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Comment by fredleblanc | Hacker News Reader

In W.'s book (Decision Points), he wrote that he regretted the way congress named it because it eludes that if you don't support it, you're not a Patriot.

Not that that's of much help, but it's interesting to know that not everyone responsible for it was behind the name.

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Easy to write now. At the time, he was already drumming up support for the Iraq war and had 1,000 surrogates saying, almost exactly, "If you don't support this administration then you're not a patriot".

I believe his exact words were: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

That's out of context. The full quote is

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

This makes it clear he was talking about nations, not individuals. Neither of us may agree with that proposition, but it's a lot more reasonable in the context of a world with many nations that stated they were against terrorists but secretly sheltered them.

I don't know about you, but that attitude does not gain any nuance at all just because you apply it to nations instead of individuals. In fact, given that nations contain a myriad forces opposing each other that an individual would not (and therefore conflicting views on pretty much anything), it seems considerably worse to apply it to nations than individuals.

And it's already bad enough using patriotism to blackmail individuals into supporting you.

Thanks for the whole quote. While not a W fan, I think it is also clear in the quote that you have to take action to be against us: harbor or support terrorists. The default, do nothing, state is "with us".

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