> > I think it's pretty obvious that when someone says "Iraq is evil" they do not mean that the country and its culture and history and people are an intrinsic abomination. What is meant is that the government running the country is evil.
>
> Sorry for the late interruption here (darn my only-when-the-boss-is-away Internet access), but earlier in this thread, in your Patriotism post you said:
>
> > I don't know how you define what your country is, but I certainly don't define it exclusively in terms of its government. A nation's government is a part of the nation but not all of it. Not even most of it.
>
> To me, it seems like you have two situations there, one where you are saying "I love the United States." and one where someone is saying "Iraq is evil." Why is does each line involve a different definition of what that country's name encompasses, and how is an audience supposed to know which they mean?

I was wondering if someone would call me on this, because this occurred to me as I wrote about Iraq. Despite how contradictory this seems, though, is it really that ambiguous? It seems to me like the natural assumptions about these statements are exactly what I've said here.

If I say "I love" a particular nation, who is actually going to assume I'm just talking about its government (barring a context that would suggest so)? If someone said that to me, the first things that would occur to me as being the specific aspects under discussion would be the country's lands and/or people. Beyond that, probably its laws (which is not the same as its government). If someone *does* make the mistake of assuming only the government is being spoken of, as someone did here, well, that's why I explained what I meant. I was clarifying the point, and if my audience did not know what I was talking about before, my clarification is how they learn. But really, I mean, I'm a guy who was born here, who lives here, who *is* part of its culture, sees its lands every day, interacts with its people every day, studies its history, votes for its government representatives, and follows its role in world affairs...it's not likely that I'd talk about a specific aspect of the United States without qualifying. So if I say "I love the United States" without any other context, there's no good reason to assume I'm talking about any specific aspect of the nation instead of the nation as a whole.

Now, saying a country is "evil" is NOT the same situation. Countries cannot be evil. A country's land cannot be "evil." The word "evil" modifies only self-aware nouns (slang uses aside). Its people are self-aware and could therefore be called evil, but categorically calling millions of people grouped by place of residence "evil" is the sort of irrational, impossible, and offensive blanket statement that only the most captious conversationalists would assume someone would intend when there is ambiguity. What other aspect of a nation might be "evil," then, other than its government?

But if that isn't clear enough, context should tell the rest of the story. When President Bush called Iraq evil, he was talking about government sponsored terrorism. Period. For him to mean anything *other* than just its government would be a bizarre and irrelevant change of subject. But I don't think one *needs* the context to figure out what he meant. What else *could* he have meant?

Now, if I were to say that Iraq "sucked," out of the blue (such that there is no contextual information in the surrounding statements), then that's more ambiguous than saying Iraq is "evil." I might mean the government, but I might mean its culture, its climate, its standard of living, its laws, its geography, or just about anything else about it. I might just be saying the place is too darned hot to live in. Now, given what you know about me -- namely that I've probably never been to Iraq nor met an Iraqi -- you can *probably* assume I'm not talking about its terrain or climate or people. I'm *probably* talking about its role in world affairs, because that's what a guy like me is probably most knowledgeable about. But still. It's tough to say, and confusion would be understandable.

Anyway, I don't see this as being that hard to figure out.