Max's Musings
It’s not up to us to resolve all their stupid contradictions.
Today marks the first installment Max’s Musings of 2026. For my new subscribers, this is an informal series where I discuss a variety of topics in shorter form, both related and unrelated to one another.
Let’s get on with it.
Bad Bunny’s América
As I’m not an American football fan, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, per usual. It was, unfortunately, the talk of the town not because of the match-up or the quality of the game, but because of the entertainment. In the most talked-about Super Bowl halftime show since the one involving Janet Jackson (those old enough know what I’m talking about), musician Bad Bunny demonstrated to all that “America” now refers to a continent, not the United States.
No, we’re not stupid - we’re all aware that the Americas encompasses the combined continental land masses of North, Central, and South America. However, up until yesterday, in historical terms, everyone knew America referred to the United States alone, not the whole Western Hemisphere, and there wasn’t much controversy about it. Actually, scratch that - remember what happened when President Donald Trump declared the Gulf of Mexico was now the Gulf of America? Remember the outrage that ensued, including from Latin America? That makes it all the more ridiculous that there’s this big push all of a sudden to make “America” mean the entirety of the Americas.
Nobody outside of the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere - Canadians, Mexicans, Guatemalens, Cubans, Colombians, Brazilians, Argentines - call themselves American. Many will feel insulted if you do. Nationalism is strong in Latin America, and their identities are wrapped up in their home countries. If you ask a Peruvian what their nationality is, what do you think they’re going to say? Careful - only a retard would claim they’d call themselves American.
In fact, most Latinos would reject a pan-American identity, even as they might embrace a pan-Latin identity (even that’s unlikely to catch on). Not only are Latinos too proud of their ethnic or national identities, if the whole Western Hemisphere adopted something like a European Union-model of transnational union, the U.S. would still end up senior partner due to its disproportionately large size, power, and influence, and not a single Latino, Bad Bunny included, would like that. They already don’t like the fact the U.S. dictates so much in the region already.
Scott Greer says the halftime show was subversive:
The America blessed was not the United States. He meant the entire continent, which is an affront to how our nation sees itself. He then listed every country in the Americas. The United States (he notably left out America in its name) was only part of this America. The American flag was flown alongside the many other states in the hemisphere. For those who didn’t get his point, Mr. Bunny carried a football declaring: “Together, We Are America.” (He also made sure to separate Puerto Rico from the U.S., which undermines his defenders’ claims that Puerto Ricans are true Americans. A separate identity belies that.)
This is not American patriotism at all. Latin Americans vigorously dispute our nation calling itself America. They think it’s rude to do so and insist that the whole continent is America. We’re just the United States. This is an idea with certain purchase within left-wing circles. It encourages support for open borders and a pan-American identity that deemphasizes our Anglo heritage. In order to be TRUE Americans, we need to learn Spanish and respect the ways of our southern neighbors. We also need to let our neighbors in, as we’re all “Americans.”
One of the core elements of American identity is NOT being Latin America. Our forefathers recognized that our civilization was different from that of Latinos. Their prejudices would’ve been confirmed by the grotesquery on display in San Francisco. This isn’t the “America” they created. It’s a complete rejection of that heritage.
It’s necessary for Americans to reserve the very name for our countrymen. Allowing the Latin view to take root in our country is deeply subversive and encourages a poisoned view of our nation. It naturally increases support for immigration and multiculturalism. When someone says “God Bless America,” we want them to mean the United States–not all 35 countries in the hemisphere. The separation between us and the Latin South is necessary to keep America American.
Personally, I’ve given up on trying to defend American identity from deconstruction. Though I still believe one exists, most people don’t, so, whatever. I’m just one man and I’m tired of arguing with people who are so close-minded, anyway. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. If it comes down to a fight, so be it. For now, I’ll settle for pointing out the stupid, anger-driven contradictions of the Left. That’s more fun, anyway. The halftime show triggered a whole lot of them.
Many people claimed that Spanish was more “indigenous” to the Americas than English was. It’s the most widely-spoken language in the Western Hemisphere, after all. The only problem is that Spanish came from Spain, a European country. Like it or not, Latinos are as much a product of colonial imperialism as the U.S. was. Claiming Spanish to be some sort of “resistance” language is for the uneducated.
Others made claims such as “Spain colonized the U.S. first!” or “Indian languages are indigenous to the U.S.!” If these are college-educated people making these claims, then having degrees can never serve as a marker of intelligence. The U.S. was established in 1776, meaning that it wasn’t possible for Spain to colonize it. It also means Indians cannot claim to be indigenous to the U.S. since the U.S. is a state, not merely a land mass. The idea that Indians have legitimate, nation state-like claim to the entire continent is most absurd of all, since Indian tribes weren’t states to begin with, and the actual land they could physically claim was limited.
But again, whatever. It’s pretty clear to me the America of Bad Bunny is on the upswing and will likely dominate our culture for years to come. The real test of this culture’s strength and solidity will come when the country faces a truly existential crisis, as it does every Fourth Turning. Then we’ll see whether this new America truly rises to the top, or reverts back to some older, more familiar form of identity.
For the record, I love Latin American culture, and its uniqueness comes from the fact that it’s so different from Anglo American culture. Bad Bunny is a poor example of it. Here’s a great example:
That’s all I’ve ever wanted for America, to have something we can call our own, to have something some angry ethnic or liberal can’t take away. Is that so wrong?
The unfortunate fact is this: the United States triggers insecurities in people the same way an attractive or successful person does. Everyone wants to be a part of it, wants it for themselves, and if they can't, they malign it, try to break it down, tell it what it can and can't be. In many ways, the halftime show was as much an exhibition of cultural insecurity as it was chauvinism. Underlying it was a question that keeps people like Bad Bunny and his fans up at night: What do the gringos think of me?
Always The Bad Guy
The Winter Olympics have kicked off in Milano and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and yes, politics, not athletics, is dominating the discussion. Reagan Conrad of the YouTube channel The Comments Section asks the question: Why is America always the villain on the world stage?
America is such a villain, even the athletes blessed with the opportunity to represent their country on the world stage are effectively obligated to speak out against it. If they’re not being forced, to, nobody, not even the U.S. Olympic Committee, is trying to stop them. The idea that these athletes are risking anything is absurd; you risk nothing when doing something you’re basically allowed to do.
And yes, the bad takes were in abundance:
Clearly, he’s the one who’s having difficulty understanding, since he misses the glaring contradiction in his logic. It’s because they represent the nation in all its diversity and messy beauty that they’re supposed to keep quiet about politics. They don’t only represent those who share their views, and they certainly don’t represent only themselves. They represent even those hated MAGA “chuds,” whether they like it or not.
Olympic athletes can share their political views all they’d like on the principle that it’s their right to do so. They cannot claim to be representing America if they do. If a person’s political views are ultimately their own, then they speak only for themselves when they share them. This isn’t a difficult concept to grasp. They don’t even represent their fellow Olympic compatriots. Just as unfortunate is the fact all American Olympians are being dragged into the controversy by virtue of association, even though only a few of them have actually voiced their political views.
Make no mistake, there are athletes who understand their role is, first and foremost, to represent the U.S., and to do so with honor:
I don’t know the name of this Olympian, but she handled a stupid question by a Canadian journalist extremely well:
Once upon a time, Olympic athletes were known for their humility. Now they’re known for their vanity. It’s one thing to represent a country. It’s another to believe you speak for 330 million people, that it’s your duty to pass off your personal views as that of everyone else. It takes a particular kind of arrogance to believe that.
Arrogance of this caliber:
Seriously, what’s the point of this? Why represent your country only to end up fighting with your fellow countrymen? Going to the Olympics is as big a responsibility as it is a privilege. Yes, you want to win. Yes, you want to put on your best performance. But that’s not what it’s all about. It’s also about simply being there. There are teams at the Olympics that won’t win any medals, yet just being present is the greatest honor of all. Because it is.
To be fair, it’s unbecoming as well of President Donald Trump to be feuding with the players representing his country. Not everything merits a response, even when someone comes at you directly. Silence often speaks volumes. It’d be the biggest flex to simply say, “I wish you all great success. Better bring some medals home!” Not only would he be taking the high road, he’d be throwing the heat back onto them, since Olympic athletes are supposed to be competing and winning. But Trump’s no smooth talker. Kind of strange for a guy who’s supposed to be a great deal-maker, no?
What Did She Expect?
Staying on the topic of Olympics, freestyle skier Eileen Gu wants you to understand the burden she bears:
“Sometimes it feels like I’m carrying the weight of two countries on my shoulders. Just being able to ski through all of that, you know. To still show my best and still be so deeply in love with the sport.
“That’s really what I care about and I’m so happy to represent that today.”
There’s only one problem:
Gu was born and raised in San Francisco and started her freeskiing career representing the United States, only to switch allegiance to China -- where her mother is from -- in 2019.
So no, Gu carries the weight of one country, not two. That country is China. That’s who she chose to represent, that’s the only country she represents. Whatever additional burden she bears is self-inflicted.
As expected, the village wisemen think she’s being treated unjustly:
New research from the University of Michigan suggests that the way American news outlets report on Asian American athletes depends heavily on their perceived allegiance to the United States.
By examining the media portrayal of snowboarder Chloe Kim and freestyle skier Eileen Gu, researchers found that acceptance into American society is often “conditional.” This means that for these athletes, being seen as truly American is a status that can be granted or taken away based on their career choices.
I mean, yeah - if America is truly a civic nationalist country, if being American is about your beliefs and choices, not ancestry, some other immutable feature, or even culture, then yes, playing for another country makes you less American, literally.
More:
The study, published in the journal Communication & Sport, looked at over 200 articles from the last two Winter Olympics. The researchers compared the treatment of Chloe Kim, who won gold for the US in 2018, with Eileen Gu, who decided to represent China in 2022.
Kim, the daughter of South Korean immigrants, was widely praised as a “typical American teenager” after she turned down an invitation to compete for South Korea. In contrast, Gu was often described as an “ungrateful traitor” in various reports because she chose to compete for her mother’s home country.
“While the media framed Kim as the embodiment of the American dream for representing the US, it cast Gu as a nationalistic threat for competing for China,” said Doo Jae Park, the study’s lead author and a lecturer at the U-M School of Kinesiology.
I haven’t examined the report myself, but I wonder what 200 articles they consulted for research, because no mainstream media outlet would ever describe anyone, not even Trump, as an “ungrateful traitor.” At least, they’d be more tactful than that. Treat the report with skepticism.
And:
The researchers argue that these stories create a binary where athletes are either “insiders” or “outsiders.” Because Kim chose the US, she was welcomed. Because Gu chose China, she was accused of picking profit over patriotism.
What’s the fuss all about? If you choose to play for another country, you’re saying that country matters more to you. It makes no sense to represent a foreign country, one that happens to be America’s greatest geopolitical rival, and then wonder why the public questions your patriotism. Being a citizen alone does a patriot not make.
The alternative explanation is that things like nationality doesn’t matter to some people. We live in a cosmopolitan, globalized era, and and some people really embrace it. For example, in the World Baseball Classic, many Major League Baseball athletes have chosen to play for the country of ancestral origin. If it were me, I’d represent the U.S. or I wouldn’t play at all. But national identity matters a lot to me. If it doesn’t to someone, then I can see why they see no contradiction in representing a foreign country on the world stage.
At the end of the day, people can do whatever they want. They cannot dictate how others react to their choices, however, especially when the reaction is perfectly reasonable and sensible. This is especially true in a society that values individualism to the extent the U.S. does. If people can do whatever they want, then everyone else can react however they want. If the American identity is as fluid and open-ended as liberals claim, then that identity can be taken away just as easily as it was given. That door opens both ways.
This is the world liberals created. We’re just living in it. It’s not up to us to resolve all their stupid contradictions. It’s up to us to point them out, however.
Responsibilities > Rights
Rod Dreher quotes a reader who raised many good points about the shootings in Minneapolis, but I want to pick apart a few of them I disagreed with. He wrote:
In the Dan Friedman quote you used, he unintentionally captures this problem in our thinking when he says, “A cop is not expected to tolerate risk to himself for the sake of your safety. If he perceives danger [my interpretation: to himself], he is trained to eliminate it.” NO! A cop is not the enforcer agent of an invading army (in this case, the government) ‘eliminating danger’ to himself. He protects and serves the community, even to the point of willingly exposing himself to risks that could be avoided if he treated everyone as an enemy combatant, and if we are not to find ourselves mere subjects instead of citizens, uniformed agents must give American citizens a certain amount of benefit of the doubt. This is what distinguishes policing from soldiering, where no such benefit is given. But this is absolutely not the mindset law enforcement agents are trained in today, where they are told it is completely justified to treat each and every one of us first as a criminal, potentially lethal threat. That people on the right (“limited government” and all that) have blindly swallowed this with very little critique is confusing to me, because in plain English this means your government is trained to view you the way it views Iraqis or Afghanis. The relatively recent militarization of law enforcement, where the relationship of the average officer toward his or her community is one of an occupying soldier, is as much a symbol and symptom of where we are as a country as any of your Weimar comparisons.
I think the reader misunderstood Dan Friedman’s point, which is that police officers don’t relinquish their right to self-protection. While I agree they should be willing to give citizens a benefit of the doubt, this presumes the citizen is behaving lawfully or at least in an otherwise reasonable manner. This implied agreement is at the heart of the relationship between police and policed. Even if you believe Renee Good and Alex Pretti weren’t doing anything illegal, they did enough to draw the attention of law enforcement, quite deliberately. Neither person was shot instantly; the situation escalated.
[Side-note on deescalation: ICE agents cannot deescalate someone who thinks they’re Nazis, who thinks they’re fake cops. It’s not going to happen. You can only deescalate someone who recognizes your authority or respects you enough to do so.]
I think this reader here wants a high-trust model of policing, which is possible only in a high-trust society. It’s possible only in a society where crime rates are low, where obedience to the law isn’t a topic of political argument. Clearly, that’s not where the U.S. is at. Such a system doesn’t come for free. It requires both sides to be concerned more about their responsibilities than their rights. It’s this emphasis on rights which leads both sides to conclude they’re fighting against each other.
America, despite the Left’s wishes that it were, isn’t a police state. American law enforcement is simply more effective than their counterparts worldwide. Anyone who thinks that American police are too aggressive haven’t seen a police force lacking in aggressiveness. This is where the incompetence of police is laid most bare. Obviously, American police has many problems, but at least they’re willing to act, most of the time. Even in Europe, the police are neither aggressive nor assertive. That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement, but in the real world, police either gravitate towards the extreme of being too aggressive or towards that of being too passive. In a country like America, especially with lots of criminals and violent people, where social interactions are often difficultly managed, do you really want a police force which tries to stay out of the fight?
The reader also says:
And as to why you would carry a firearm to a protest…in your same entry you point out the random violence being carried out by these protestors, and their accosting of journalists and innocent bystanders, accusing anyone who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’ of being ICE. Why wouldn’t you carry a firearm to that? Anyone on the right that is pro-2A (I don’t include you in this group; while I think you generally support the Second Amendment, I am referring to a subset of those on the right that actively carry and participate in the pro-2A movement) is a complete hypocrite to suggest that at a mass event with the potential for thuggish street violence, they should be unarmed. My wife and kids, who are not the ‘protesting type’, have been invited to a pro-home-schooling march at our state capitol. They’ve asked me to attend. Why? They fear the crazies that these types of events bring out. Homeschooling is a “right wing” movement around here; the Left generally supports the public schools. Based on this email I’ll let you venture a guess as to whether I will be armed.
What did I say a while back? When carrying, you don’t get to go to protests anymore. Your life changes the moment you decide to become a weapons-carrier. You simply cannot go about business the way you did previously. Forget about attending public events of any kind if you insist on being strapped and loaded at all times. It’s a sacrifice you need to be willing to make if you want to carry. It doesn’t mean you can’t live your life at all, but it does mean you cannot live your life as a freely as you did before. All things in life involve trade-offs: to enjoy the benefits of carrying, you need to restrain yourself that much more.
Our society is one of many divides, but one divide which has been around longer than most is the divide between the rights-oriented and the responsibility-oriented. The former sees it as everyone else’s responsibility to keep them safe, whereas the latter views it as one’s own. The former is preoccupied with the behavior of others, because hey, everyone else is the problem, not me, whereas the latter focuses on their own behavior first and foremost. As you might imagine, the former is more idealistic than the latter, and while every society needs a share of idealists, you cannot have them running things and making decisions on behalf of others, either. That’s because a society which outsources responsibility to everyone else is dysfunctional. Individual rights can exist only when individuals themselves can be held responsible.
The deaths of Good and Pretti get at so many core issues in America today, but it also hits at the oldest of debates: what are our responsibilities as citizens, exactly? Do we have any? And if we don’t, what’s it even mean to be a citizen?
Love Him When He’s Gone
Earlier this month, the music world lost Brad Arnold, lead singer of the band 3 Doors Down, at age 47 after a spirited battle with cancer. For those of a certain age, especially of my generation, 3 Doors Down was a cultural powerhouse. It’s hard to believe now, and millions of young Americans today have no memory of it, but once upon a time, Arnold’s voice was inescapable. You heard him when you turned on the radio. You heard him on TV, in movies. The band put out hit after hit in the first half the 2000s, and while their star eventually faded, they remained relevant on the music scene for many more years.
I was never a fan of 3 Doors Down. I thought they were overrated, honestly. Sort of like an American version of the Canadian rock band Nickelback, another cultural force of nature during the same era (Brad Arnold and Chad Kroeger’s voices were probably heard most consistently at the time). Yet the impact they left behind was undeniable. There’s no rhyme or reason to art. If you connect with audiences, you’re doing something right.
Like many acts, they were emblematic of their times. One reason I think Arnold’s death hits hard for me, despite never having been a fan of 3 Doors Down, is that it calls back a time when rock music still dominated the charts. It’s not just because I’m a rock fanatic, but also because it was a different time. Things weren’t perfect, but I can assure you, our society was in much better shape overall than it is today. Yes, politics were starting to get divisive and snippy due to the controversies resulting from the War On Terror, but it was nothing like it is today. Americans didn’t hate one another. We argued over things, but politics was seldom one of them. We certainly didn’t end friendships over it. Nor did politics dominate the news like it does today. Again, it’s hard to believe. But I was there. I lived it. So did many of you.
The era of 3 Doors Down was also when patriotism was mainstream, a part of popular culture. 9/11 was the reason, but whatever the case might be, it’s just nice to think that there was a time, not so long ago, when being patriotic was cool. Even being right-wing was cool. I’ve observed in the past that from 2001 to 2008 was the one time, certainly in most Americans’ lifetimes today, that the Right had cultural currency. They squandered it all thanks to the Iraq War and the Great Recession happening on the Republican Party’s watch, unfortunately.
3 Doors Down’s smash 2002 hit “When I’m Gone” is emblematic of this bygone era in U.S. history. The music video, filmed aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Mediterranean Sea, served as a tribute to those in the armed forces. By then, the U.S. had been at war for over a year, and another war was looming on the horizon. The music video drove home the fact that Americans had been making sacrifices on behalf of the country and were going to continue making sacrifices for the foreseeable future. Some people might look back on this now and consider it jingoistic propaganda, but the reality is, without these sorts of reminders, even then, most Americans often forgot what was being demanded of their fellow Americans in arms.
As a side note, that this was from 24 years ago now is something I cannot wrap my brain around. 24 years before 2002 would’ve been 1978. We’d be talking about a time when disco was dominating the charts. We obviously live in a very different world from 2002, but it still doesn’t look as different as 1978 did from 2002. And yet it was still almost a quarter-century ago now.
It’s a long time. Much has transpired since then. For one, an entire generation with no recollection of 9/11 is now grown up, well into adulthood. America no longer fights in Afghanistan or Iraq. The War On Terror, though officially still ongoing, isn’t the focal point of our political debates. It seems as though America’s next war could very well be fought on home soil. It’ll be interesting to see how our culture, the music world, responds to that. If current trends are anything to go by, it’s tough to be optimistic.
Once upon a time, it wasn’t like that. We were once united, if only for a short time. I think many of us on both sides would like those days back, imperfect as they were. Unfortunately, Brad Arnold’s passing reminds us those days are well in our past. All we can do is appreciate what we once had, cherish the memories, and love one another while we’re still here, and long after we’re gone.
Rest in peace, Brad Arnold.
Over to you. What are your takes on any of the topics discussed today? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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They should’ve asked the Russian athletes how they felt about representing their country… oh wait …
I’m Canadian, and the idea of walking the streets carrying a gun (as opposed to keeping one at home) is quite foreign to me. I would tend to feel that the likelihood of something going wrong is at least as high as the likelihood of it actually helping to save your life. I’m not sure if anyone has run numbers on that.
I think I’ve told the story of how my father in law apprehended the guy who stole his truck. The first two cops who arrived refused to leave their car until backup arrived.
I don’t admire this approach but I understand it. If a cop regularly faces situations with a 9 out of 10 chance of getting out safely, the odds are that it will catch up to him pretty quickly. The cops want to get risk as close to zero as possible. Civilians have to understand that.