[23tommy]

Originally posted by Ari Rahikkala
(further incidentally, is there actually a difference between "un-American" and "anti-American"? It seems to me that they just get used completely interchangeably. Not that that means much in the language that came up with "thaw" and "unthaw", but it does call to my mind a binary worldview where both are just synonyms for "evil") Well, in the view of people who levy charges of "un-American" and "anti-American" they do just pretty much mean "evil." I would think there is a theoretical difference. Supporting regimes that use un-lawful wire taps and incarcerations in foreign countries being (theoretically) "un" but not "anti" American, whereas supporting a regime with those qualities within America would be "anti" but certainly not "un" American. However, the fact that they are used interchangeably means the difference is pretty moot.

And the reason these sort of charges can be leveled in America is because there are different groups with different ideas of what America is, and what it means to be American. Since the groups have different conceptualizations of what America is, a member of one group can call members of another group "un-American" and the other members of the caller's group will agree.

Also, to anyone: can you do strike through text on this board? The normal tags aren't working for me...