of self-anointed patriots, it is by no means their exclusive property. Neocons writing in such elevated outlets as the New York Times and the Washington Post have not been bashful about smearing their critics as people who “blame America.” I noticed this linguistic resort most recently in a commentary by an intelligent, reasonable economist and was shocked that he would embrace this trope while suggesting that “pacifists” and others who criticize U.S. foreign and defense policies are unrealistically imagining that international disputes and warfare can somehow be eliminated from human affairs.
In my view, replying to policy critics by accusing them of “blaming America” is worse than linguistically crude and ideologically twisted; it is stupid.
First, and most important, let us recognize that the U.S. government is not America. Notwithstanding the ease with which politicians and their speechwriters toss around the idea that “American needs X” or “America should do Y,” the word America has so many distinct referents that it is extremely ambiguous. In currently common usage, America may refer to, among other things, the geographic area within U.S. borders; the population residing in this area; the traditions, customs, social practices, and norms that these persons regard as uniquely their own; the ideals that they have long expressed as their foremost aspirations; or a specific group of persons representing the United States in international organizations or competitions (e.g., “America won more medals than any other country in the Olympic games).
Only in discussions of international relations do we automatically understand America to be the same thing as the U.S. government. Thus, when we say that “America entered World War I in 1917,” it is understood that the statement means “U.S. government officials, specifically members of Congress and the president, declared the U.S. government to be at war against the German Empire and its allies in 1917.” And when we say that “America ratified the United Nations Charter in 1945, we mean that “a majority of the members of the U.S. Senate voted in favor of this treaty.”
Notice, however, that if one were to presume that the foregoing use of “America” – that is, the international-relations usage that takes America to be identical to all or part of the U.S. government – were the one being employed, it would make no sense to say that critics of U.S. policy are “blaming America,” because that statement would amount to saying that critics of U.S. government policies are blaming the U.S. government, which is obvious and redundant.
However, it is equally senseless for defenders of U.S. policy to suppose that the policy’s critics are blaming America in any of the senses specified in the third paragraph before this one. Critics are not blaming the geographic area, the resident population, the people’s traditions and customs, or their foremost ideals.
Critics who are said to be “blaming America” are in fact simply blaming the U.S. government, and defenders of the government’s policy who wield this polemical sword are implying either that the government and the people are one and the same or that the government indeed bears responsibility for adopting and implementing the policy in question, but should not be faulted for doing so. Either way, the defenders are standing on quicksand.
The government – the collection of politicians, soldiers, hired bureaucrats, and assorted flunkies who devise and carry out U.S. policies – makes mistakes. Of course, many of the actions and policies that sooner or later are generally regarded as mistakes were not mistakes at all, but merely actions and policies that, contrary to official declarations, did not serve the general public’s interests, although they served well enough the interests of key government officials and their major supporters. But set aside that class of actions. The government makes mistakes even in its attempts to attain objectives it truly seeks to attain. It cannot help but make such mistakes because its decision-makers have limited information, often poor judgment, biases of various sorts in the evaluation of information they do possess, and other shortcomings too numerous to recite.
So, why should anyone suppose that the government simply cannot be mistaken, and hence legitimately criticized for its mistakes? So far as the bulk of the American people are concerned, a great many U.S. foreign and defense policies – from the very beginning of the United States, but especially since the late nineteenth century – have been mistaken. For example, it is very difficult to argue honestly that U.S. engagement in World War I served the general interest of Americans. In ways great and small, Woodrow Wilson’s bid to play the role of global messiah had negative repercussions so horrifying that some of them continue to wreak harm to this day (e.g., the creation of artificial, unsustainable state boundaries in the Middle East). It is similarly difficult to argue that the U.S. war in Vietnam was a positive event for the American people at large. And how can anyone mount a strong argument that U.S. engagement in the Middle East since the early 1950s has not served to antagonize and destabilize the entire region and turn some of its young people into fanatics bent on revenge against Americans? Indeed, for some of us, who are not flying on pro-government autopilot, it seems that the bulk of the more important U.S. foreign and defense policies, particularly in the past hundred years, has been adverse to the general interest of the American people, however hyped up most of those people might have become when the government plunged into unnecessary wars and the people rallied round the flag, at least in the beginning.
Ambrose Bierce observed in The Devil’s Dictionary, “In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.” H. L. Mencken amended Johnson’s dictum by saying, “But there is something even worse: it is the first, last, and middle range of fools.” So, no one who criticizes U.S. foreign and defense policy should feel pushed onto the defensive when told that he is “blaming America” or acting as an “America hater.” Indeed, it might be best if he broke into laughter to indicate that such a response to his criticism betokens either a juvenile mentality or a shameless willingness to serve as a running dog of the U.S. regime.
I hold myself second to none in my adoration of the amber waves of grain and the purple mountain majesties. I revere the ideal that this nation should serve as a beacon of freedom to the world and a refuge for its huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I weep with pride each time I watch the ailing Lou Gehrig tell the crowd at Yankee Stadium, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.” I don’t blame these beautiful, decent, and admirable aspects of America in the least for the chronic failure of U.S. foreign and defense policy to serve the general public interest.
With regard to the fools, mountebanks, unscrupulous opportunists, and psychopaths who have long played the greatest roles in devising and implementing U.S. foreign and defense policy, however, I hold a quite different and decidedly less favorable opinion.
Tags: American History, Defense, Middle East, War 
What bothers me about some of my fellow Americans is that they wave the American flag even though they are highly dissatisfied with the federal government. One example would be Freedom Watch on Fox Business. Judge Napolitano constantly criticizes the Federal government but yet his show’s set has several TV monitors with American flags displayed on them. I think more people need to refer to the American flag as the Federal government flag because federal bureaucrats and politicians constantly display it.
I live in Alabama and there are a good number of houses and cars with American flags on them. It is amazing how southerners have forgiven the federal government for murdering 300,000 of their ancestors in the war between the states. And then the Feds propagandize children by writing biased textbooks that characterize Lincoln into a comic-book like hero.
Ken Camp | Jan 2, 2011 | Reply
The level of argumentation is similar to that of religious argumentation. “The State” is the new religion: http://www.youtube.com/v/S6IZP3yRJ9I
Zirb | Jan 2, 2011 | Reply
The author’s comments expresses all of my thoughts exactly regarding the terrorists actions today, yet when I try to tell my friends that “we might have caused it” by all of our government’s actions since 1900, I get blasted out of the water. This article made me feel much better about my beliefs.
When I participated in supporting Ron Paul’s campaign in 2007-2008, I met some Special Forces men who were permanently back from fighting in the Middle East. I spoke with them each about 30 minutes in my door-knocking walks. They told me they like everything about Ron.....except his foreign policies. After much discussion, which in every case was admirably mutually respectful, we ended up agreeing to disagree agreeably.
I was dismayed. For a country that was born out of a Revolution against a dominating government, we have obviously lost our way.
In our simple way at the Tennessee Liberty Alliance, we are trying to “re-educate” the citizens to overcome the biased text books that Ken Camp mentions.
To Freedom!
Robert Humphries | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
My thoughts, but better expressed than I could.
ralph | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
“the war between the states”
Otherwise known as Treason In Defense of Slavery.
Jeremy In Kansas | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
Defense of slavery might have been true for some southerners, but treason? You’re full of it, Jeremy.
steven | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
Jeremy, please read Lysander Spooner’s A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery. That’s how slavery could have and should have ended. Not by some damn war with a lot of innocent people being killed.
steven | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
Right, Jeremy, because slavery never existed in the Northern states, did it?
Richie | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
I guess you red-neck Confederate Patriots would consider Jeremy an “America Hater” that blames the Southern portion of America for its human rights atrocities and murder of innocent people used as slaves?
Hey Ken, how many innocent slaves were murdered by Southern Slave owners? How many were killed by the processes to supply slaves to the Southern Plantation owners to use to enrich themselves at the cost and total disregard of human life.
Lincoln | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
Lincoln, a war waged against the southern slave owners (as Spooner advocated) would have been perfectly justified. A war waged against the entire southern portion of American was not justified. It’s that simple. We’re not defending the slave owners. Read the Spooner piece and see what he had in mind for the slave owners. I’m in total agreement, as I bet just about everyone else here would be as well.
steven | Jan 3, 2011 | Reply
The neocons have picked it up from the Zionists – they specialize in this sort of manipulation ‘blaming Israel first’ and the big one ‘anti-Semitic’.
Ishmael | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
Hey yourself, Lincoln! Since you asked the question, I assume you also know the answer. Right? Just how many slaves were ‘murdered’ by Southern slave owners? Don’t have a clue, do you?! I’ll give you a hint. Damn few, if any. During that long ago era in the march of time, slaves were essentially regarded by slave owners as the equivalent of modern day farm equipment to modern day farmers...and as such, very expensive to acquire and maintain. The idea that plantation owners would wantonly murder their slaves — that is, to sabotage their own means of production — is ridiculous. Utter nonsense!! In fact, I dare say they probably took pretty good care of them. Simple economics.
Oh, and by the way...I’m not from the South and have never owned a slave.
Shootist66 | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
tHE aMERICAN FLAG IS IDOL WORSHIP
bogi666 | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
Nice article, except that it perpetuates the popular (and pro-war) myth that 9/11 was the work of Muslims.
The blowback theory for 9/11 fails because it is unsupported by the physical evidence.
Rich | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
Zirb, I viewed the youtube you linked to, and the “Statism as religion” parallels are indeed striking. I couldn’t agree more with the vision of a stateless, voluntary society; non-violence being a cornerstone of such a vision.
However, laying the blame for the entire statist edifice into the laps of parents who spank their children? As though this equates to the violence wreaked by Statism itself? Sorry, that just didn’t wash for me.
I opted to spank those children of mine for whom it proved effective and/or non-harmful, and not to use it on those for whom it was ineffective and/or harmful. I’m sure our methods weren’t perfect, as I operate under the [startling to some] conclusion that no parent’s methods are perfect.
Thanks for the link, though. I can cut the offending 45 seconds out and find use for that production...
Tim | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
—Marcus Tillius Cicero
I would never take up arms against my country. Against those trying to change my country, absolutely.
Chet Stanger | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
Two VERY different views of Ron Paul — compare and contrast:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/10/18/the-top-8-reasons-ron-paul-is-an-abomination-who-should-be-cast-out-of-decent-society-1/
http://www.yaliberty.org/posts/the-top-8-reasons-horowitz-groupies-need-to-get-a-freaking-clue
Barry Loberfeld | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
A beautifully written article based on irrefutable logic, as is customary for Dr. Higgs. Alas, those who need to read it and heed it the most are either too intellectually lazy or too thoroughly indoctrinated to pay it any attention, much less benefit from its wisdom.
liberranter | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
For many years I have flown only colonial-era American flags, for reasons given by Robert Higgs. Most of my friends just ignore this out of politeness or respect for my opinions, but I can tell that they just don’t understand how someone can love the nation and fear and distrust the government.
David Vincelette | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
It seems to me there is a relationship between the nature of the United States government and the nature of the American populace. Every election, from as far back as I can remember, Americans have consistently voted for candidates that espoused violence and war to achieve national goals. We have an imperfect form of republican governance, but still a system that grants voters a say in who is empowered to make decisions for them. To an extent, the people are at fault for the excesses of government officials. I do not have a problem blaming–not individual Americans–but the American populace for the succession of wars that have plagued our country for decades.
drosera | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
@Robert Humphries,
Don’t you see that you’re falling into the rhetorical trap that Bob Higgs is discussing with your statement, “we might have caused it.” I didn’t cause it. I bet you didn’t cause it. The U.S. government caused it. Please read my “Who is ‘We’?”
Best,
David
David R. Henderson | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
ya eejits, America is a continent(s) not a bloody country. Of course the Panamanians, Belizeans, Uruguayans are not to be accused for anything the USA does. Duh.
megothia | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” —H.L. Mencken
MK Ultra | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
My mother always said “sometimes it takes more love to say “no” than to say “yes”. Now, she meant this for dealing with a child. I think you could easily use this concerning our government’s policies. Disagreement does not mean treason or providing aid and comfort to the enemy. I respect people who can think for themselves and who can explain themselves logically and respectfully. I believe that I best help my country by having and expressing an informed opinion on the issues. I don’t need the media (Fox or CNN) or the political parties to tell me what I believe. I think we need to think for ourselves and then have the strength of our convictions.
john mcmenimon | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
I think we should just simply describe people who support unconstitutional wars to inflict Keynesian democratic socialism upon the rest of the world as traitors. Just as we should call WikiLeaks critics traitors.
See:
“It Is Treason To Call WikiLeaks Treason,” by John Jay Myers
Bob Roddis | Jan 4, 2011 | Reply
This reminds me of a bullying victim in “The Simpsons”: “it was my fault, I looked him in the eye when I gave him my lunch money”. So apparently after the Pearl Harbor incident the U.S. government should have profusely apologised and removed all sanction against Japan (After all the Japanese action may well have stopped the Chinese Communist Revolution if left alone)? So after Sept. 11 the U.S. Government should have profusely apologised and proceed to remove all Middle Eastern military bases?
Gil | Jan 5, 2011 | Reply
The attacks on Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center were not justified and should be roundly condemned because they killed innocent people. But the U.S. government should never have had the sanctions against Japan in place, and the U.S. government should never have placed military bases in the Middle East (or anywhere else, for that matter).
steven | Jan 6, 2011 | Reply
Dr. Higgs wisely didn’t mention another scurrilous charge frequently leveled against those who criticize US policy in the Mideast: anti-Semitism. The linchpin of US policy not only in the Mideast, but pretty much everywhere Israel’s interests go (especially domestically in the US), is military and economic support for Israel.
Criticize that, or how Israel arranges to keep and increase it, or what Israel does with the largess it receives from the American taxpayer, and anti-Semite will be just one of the nicer things your attackers call you.
You note no such trigger words (e.g., Israel) in the article above. He even wrote 1950 instead of 1948.
Jett Rucker | Jan 6, 2011 | Reply
One question people should ask themselves: In your heart of hearts, do you really feel free here in the “the land of the free.”
Logan Hobson | Jan 8, 2011 | Reply
Another brilliant and thought-provoking exposition, Dr. Higgs. Some thoughts provoked:
When did the United States government cease being representative of the people who elected it? In countries with kings, dictators and rulers, we can agree that the “government” is not synonymous with “the people”. In the USA we pride ourselves that “we the people” have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”.
We the voters ARE responsible for what our scoundrels do in our name. We close our eyes to their misdeeds in exchange for the freebies they promise us. We default on our duty for eternal vigilance and honest evaluation. We have lost our integrity and our character by which we used to define our virtues.
Have we been stupid, or too easily seduced by the nanny state? And how did that evolve? Does evolution always favor the ruthless and the conniving? Do we the voters become blameless through ignorance? Has the “American experiment” been just that? Have we reverted to the tribal mentality of obeying our rulers and accepting their yoke around our necks? Is that what the Declaration of Independence has devolved into? Have we sold our birthright as a nation to become wards of the state?
What an opening for the opportunists who relish power to build their own stronghold on the myth of a land of freedom! Taxation has made slaves of us all. Complacency has disarmed our critical faculties and turned us into frightened puppets. Have we gotten the government we deserve? If we benefit from the evil that our government does “in our name”, are we truly blameless?
No, we cannot blame “America”, unless by that name we mean all the separate and individual members of the nation state of The United States of America whose tacit acceptance of whatever their government does, secretly and allegedly to “advance their interests”, has allowed the current state of affairs to become entrenched.
I can only wonder whether even WikiLeaks is an antidote to the willful abdication of truth and reason. We need more thinkers like Bob Higgs to at least give us a foothold on the truth. Too bad so few people will read and understand him.
Kate Jones | Jan 8, 2011 | Reply
It is not the Federal government flag. It is the flag of the American People, despite the abuses of the Federal government. It is no more amazing that Southerners have forgiven the Federal government for the murder of 300,000 of you ancestors, than it is that Black Americans have forgiven those very same ancestors (your ancestors) for the enslavement, beating, torture, rape, humiliation, degregation and murder of millions of Black Americans. But we forgive you.
Mark | Jan 8, 2011 | Reply
Well said, Kate Jones.
Gil | Jan 8, 2011 | Reply
I agree with the folks posting here that US government IS America. Most folks in this country do support foreign wars of aggression. If they didn’t, there would be protests on the order of Vietnam. Most Americans I talk to about foreign policy think the government doesn’t go far enough. They usually want us to nuke the middle east or NK.
Jimi | Jan 11, 2011 | Reply
Point taken. But I would point out there is a form of arrogance in blaming US policy for, for example, terrorism, as if US actions are the only ones that really matter and other folk do not have their own purposes but are only reacting to what the US does.
As the “manager” of the global system, the US has not done all that badly. I certainly prefer the post 1945 record to, say, 1914-1945.
Lorenzo from Oz | Jan 12, 2011 | Reply
Bob,
As a huge fan of yours, let me try to part a more nuanced view.
First, I concur with you that
1- US foreign policy is insane
2- FDR provoked Japan into attacking
3- US Middle East policy is insane
4- US should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, after all that, what bothers me about most pacifists or critics of US foreign policy is their complete ignorance of the local politics and happenstances in the global regions themselves. In effect, they are the mirror images of neocons who want to fight wars to spread “democracy” in that you only look thru an American lense.
Thats understandable! as you are dealing with American readers and policymakers. But for those of us who are very well read in the historical-religious underpinnings of the middle east, the problem of Islam is paramount. The extreme oppression and murder and cleansing of non-Muslims in Muslim lands IS NOT AN ARTIFACT OF US FOREIGN POLICY.
This does not mean that the US has to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
But there is nuance here. I pine to find more people intelligent and nuanced enough to share my view.
Contemplationist | Jan 13, 2011 | Reply
To whom were Cicero’s remarks directed, I wonder?
newson | Apr 22, 2011 | Reply