Should Americans Value Nationalism?

National Review's Rich Lowry debates the Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh.

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Should Americans Value Nationalism?

Rich Lowry and Alex Nowrasteh debate the resolution, "Nationalism is an important value that Americans should support." The event is produced by The Soho Forum, a monthly debate series presented by Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason.

For the affirmative: Richard Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review. He was selected to lead the news outlet by its founder, William F. Buckley. Lowry writes a syndicated column for King Features Weekly Service and a weekly column for Politico. He is also a commentator for NBC News. His most recent book is The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free (Broadside Books, 2019).

For the negative: Alex Nowrasteh is the director of economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute where most of his work has focused on immigration. He is widely published in newspapers, blogs, and peer-reviewed academic journals. He is the co-author (with Benjamin Powell) of the book Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which is the first book on how economic institutions in receiving countries adjust to immigration. He is a native of Southern California and received an MSc in economic history from the London School of Economics.

Comments

[Sandra (formerly OBL)]

Koch-funded writers value whatever will make their silver spoon billionaire sugar daddy richer. Right now that means opposing nationalism because their sugar daddy benefits from importing cheap labor.

If some day the US is close to passing Medicare for All, paid for (in part) by enormous tax increases on billionaires, and a couple million more Brown voters could push M4A over the edge from proposal to reality? Yeah, I suspect Koch-funded writers might reconsider their open borders fanaticism. I'm cynical like that.

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It’s already started. Newsom, the second coming of all things omnipotent, recently announced that the sanctuary status is collapsing California and unsustainable.

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[Brandybuck]

Go Team! Move that ball down the field! Rah!

[JesseAz]

Here is where brandy tries to convince everyone that Iran and America are equal and if you say differently youre a nationalist.

[n00bdragon]

Iran and America are obviously different, but the poison of nationalism is distilled from the same plant as communism and the cults of personality or faith. The idea that some people are simply worth more or guilty of less because of who they are, rather than what they've done, is what kills a society. America is an amazing country built on solid ideals and a practical framework, but it's people aren't inherently good, honorable, just, or worthy simply because they are born within our borders. America is a good place because it is full of good people, not the other way around. America is unquestionably a better place than Iran, but an honest and just Iranian is worth more than a deceitful and cowardly American.

[RENATA the rational]

Let's just take the Logic pin to this balloon of bombast:

Since nationalism predates communism you are in no way defining but you are stigmatizing.

And your idea of worth is anti-'Any society"....your worth is because you are a human being, period.

America is a good place because it is a nation founded on God and reason and unalienable human rights. Am I to believe that you value a non-good, non-honorable, non-just person as subhuman ?

The final statement exposes your inherent racism. There is NO 'worth more' in regard to human beings and our blind justice is what makes us a great nation. Deceit and cowardice are not good but they are NOT the purview of the government. Else all Biden's enemies would be in Guantanamo, probably with your approval

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[Mother's Lament]

Some of the Reasonistas and the fifty-centers here (Shrike, Jeffy), like to pretend that American nationalism and NSDAP nationalism are the same thing.
But Nazi nationalism was about one race and ethnicity under one nation, whereas American nationalism (and Canadian, Australian, etc) is about the unity of many races and ethnicities under one nation. A melting pot. They are polar opposites at their basis.

Even worse, they pretend that global homo under globalism is an unalloyed good and a viable alternative to nationalism, rather than a new imperialism and a cultural hegemony by and for Western elites.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

For the modern left, evil = any nation that isn't incessantly self-critical in order to achieve the perfect marxist utopia, particularly those that were majority white western European. They don't limit this complaint to just those countries (look at how these soys limped out over Qatar), but their entryism has been extremely limited there and so third world ethnonationalism is extremely strong.

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[SRG]

In principle you're right. However, American nationalism has been co-opted by some on the far right to mean a form of nationalism that is largely for white non-liberal anti-elite Americans. And when people talk about "real Amercans" - a formulation exclusive to the immoderate right - that is who they have in mind.

I think that the rest of us prefer some kind of assurance that when people talk about the benefits of nationalism, they really do mean, as you well put it, "the unity of many races and ethnicities under one nation. A melting pot."

[RENATA the rational]

SRG, that is crap.
White as in looks white? Because octaroons were treated as Blacks for a very long time and they were whiter than many whites are.

Non-liberal suggests that someone like you gets to put the label on. Kinda tyrranical if you think about it. Same with "elite" , which must apply to Hillary and the Obamas and Sen Warren etc.

That quote is childish. You yourself just described a white by a racial term. A melting pot would require what you are against: English as the standard language, Biblical standards of the family and morality, the equality of all human beings.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

It’s the battle of the controlled opposition all stars!

[Public Entelectual]

What chariots, what horses
Against us dare ride,
When the stars n their courses
Abide on our side?

[JesseAz]

Yes. Everything is equal. Nothing is different.

This tripe is ridiculous.

[Public Entelectual]

If as Rich Lowry reckons Reason comes only after National Review as America's second-best Conservative magazine, , it's time to throw in the towel and start re-reading 1950's back issues of Readers Digest or subscribing to The Spectator .

[CE]

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

or

My country, right or wrong.

Seems like an easy call.

[Mother's Lament]

Do either of those positions actually exist?

[TheReEncogitationer]

The first was a quote from Thomas Paine. The second is a misquote of either Stephen Decatur or Carl Schurz.

My Country, Right or Wrong--Wikipedia
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/my_country,_right_or_wrong

Carl Schurz had the idea of Rational Patriotism right.

“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

[RENATA the rational]

That makes you sound like a pompous twit.
That was what led Kamala and Nancy to say that Uyghur persecution was a 'cultural difference'.

Your religion is for you to define 'good' 🙂

[middlefinger]

If libertarians aren’t nationalist, why are they still here, in the U.S.? Perhaps the world’s biggest technologically advanced military to protect assets has something to do with it. Mexico is a beautiful country, but there’s only so many or a minority of private security guards that will not sell out to cartels and flip on your deep pocketed pockets.

[David Emami]

Eh. It was a lively discussion, but they didn’t really debate the merits or perils of nationalism so much as debate the definition of it. Instead of “X is good” “No, X is bad”, it was “X is good” “No, Y is bad.”

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[TJJ2000]

After 30+ minutes of trying to define what "nationalism" means.
I'm pretty convinced the Soho Forum debate was entirely useless.

It was about as clarified as is "government" good or bad...
Well; that entirely depends on if "government" is ensuring Individual Liberty and Justice for all or if "government" is taking away Individual Liberty and Justice for all....

The term itself is so vague no one knows how to debate short of defining what "government" means to them.

[Tony]

I'll address patriotism since nationalism always has a negative connotation to my mind. I don't totally dismiss patriotism as a pragmatic tool in a world we find has nation-states. I think that's a problem of details.

Philosophically, of course, as a libertarian, I cannot abide borders at all. People should be maximally free except in those circumstances where they might harm people physically. Crossing an imaginary line drawn on a map by dead people harms no one physically.

It doesn't affect anyone else at all, unless you want to posit an inextricably interconnected society that must be micromanaged in order to maximize the common good, like some kind of socialist. And even then I fail to see what the harm might be or why it wouldn't usually be a boon.

[TJJ2000]

Visit the immigrant toll on Gov-Funded healthcare.
The case is totally made by the numbers and cost.
Visit the immigrant vote on US Socialism expansion.
The case is totally made by the numbers.

Import Non-American get Non-America.

You seem to dismiss the very root cause of immigration to the USA. The people in "democratic" Mexico are running from exactly what they built. A hellhole. Yet instead of giving-up their "conquer and consume" mentality just skip onto the next greener pasture (others created) to "conquer and consume" it.

Sure; If the USA wasn't so socialist it could be a free'er society concerning immigration. But immigration at this point isn't looking for a free'er society they are looking for greener pastures to conquer and consume with socialism.

Help get rid of the socialism and then we can talk about more immigration.

[RENATA the rational]

"I cannot abide borders" something only a spoiled American brat can say and not be ashamed. And what is 'harm people physically" ? why only physically?
And 'usually' throws your whole comment away. Unless: You get to define what is a boon and what isn't. That is what your post is about.
Tony should be emperor and we would all thrive.

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[Liberty Lover]

Fascism: …. typically a policy of belligerent nationalism

Let’s not confuse nationalism with belligerent nationalism. Every country should put it’s own citizens first. Language, culture and borders are important if you want to have a nation.

belligerent: Inclined or eager to fight; hostile or aggressive.Of, pertaining to, or engaged in warfare.

Nationalism can be combined with non-intervention polices that are not belligerent. Intervention and expansionism are what gets us into trouble.

[Bill Falcon]

That isn't nationalism. It is patriotism.

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[Cloudbuster]

You lost me at "National Review's Rich Lowry debates the Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh." What a clown show.

[JFree]

Should?!?!?

JFC - no wonder 'libertarians' are more comfortable fearmongering simple-minded Manichaeans than in trying to understand a world that is far more complicated than 'should'

[Fetterman's Hump]

I wish somebody would define "nationalism" for me, and then give two clear examples of such nationalism, and then explain why nationalism, as exposed in those examples, are bad (or good).

I want policies and laws that are beneficial for American citizens. Is that nationalism? Is it bad?

[RENATA the rational]

Nationalism is to your nation what pride in the family is to your family.
This unhinged love of everybody but nobody in particular is a fool's dream

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[Bill Falcon]

Totally missed the real debate. Should American's value Patriotism? Being a Patriot built America. Nationalism is from old Europe and has nothing to do with the American built on liberty with prosperity until the downfall starting in WWI and accelerating post cold war. Patriotism yes, nationalism no

[RENATA the rational]

Bill, you have no idea what people use words for !!! I’ve taught sharp undergrads and they don’t distinguish nationalism and patriotism so I doubt most people do. Especially in America, patriotism is nationalism because the patria, the fatherland, is not defined by nationality but by shared convictions and culture. IF you are American you are very unobservant.

" Civil religion is the bond that unites a people under the same laws and rules and provides a sense of inclusion, belonging, identity, unity and structure, worth, confidence, transcendence, and purpose. It is the ethos of a given society that sometimes enables citizens to sacrifice their lives for the common good."

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[Green Jihad]

"Just as domestic collectivism holds that an individual's freedom and interests must be sacrificed to the 'public interest' of society - so internationalism holds that a nation's sovereignty and interests be sacrificed to a global community." - Ayn Rand

[Green Jihad]

"For decades, the ‘liberals’ have regarded ‘nationalism’ as an arch-evil of capitalism. They denounced national self-interest—they permitted no distinction between intelligent patriotism and blind, racist chauvinism, deliberately lumping them together—they smeared all opponents of internationalist doctrines as ‘reactionaries,’ 'fascists’ or ‘isolationists'—and they brought this country to a stage where expressions such as ‘America First’ became terms of opprobrium." - Ayn Rand, "The Ayn Rand Column" # 20 'Nationalism and Internationalism' pp 59 - 60.

[RENATA the rational]

Am I to gather that I am awaiting your okay to admit my nationalism? It is there, and I don't have to get Reason's okay. After the work of Jesus, I rate the American Founding as history's second-most important happening.
and it is a truth matter before anything else, something Reason stumbles over all the time.

Let Coolidge define the argument clearly:
" If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress."

With that, I can't NOT be a nationalist !!

[Edith Stein's Brother]

But I do value nationalism and why are we debating what I am allowed to do anyway.

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[Religion and Politics, my life]

FIRST : establish your right to even question my valuing nationalism. You can't !!!
But I will play along....you miss 3 things about Nationalism as it is found in most citizens
1) It is a valuing of this nation INSOFAR as it represents "all men created equal" and "endowed with God-given unalienable rights" It is not 'my country right or wrong"
2) It is the recogniation that, as with family, neighborhood, city, county, state...., the world does best when we pay most attention to those groups we are part of. How many complain about national matters that do not take care of their closer-to-home concerns !!
3) What can you oppose my nationalism with? What do you use as your standard to say I am wrong? -- because THAT is your nationalism.

You don't disagree with me....you want to control me.