alt Hacker NewsWhile I understand the intention of what you're saying, you're still attempting a definition of the term "anti-American", which needs no definition as the term should be rejected as a whole.
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I disagree.
I would define confidently that Anti-American is aligned with Anti-Constitutional. By definition, it is this nation's founding document and treatise.
An the Supreme Court's ultimate role is to affirm or deny nebulous case law as aligned with the Constitution.
I mean, there are American values. The country was built around the idea of limiting the federal government's power, and adherence not a person, but to a set of values (like freedom of speech). We're explictly founded on the concept of rule of law.
Through that lens, it is very clear what anti-American means: adherence and loyalty to a person instead of a set of values, expansive government overreach, erosion of individual liberties, including the ability to express dissent.
If you will not say what something is against, then it is by definition for nothing.
on edit: fixed grammatical error, based on bad keyboard gesture moving stuff around.
Is it exists, something must be antithetical to it.
(Truth is its just rhetoric and it doesn't mean much of anything. That's why its main use is as a cudgel).
I mean, to pick what is perhaps the easiest example, wanting to abridge speech is anti-American by its very definition.
It is possible to have a thing that is anti-American. So I'm not sure what good it is to reject the term altogether.
Not really. America stands for something, they wrote a whole document about it.
There is a big difference between being "American" and being something like "German" because Germany has existed for so long as different governments and the thing that ties it together is not an ethos, but an ethnicity. Being American is different, there's no ethnicity that makes one American, there is only it's ethos. The ideals written in the declaration of independence are American values.
It's just the idea that vague terms get misused so much I demand the specific. "Anti" anything can just mean you aren't "pro" it enough, or not pro a particular version.
So for restricting speech, you could say not honoring the first amendment or something like that.
I think about this because sometimes people or ideas are described as "problematic". Sometimes for very good reason, but sometimes you find out the speaker has trouble being specific. I like to hear the specific reason when I can to understand the facts or logic. Sometimes these classifications come third hand.