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June 21, 2004 Going Wobbly James lileks is getting pessimistic. For the last few weeks I’ve had this gnawing belief that bin Laden got lucky by attacking during Bush’s term. Conventional wisdom says the opposite, because Bush fought back. But he’s the enemy now. I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.) Of course this doesn't mean they're unpatriotic, etc., obligatory disclaimers, et cetera. But let's be honest. People are coming up with websites that demonstrate ingenious technology for spraying anti-Bush slogans on the sidewalks; it would be nice if they sprayed "DEFEAT TERRORISM" or "STOP AL QAEDA" now and then. Wouldn't it? I belong to a usenet newsgroup that includes best-selling SF writer John Ringo. Right after 911, Ringo opined that what would happen after 911 was that we'd be all hot and bothered to fight the war on terror for a while. Then the anger would fade, the naysayers wouldconvince the public that we'd gone too far, and we'd fall back into the September 10th attitude about terrorism. Then we'd get hit again. And the cycle would keep going, until the terrorists did something that just made us snap, and we'd start nuking the Mideast. I thought he was overly pessimistic, of course. Now, I'm not so sure. |
It's simpler than all that: The Left is post-modernist and moral realtivist and sees everything through the prism of a twisted neo-Marxism (see Lee Harris)in which the Third World is always right and the USA is always wrong.
FACT IS: the Left has always been irrational and wrong.
The Left opposed Nixon and the Vietnam War - so they aided the USSR and ended our aid for South Vietnam and this led directly to 2 million boat people (and perhaps another 1,000,000 who died on unsuccessful boat-trips); 500,000 in Vietnamese concentration/re-education camps; and to Pol Pot and 3 million people murdered in Cambodia. Yet the Left still brags about it, though. As if their view was not irrational and wrong.
And they still hate Nixon - as if somebody else invented the EPA, and passed the Clean Air/Clean Water Act, opened up China, ended the draft, ended the Vietnam War, tried Wage & Price Controls, invented DETENTE and signed the first nuclear arms treaties - in other words: did in FOUR YEARS what few presidents do in EIGHT! The facts prove that Nixon was bold, that Nixon good and that Nixon was great - for the USA and the world!
Yet the Left still hates him. Irrationally. And they are still wrong.
And they believe that the Vietnam Syndrome IS STILL a good thing, even when the fact is, the syndrome led DIRECTLY led to a decade of weakening American military and intelligence strength, and to HORRIBLE GLOBAL DEFEATS, WHICH WE ARE STILL PAYING FOR: the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR; the overthrow of the Shah in Iran - and the establishment of the first Islamofacsist state; and the takeover by Sadaam of Iraq (with the help of the USSR). AND, to the USSR's near total take-over of Central America.
All this occured from 1975-1980.
Yet the Left still believes that American miltiary strength is a threat to world peace. On this, they are still irrational and wrong.
In 1980, Reagan ended rule of the the self-flagellating, USSR-aiding Left. Reagan did this by re-asserting American miltary superiority, and by re-asserting the moral/politcal/economic superiority of democracy and free market of capitalism. Thusly, Reagan ended the Cold War, and saved Europe and Central America, and large chunks of Asia from Marxist totalitarianism.
Yet the Left still thinks he was wrong, dumb and a warmonger. On this too, the Left is irrational and wrong.
This is the same Left that MOMENTARILY felt that ther USA had something worth defending and fighting for - and worth exporting - as when they said soon afer 9/11: "we should deal with the root causes of terror - poverty, ignorance, and tyranny." As when they "somewhat supported" some action against the Taliban - although, as soon as their favorite anti-Vietnam war reporters Seymour Hersh and Johnny Apple wrote that it was all going oh so very badly, you could see the Left get their "I TOLD YOU SO" arguments together. Too bad for the Left that war ended so well, and so soon.
Well... now George W. Bush is doing just what the Left had once advocated - Bush is draining the swamp of Islamofascism - and ending the racism of lowered expectations that says Arabs and Msulim can't be deomcratic. And RESUTANCE to that effort comes from four sources: the war-weary Europeans -who are all moral relativists; the status quoists, who think we can do nothing and everything will just revert to stability; the enemy; and Left.
What's so aggravating is that Left - which doesn't like doesn't Bush's policies - once supported these very same classically liberal/FDR-WIlsonian polices.
WHY? HOW? WHEN?
When these policies are/were put forward by socialist-redisributionists, they accept them.
So, because Bush is for individual liberty (free markets) the Left compares Bush to Hitler - and Mussolini!
As if the Taliban and Saddam were benign humanists, and not evil regimes which systematically denied people their UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - YES UNIVERSAL!
Just like FDR wrote in the Four Freedoms speech: freedom is for all PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. Just as Eleanor Roosevelt intended when she virtually penned the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights.
Yet the Left cries foul.
The Left howls about lies that were never spoken and motives that mnake no sense. And they keep moving the goal posts.
And the Left makes inconistent arguments.
BUT OF COUSE THEY DO!
They always have.
WHY?!?!?!?!?
Because since their post-modernist creed claims there is no real TRUTH, they make ad-hoc arguments top fit each case. In their mids there is no need for consistency.
Because they are moral and cultural relativists, they have no transcendent values to be the moral basis for interceding into the affairs of other countries.
Which is why they OVERVALUE the UN: they believe that since all values are relative only a cross-cultural body like the UN can confer moral value on any international intervention. And they don't belive that the moral standing of ther USA is better than that of SYRIA or North Korea - in their minds we just have different ways of seeing and living.
THE UTTER MORAL BANKRUPTCY of that view is mind-blowing.
Really, by extension Leftists have no basis for ending slavery anywhere - unless the UN mandates it. Also, by this resasoning intervention into dysfunctioanl families that might be sexually abusing their children has no moral basis; after all, in the mind of the moral relativist, "maybe that family sees that behavior as OKAY; who are wee to judge?!"
To awaken/deprogram my Leftist friends, I ask them these questions:
Why was the North's intervention in the South to end slavery, during the US Civil War MORALLY correct??!
Why was the later intervention by Northerners in the South to end segregation morally correct?!
MY ANSWER: because all people everywhere are endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights.
That's what we're fighting to protect - and extend.
There is nothing more noble for the world's oldest and strongest and wealthiest democracy to do.
Our brothers and sister all over the world desrve it.
It's time the Left abandoned their post-modernist and mroally relatvist BS and joined the good fight.
Why did they stop suporting this effort?
They SIMPLY reverted to form.
YES: we can deprogram them, and save them too, even as we save the rest of the world from tyranny in all its ugly forms. We will ave the Left from The Tyranny of Moral Relatrivism
Posted by: dan at June 21, 2004 08:58 PM
I agree with Lileks, simply because for too many people, BUSH is the enemy, not terrorists.
Posted by: Shark at June 21, 2004 10:22 PM
........and Democrats wonder why so many (rightly) question their patriotism.......
Posted by: shark at June 21, 2004 10:25 PM