{"id":2946,"date":"2008-06-10T14:12:30","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T21:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2008\/06\/10\/what-will-make-you-a-real-american\/"},"modified":"2008-06-11T13:15:11","modified_gmt":"2008-06-11T20:15:11","slug":"what-will-make-you-a-real-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2008\/06\/10\/what-will-make-you-a-real-american\/","title":{"rendered":"What will make you a Real American."},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today released a new web ad. The ad, entitled “American Heroes,” tells the story of John McCain’s Episcopal High School teacher and football coach, William B. Ravenel, who had a profound impact on his life. The ad details the\u00c2\u00a0honor code John McCain\u00c2\u00a0has faithfully lived his life by, taught first by his parents and reinforced by Mr. Ravenal in high school.<\/em><\/p>\n

What the hell?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The John McCain campaign is\u00c2\u00a0telling the story of how a high school teacher inspired him? \u00c2\u00a0Are we also going to be touting history in Scouting?\u00c2\u00a0 As for the Honor Code:<\/p>\n

ANNCR: Our heroes help tell the story of America .
\nWe know them well.
\nThey’ve been inventors, athletes, rock-stars and presidents
\nThey inspire us to dream.
\nMake the right choices.
\nLive up to their example.
\nBut it’s not always the famous who inspire us.
\nSometimes the heroes we need are right in front of us.
\nFor John Mccain, one of his heroes was in the front of his high school classroom.
\nWilliam B. Ravenel was that hero.
\nHe was the English teacher and football coach who inspired students to live the honor code.<\/em>“I shall not lie
\nI shall not cheat
\nI shall not steal
\nAnd I shall turn in the student who does.”
\nThe teacher who believed in exoneration and redemption.
\nWhen one of John McCain’s classmates violated the rules and admitted to the infraction.<\/em>Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we need in this country.\u00c2\u00a0 An Honor Code.\u00c2\u00a0 The rules and by-ways of a Military Academy enforced into our general civilian life.\u00c2\u00a0 If you spot your neighbor smoking some pot, minding his own business mind you, Call the Police now.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that’s the Honorable thing to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is not an endorsement of the stupidity from the opposite extreme<\/a>, but Come On!\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em>I remember my first grade teacher regualarly reading these morality stories to the class, and the only one I can recall was one whose message was an anti-Tattling message, which from the teachers’ perspective ran round to “We don’t need to know every single piddling little thing.”<\/p>\n

<\/em>There is in the latest issue of The American Prospect features a cover article about the current stripped down Republican campaign theme<\/a>: “The Candidate for Real Americans”, which strikes me as the basic messaging of the Republican Party — for good times and bad and with good and bad subtexts — since basically its inception, and perhaps even with some odd Whig and “Anti-Freemason” antecedents — when they were saving the Union.\u00c2\u00a0 The Democratic Party, you understand, is the Party of a collection of minority groups somewhat alienated from the American experience\u00c2\u00a0— Catholics and immigrants and eventually negroes and those\u00c2\u00a0nose-thumbing Intellectuals and the defeated South and those danged hyphens– while Theodore Roosevelt is 100 percent pure Americanism.\u00c2\u00a0 One thing the party in this argument is that only two Democrats have won more than 51 percent of the vote since 1860 where the Republicans have multiple landslides.\u00c2\u00a0 What they have going against them is the argument against that there collection of minorities trends toward a racist attack and frustration at black “Block Voting” and an anti-intellectualism which wraps itself around the Flag.<\/p>\n

But then again… the argument for the moment comes down to the vagaries of Barack Obama’s background, his ethnicity (um… he’s black, in case you haven’t noticed),\u00c2\u00a0and his lack of flag pins.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is a\u00c2\u00a0roughly of enforcement\u00c2\u00a0where that precious\u00c2\u00a0Honor Code goes haywire in determing the “Real American”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today released a new web ad. The ad, entitled “American Heroes,” tells the story of John McCain’s Episcopal High School teacher and football coach, William B. Ravenel, who had a profound impact on his life. The ad details the\u00c2\u00a0honor code John McCain\u00c2\u00a0has faithfully lived his life by, taught first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}