Don’t be un-American.
The Irony of “Love It or Leave It”
Don’t like this job? Then find a new one!
Don’t like this city? Move!
Don’t like California? Go find another state¹!
Don’t like the United States of America? Love it or leave it!
Do you know that there is zero value, and you have zero authority, in telling someone to just accept things as they are? Can you imagine if this is what the most persecuted people in history told themselves?
Saying “Love it or Leave it” is the quickest way to:
- Admit you have no defensible position for your argument
- Broadcast to everyone you are incapable of intelligent thought
- Show that you don’t actually understand how ignorant you sound
Here’s the irony: People who willingly uproot their lives for better conditions elsewhere, or to effect better conditions elsewhere, or stay in place and fight for change, are often the smarter, more successful people in a society.
So by broadcasting to everybody that you embrace the ethos of passive subservience, you are basically cementing the notion that you represent the patterns of thought captured in the least capable, least accomplished, least noble of all of us.
Was the message of Joan of Arc, Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi, and MLK Jr. to either suck it up, or leave?
If you find yourself ever thinking that you might like to tell someone, “If you don’t like the way things are, then maybe you should go elsewhere,”… you now know that you are the problem, not the other way around.
Telling someone to take their concerns elsewhere is the definition of refusing to embrace communication, conflict resolution, and problem solving.
Telling someone to just accept things as they are, or leave, is dehumanizing. Nobility demands resistance to unfair, unjust, or inequitable conditions.
Resorting to suggesting that problem solving cease, is the antithesis of progress and the unabashed embracement of stagnation. Humans as a people are constantly progressing throughout history, but “Not happy? Give up and go elsewhere” asks to bring progress to a halt.
I imagine the people who say “love it or leave it” are exactly the first ones who would accept oppressive occupiers into their country, because hey, resistance is for haters.
Alternatively, they are also probably the very first people to surrender, retreat, and cede all their homes and lands to an aggressor. Because who loves being invaded? Might as well leave it. Resistance is for haters. Love it or leave it! When the going gets tough, just leave!
Basically the most un-American of all of us.
If you are so inept that you think “love it or leave it” is a legitimate phrase to type into the Internet, know that you are this person.
Here’s a closing thought, hopefully not too hard to grasp.
In America there is this notion of free speech.
The point of free speech is to be able to speak your opinion.
Including opinions others may disagree with.
By speaking out, the speaker is embracing this, what is it again, oh yeah, constitutionally protected right.
Exercising your rights is, like, the most American thing ever, and an ideal way to show love of your country.
So the opposite of that, being, trying to shut down speech, sounds like it’s the opposite of being American; the opposite of showing love for your country. It’s not really loving America.
Can you figure out where this is going? I’ll let you fill in the blank.
Addendum
I did not bother going into the logical fallacy of the subject statement, preferring to focus on exemplifying the effective failure of the statement itself.
¹ Meanwhile, citizens of other states are protesting, “Please, stay in California!”
