There are few things I dislike more than being called unpatriotic because someone disagrees with my politics. Allow me to introduce you to John Locke Foundation blogger Jon Ham, who can apparently determine your patriotism by what yard sign you display. Here is Ham's 4th of July offering:
Not questioning their patriotism, but …
Posted July 4th, 2008 at 6:53 PM by Jon Ham
My wife and I just got back from a July 4th walk. We walked eight miles around our neighborhood and a bunch of surrounding ones here in Durham. I saw lots of Obama signs in front yards signs and lots of American flags on houses. But I didn't see a single house with an American flag AND an Obama yard sign. Not one. Just sayin'…
UPDATE: We went on a six-mile walk today, Saturday, in the other direction from our house, and we did see one house with a flag and an Obama yard sign.
OK. What have we learned here. 1) Jon Ham likes to walk. 2) Jon Ham apparently left his journalistic credentials behind when he left the Herald-Sun newspapers in Durham after 19 years to join the Locke Foundation. What, Jon, they didn't teach you anything about journalistic ethics and innuendo at Georgia?
Why don't we try this one on for size.
Let's just say my wife and I went walking in our neighborhood on the 4th of July in 1980 and again in 1984. We saw lots of Reagan signs in front yard signs and lots of lawn jockeys and confederate flags. I'm not saying that EVERY single house that had a Reagan sign had a lawn jockey and a confederate flag or some other sign of overt racism, but some did. Just sayin'…
UPDATE: Too tired to walk today. Listened to Reagan kick-off campaign with speech on "states' rights" in Neshoba County, Mississippi where three civil rights workers were slain.
If you think Im being too harsh, well…maybe we should just call this "satire," albeit poorly executed… much like this now infamous magazine cover.
Besides being fun to write, there is a legitimate point to this post and here it is: hypocrisy should be exposed wherever you find it. John Hood would like to have you believe that the John Locke Foundation is "non-political;" a high-minded "think tank" that "employs research and journalism" to "transform government." Hood ought to read his own blogs. It ain't high-minded, it ain't cerebral, it ain't journalism, it ain't research (unless you call cribbing recycled posts from Heritage and AEI "analysis"), and it sure as hell ain't non-political. They are knee-deep in politics over there, and it is usually of the most divisive kind.
It's an election year, folks…it's gonna get ugly.
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