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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Saturday, October 11, 2003
The Left's Bumper-Sticker Wisdom
There is one thing endearing about the Left: they are fond of summing up their sophisticated, nuanced wisdom with bumper-sticker slogans that, if given a moment's intelligent thought, almost invariably prove to be inane. Yesterday in a parking lot one vehicle (a VW van, natch) was festooned with a bumper sticker bearing the following bit of wisdom-of-the-ages:
WAR IS TERRORISM
Well, that's fine. But the bumper-sticker seems to have inadvertently omitted the other two parts of that political philosophy:
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
And, the last being the most important of all, without which their views could not spread:
their IGNORANCE IS their STRENGTH
Speaking of that last slogan, and FRONTLINE's efforts to spread ignorance so that it can be used to strengthen the Left politically, Andrew Sullivan has more on that FRONTLINE piece I mentioned yesterday.
Note to the Terminally Humorless: Please don't worry about writing me a pedantic mail to let me know that the slogan from Ninteen Eighty-Four is "WAR IS PEACE", Mmmmn-kay? I do remember the book. The bumper-sticker does fit, regardless: the book was part-satire (with a serious edge) and so is this.
Jeeze, I wish this guy would just go shack up with Osama already. Don't make me reach for those "Fundimentally Oral Bill" Bloom County strips again, Pat. *mutter*
In unrelated and more positive news, the Arnold meme spreads. What would be my position on a Recall of Schroeder? Well, to be serious, it can't happen. I'd have endoursed someone-but-Davis in a General Election, and would certainly support a reformist candidate in Germany. On the other hand, sorry, but I did laugh at this quote:
"My first thought was 'Oh my God, not another Austrian emigrant -- the first one caused enough damage"'
As the good people revel in his problems with a savage glee and invent rationalizations for using this to their political benefit and his political detriment, without any self-awareness regarding how some of their assertions might apply to them given their reactions (you can always feel their goodness shine through at a time like this), I'm going to do what I always do in situations like this.
I'm going to pray for his quick and complete recovery, send him my best wishes, and hope for the best for him.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committe seems to have actually made a good choice in Shirin Ebadi. With any luck this will bring greater attention to the Iranian democracy movement and put more heat on the Mullahcracy.
Apropos of this week's discussion is this article which itself is reflective of the Flattering Unction, and closes this revealing section, emblematic of the problem we're facing:
An elegant-looking teacher in her 40s wandered up and joined the conversation. The truth, she said conspiratorially, is that when you close your classroom door, you're in charge and there's a lot you can get away with. The others nodded in agreement.
The Daily News has an interesting article on the latest shakeup in how Iraq is being handled. Apparently, Bush is No Longer Amused with Rumsfeld "who is widely seen within the administration to have been more adept at waging war than peace in Iraq", which may well be true (he is, after all, what was in an earlier, more honest age, called "Secretary of War").
If American institutions functioned as they should, State would have led in the "peace" phase. But the State Department, with its own well-chronicled problems, couldn't be (and still isn't) trusted to handle it. Which is why things have to be cobbled together. Thus we see some of the effects of unreformed institutions.
A guest blog today, this one written by John Allison. As usual, I may not agree with every little point, but the whole is certainly worth pondering. (Regarding "land wars in Asia", IMO the Generals of the era were wrong and self-limiting. We achieved our goals in Korea. In any case, we'd better hope they were wrong: Afghanistan and Iraq are in Asia. That's just one thing).
How We Got Here By John Allison
There's a meme I've seen a time or too online about the 'Aging Aquarians' that seems to have some similarities to what you've been publishing recently. And before I jump off into it I do realize that the '50's was not all Leave It To Beaver and the Donna Reed Show. (Geez, I remember watching the Donna Reed Show, where's my cane?)
Anyhow, after WWII we had not only the baby boom, but also the college boom as many of the returning vets took classes during the day and made kids at night (yep, it's all the GI Bill's fault, and in a sense, this isn't too far off the mark). So now we have a larger proportion of the population with the educational tools to better their lives and the lives of their (more numerous) offspring; the desirability of numerous offspring being a holdover from our agrarian past where many hands meant light(er) work.
During this same time we have old Europe trying to reimpose their colonial authority over colonies that had just witnessed their overlords having their heads handed to them by a non-European opponent. This broke the myth of European invincibility in the eyes of many. We also have many in Europe just flat tired of fighting and dieing in foreign lands along with socialist movements trying to use this as a wedge issue and picking up where they left off in the '30s. The result is conflicts in foreign countries that do not have the full support of the populations of the countries doing the fighting. Korea was an aberration that took advantage of the USSR being in a snit and boycotting the security council. You can bet your butt they never did that again. The British succeeded in Malaysia (don't hear much about that, do we?) while the French failed in Cochin China (and we never heard the end of that).
Speaking of socialism, it was quite popular on campuses in the '30s. Anyone think they all saw the light in 1941? Guess what, they were still there, just ignored as irrelevant and after the war they were mostly seen as amusing historical curiosities that bore no relevance to life outside of academia. Didn't hear much from them during the period in which war veterans were populating the campuses in large numbers, but they were still there. But when the following generation (today's Aging Aquarians) started popping up on campus, whoo boy.
One thing that put us on the wrong side of history in the '50s was backing the French in their attempt to retain empire. I think this had more effect on the US population than we may realize. It definitely caused raised eyebrows in Asia. It was a pretty half-hearted backing (thanks, Ike) and suffered from the curse of half measures. (LBJ was a senator at this point iirc. Maybe this is where he learned half-measuredom) The generation that raised hell on the campuses in the '60s was the generation that watched us trying to bail out the French in the papers and newsreels in the theaters while at the same time being told about our origins as rebels against a colonial power in grade school. See the disconnect here? I bet the Aging Aquarians did. I know Ho Chi Minh saw it and he used it against us masterfully.
But we had a hand in helping Uncle Ho and that hand was attached to LBJ. He tried to fight the war under the radar, without making the case to the people, without knowing, I suspect, what victory should look like. It was common knowledge at the time among the denizens of the Pentagon that we should never get involved in a land war in Asia, it couldn't be won. I submit that that was false. In Korea our goal was to restore the status quo ante (adventurism from McArthur aside). It worked out that we fought off outside aggressors while leaving the internal affairs of the Koreans largely in their hands and it succeeded. I strongly suspect that a similar goal in Vietnam had a chance of working although instead of fortifying a parallel we would have needed to fortify SVN's entire border coupled with flattening NVN. My take has been lately that we probably shouldn't have been there in the first place, although you could make a case for our presence in Vietnam stopping socialist expansion through the island countries towards Australia.
Backing up into the '50s again, the daily grind of the 'savage wars of peace' is giving those that cover these conflicts a jaundiced view of the folk that got a pass during the last 'war you could trust' as they try to come to grips with conflicts that don't stay on nice easily choreographed battlefields away from anywhere important with easily identified combatants and noncombatants. And we find people that are not accustomed to having to justify their actions to outsiders stumbling when they try to do so since these 'liberation wars' just don't fit the nicely drawn templates laid out in the service academies. Journalism of the 'We're all in this together' school starts dieing off in fits and starts in favor of the 'We know they did wrong now what have they done wrong and when did they do it' school.
So now in the '60s we have large numbers of intellectually vulnerable offspring entering the hollowed walls of academia after a lifetime of not having to milk cows, or do other things of the sort that used to take up the time of their folks, children of privilege, if you will, with a rather shaky acquaintance with cause and effect and they meet up with all those irrelevant socialist types that somehow refused to go away after we won the big one, but rather, kept toiling away waiting for history to catch up with them.
As an aside, I don't have data to base this on but I strongly suspect that students majoring in the hard sciences were greatly outnumbered by those in the humanities in the rebellious herds. Bridges stand or fall based on equations that don't take kindly to being considered 'social constructs' and for the folk in the hard sciences there is an objective reality that doesn't bend it's knee to their liking and they learn to work with it. For the folk in the humanities the idea of an objective reality not subject to their desires appears to be an insult to their, well, they call it intelligence.
We also have in the '60s, the maturation of the mass media and the saturation of the 'good news is no news' mindset which results in the continuing drumbeat of bad people in bad government doing bad things which only gets louder and more pervasive in ensuing years (this isn't a new phenomenon of the Bush years, by any means, it just seems louder as the media does appear to be a one trick pony).
So. In their minds, the Aging Aquarians brought down one president (LBJ) and stopped our involvement in Vietnam. They then brought down another president (Nixon) through adversarial journalism and cranking up the DNC screech machine. Those ten years, from '65 to '75 represent the absolute pinnacle of the Aging Aquarians existence. They spoke 'truth' to power and power collapsed before them. Oh yeah, the sex, drugs and music was great, too. Boy, they don't do that like we used to.
They passed along these stories of the past to their kids while they toiled away. Not screeching quite so loudly now that they have to work for a living (wasn't it fun raising hell on dad's dime?). Then their kids head for academia and guess what, the professoriat is still there, still biding their time away from public scrutiny only now the professoriat is their parents, telling them about their salad days.
The professional protestors of the '70s gravitated towards single issue advocacy groups because that's where the money is and dad's not bankrolling them anymore and they still haven't learned to play nice with others.
Their grandkids are paying the price.
On another issue entirely, at one time I had respect for Jesse Jackson. He had the opportunity to take up the reigns set down by Dr King but no, he went after the dollar, instead. The Civil Rights movement is part of the whole milieu and I suspect that the student hell-raising fed off the heat and light it generated and vice versa.
Many threads seem to be coming together and 9/11 seems to have been the shock that is knocking the precipitate out of suspension and causing it to all collect together in one large, screaming, screeching mass of uselessness.
Let me take a stab at something and see what the response is.
I would agree with Armed Liberal that both wings of the ideological spectrum (or the full range if one doesn't like the "linear" model; lets not have a debate on that) have tendencies to, or temptations to, cut themselves off from negative feedback or take the wrong lesson from it.
HOWEVER - I would say that this problem *definately* affects Liberals and the Left to a far greater degree than it does the Right? Why?
Well, the "why" is actually really easy: it has to do with information inputs.
We on the Right are always grousing, IMO generally with good reason, about the slanted nature of reporting - they typically favor the Liberal line and are quick to criticize conservatives and Republicans. If and when they criticize Democrats, it tends to be criticism from the Left perspective (that is, in affect, complaining that the Democrats aren't acting like the "democratic wing of the Democratic Party" would want them to).
Now, conservatives do this, too. But conservative media is far smaller. It's a lot easier for a Democrat to avoid criticism of a sort that doesn't come from the position of accepting their views as axiomatic than it is for a Republican to do so.
What I am suggesting is that, for a Liberal who wants a revitalized Liberalism, they should be at least as concerned about media bias as we on the Right are. Why?
As Armed Liberal is essentially pointing out, much of the "feedback" on the election that the Democrats are being given effectively mirrors what they're already tempted to do: dismiss it as some sort of irrational temper-tantrum on the part of the voters, something that says absolutely nothing about how they have governed, something that the voters, not themselves need to learn a lesson from.
Contrast that with the media "feedback" Bush is getting on Iraq - the danger is that it is too negative in its portrayal, too harsh on his policies to the point that a rational person might be tempted to dismiss it wholesale as ideologically rather than factually driven (certainly true of, say, the BBC coverage) - but it is difficult to ignore. Thus, there have been (as the Rauch article points out) alterations and modifications of how we're handling things in Iraq, based in part on feedback that things aren't going well and perhaps a different tack needs to be taken to improve things.
The Democrats don't get this to an effective degree because the information feedbacks they receive are generally flattering, a flattering unction - even when it is asserted that they screwed up ("the reason the 2002 election went bad for Democrats was that they weren't hard-line enough in being Democrats, they need to be more of what they are, then they'll win." - nothing in such criticisms that suggest they reflect on their policies or governing methodology, just "do more of the same, harder, deeper, more intensely".)
If a program or policy doesn't produce what people expected when it was first implemented, the feedback that Republicans will typically get is that the approach is wrong and the policy needs to be rethought. But the feedback the Democrats will usually receive usually consists of saying, in effect, that it just wasn't tried hard enough - no re-thinking of the aproach is needed, just more of the same (greater funding, endlessly). That doesn't necessarily help Democrats.
Yes, I know that with all generalizations, people can point to contrarian examples. However, the general atmosphere that the parties function in is important, and the fact that the Democrats receive more of one kind of critique, a flattering of their unction, makes it too easy for them to dismiss substantive critiques (since anyone's tendency is to prefer flattery over critiques of one's core positions).
Update: Mitchell Hagmaier comments. I'm not sure about the assertion that "the most dangerous threat to conservative America is Fox News" - unless one goes overboard. Fox News isn't (yet) any kind of threat to the overwhelming media atmosphere. It would be nice if it had an impact that caused a shift towards "normal" (not "the center" so much, but accurate feedback for everyone as a "new norm", rather than cheerleading or booing either side axiomatically). If someone were to completely tune out other sources and only listen to NPR or Fox News, that's a negative - for the individual.
But my point is more closely related to the atmosphere in which policymakers exist: the kind of feedbacks they get, which can make a California State Senator declare that the election of Arnold proves that the voters don't deserve him (the State Senator), they're unworthy of him - rather than he having to learn something from the episode. (John Vasconcellos- D, natch, San Jose). But the point certainly applies to individuals as well. It's somewhat less important unless and until it reaches a critical mass.
I do have to say, having not cut myself off from "other" sources of media, that I hardly ever learn anything worth knowing from monitoring Judy Swallow(s) (I bet she does!) on the BBC World Service Newshour on my way in to work every morning, nor did I learn anything except the degree to which people will manipulate the presentation of facts from watching last night's FRONTLINE on Iraq (there is an hour and a half of my life I won't get back. I skipped Inuyasha for that?); but that gets to the other problem with current media outlets - the degree to which they're willing to outright misrepresent things (such as who said "immanent" or didn't or whether "Niger" was mentioned in the SotA or not) in order to serve ideological ends. See previous posts from the last ten days for more on that theme, though.
In any case, over-reliance on Fox (or talk radio) certainly could become a problem for conservatism. But I don't think we're anywhere near the level of hypertrophy yet that Liberalism has already reached in that regard. And, yah, I'm gonna keep monitoring the BBC every weekday so I can continue to learn that any time something goes wrong in the world it's America's Fault and everything goes swimmingly when America is not involved.
As the internal war goes on, stories like this get downplayed. The hard evidence on Iraq continues to come in, but Ralph Peters is all over Bush for cutting Turkey in on Iraq. I have to say I worry about this, too, and would only want Turkish troops in the central part of Iraq - not in the Kurdish areas. That does seem to be what Bush wants the Turks to do, too. We'll see if the problems Peters highlights come to pass or not. In any case, as Peters laments the deal with Turkey, Tom Friedman wants us to make more deals with more devilish devils. Jim Hoagland notes a "Europe" (read = France and Germany) vs Bush fissure, and as usual with guys like him, Hoagland, of course, is not on Bush's side. How could it be that the Bastion of Enlightened Opinion might have responsibility for something going wrong? Of course not! They can do no wrong - and Bush can do no right.
On the economic front, don't miss the Winds of Change Japan roundup, repleat with links. At home, some are arguing that the Steel Tariffs are good, but I still think they suck ass - after all, lets look at the wider effects. Here, though, are some thoughts on soaking the rich and which one of these jokers has a policy that will create jobs and reduce the deficit? Here's a report on CBO deficit estimates.
Regarding this week's topic, Ralph writes, via e-mail:
One does not shine the lamp in the hopes that the cockroaches will cease to be cockroaches, nor in the hope that they won't come back, but rather to gross out your roommates in hopes they'll stop leaving food around for them.
I don't expect or hope that horror stories about Ivy League schools will make anyone there change their ways, but I do hope that it will affect (in increasing order of importance) (1) The life decisions of a bright young kid (or his parents) who's deciding between Harvard and a less famous school with a more rigorous curriculum. (2) The donation decisions of alumni - how many of those who write checks know what they really go to these days? (3) The hiring decisions of the corporate world. They don't they really need a bunch of people who at worst have been taught to hate their new employer and at best have learned absolutely nothing in the last four years.
The Carthaginian Peace Proposal seems to have some support out there. To some extent, people are already doing that. One of the reasons for home schooling is this very thing. Similarly, this is why the smaller colleges with rigorous curriculums are doing fairly well. However, there's only so far that this will go, I believe. Also, I don't think people are taking into account the degree to which it would be a shame, even from our point of view and position, to simply write off America's major universities as lost causes. Because there is a paradox - though a font of bad thinking, America's great research universities are also, perversely, one of America's greatest assets. I don't see how the Carthaginian Peace that people are offering is going to salvage what is good about these universities while eliminating that which is bad. I would rather see a solution that does that. Now, my problem is that I don't.
I also do not think that we're going to get a majority of Americans to support the Carthaginian Solution for our universities (or media, or State Department, or CIA, &tc &tc). We should be able to do better ("we can do bettah!"), though I can't see how. I think that if this is the alternative we offer - leave no two stones standing atop another and salt the earth of the Universities so nothing will grow there, I think that the majority of the country will continue to reject that option and will rather prefer to continue to pretend the problem doesn't exist or that it is manageable and will go away on its own. (I will point out, though, people often forget, eventually the Romans did rebuild Carthage. . .so it would be possible to rebuild the universities afterwords. But it'd take a long time and I don't think most people will choose this route.)
If we could somehow reduce our society's "credentialism" the university as we know it could be dead in a few decades. Yes, something valuable, the true liberal arts education, will have been lost, but then it already has. What's needed now is a little "creative destruction" applied to the bullshit that has displaced it.
That would be fine but it's one of those "first, catch the rabbit" proposals. Getting from here to there is the hard part that no one really has any idea how to do.
Thanks to your post, I'm now motivated to do something I should have done a while ago: Document in brief form the anti-American lies of UNH Professor Marc Herold, send the report to all my reps in the NH House and Senate, and suggest that the next time UNH sends someone in to whine for more funding he have his nose rubbed in it, and be asked why exactly taxpayers should be funding this jerk.
That is a good idea. I think that putting the heat in in that way is something there should certainly be more of. Let 'em talk about academic freedom - but force them, simultaneously, to defend the merits of something. Freedom isn't necessarily defined as spouting off on someone else's dime.
The pocketbook is the place to attack PoMo and PC - they could never survive in a real markeplace of ideas. Not only are they bullshit, they aren't even very much fun
Probably true, though arguably they're fun for the people who are attracted to that stuff: it's theatrics for them, I'd argue.
John Allison writes, also via e-mail:
the skinny end of the bell curve on the left (right, also) is going to have to learn how to play nice with others. They obviously have little experience in how to be a 'Loyal Opposition' nor do they seem inclined to want to gain such. Politically motivated violence is going to have to be seen by all as the very definition of terrorism and I have to look straight at organized labor as the legitimators of mob violence in this country. Yes, there was mob violence before the unions but they played a key role in institutionalizing it and ELF, PETA and their fellow travellers are their offspring, in methodology if not doctrine.
Personally I think the "lump" on the Left end of that Bell Curve has gotten far larger, and also more malevolent than the one on the "Right". The Buchananite and Falwell Right do not control the major media, universities, State Department, CIA, &tc.
Even at the height of Clinton-hating, few on the Right went so far as to wish America itself ill or to see America negatively (and those who did ended up not being the tail that wagged the entire Right "dog", but are sulking exiles who are currently feeling more in common with the Hard Left); on the Left, they are the ideological, contribution, and organizational base. They don't seem to have any desire to be a "loyal opposition" (haven't you noticed? Every time they're out of power, it's because they was screwed. Not just with Bush - the more hard-core among them always felt Reagan jobbed/robbed them with glibness, too, and that didn't count, either - though that attitude wasn't as perniciously widespread as it is now; but that's part of my point. These problems have grown rather than lessening).
Some of what you say about Organized Labour is right, but we also need to keep in mind that this is also where a divide first expressed itself - the New Left battling with Blue-collar hard-hat types in the streets. During the Cold War, the key unions were, do to their leadership at the time, staunchly on the "right side" and represented one of the last bastions of the old Liberal establishment (the one of the Truman and Kennedy tradition) to fall to the encroachments of the New Left.
A lot of bad stuff can be said about those union guys, Meeny and Kirkland and the like. But whatever else can be said about them, in the end they were "with us" (America) not against us. They were a loyal opposition (when they were in the opposition) and I miss them dearly, and I think the Democratic Party misses them even more (it was something that counterbalanced the ideological Leftists; guys like that wouldn't tolerate things that hampered a war effort just to nail the other side at home). Now the Unions are largely based around public sector employees (the Government organized as a special interest), influenced to a much greater degree by the ideological left (people who work in offices rather than people with dirty hands from hard labour).
As for the terrorism of the Left, it traces its roots back to Babeuf, the Jacobins, through turn of the century the anarchists (of the sort who assassinated McKinley - people often forget the terrorist problem this country, and the West as a whole, had in the closing years of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, because the usual suspects don't want to teach it alongside their screeds about the "Red Scare" and how unwarranted it was).
Joe Willingham recommends this article by Jonathan Rauch, which is making the rounds of the blog-world and is certainly worth checking out if you haven't read it.
Ray Crites forwards the following, which came to him via the Associates of Graduates office at the USMA:
Subject: Falcon Flyer
The following is an excerpt from a military flier and paper distributed by the 82d Airborne Div. It is about as factual as one could ever find. You know, from the horse's mouth, etc.
Rip another page off your calendars! August was a tough month for the Regiment and we're glad to have it over with. The troopers who were here will never forget the heat of 6-12 August when thermometers pegged out at 136 degrees on the 10th and averaged 133 the whole period. It was a mistake to let bare skin touch metal - you would come away with a blister. Even so, the little Iraqi children cheerfully scurried across the blacktop in their bare feet. The kids are something. They are always smiling and waving. Troopers get a kick out of them running to the street and saying 'Hey mister, mister, chocolate - you give me chocolate'. Of course, they have already learned GI slang and some of the boys practice spitting to imitate paratroopers.
It will probably have US troops there for at least another couple of years, so the Army has decided to spruce it up. We are going to throw up barracks (with flush toilets even!) and then build up quality of life additions round ourselves.
I wanted to take a few lines and explain the big picture of this operation as I see it. Our nation has asked the US military to do some seriously heavy lifting - with the help of some staunch coalition partners.
The global War on Terror is an extremely ambitious undertaking on par with liberating the continent of Europe while simultaneously defeating the Japanese in the Pacific during WW II. This war is about ending terrorism and the culture that breeds it. To do that, we had to come to the source. Some say that there was absolutely no connection between terrorism and Saddam's regime. If that's so, how did Abu Nidal, the most notorious terrorist of the 80's and 90's, find sanctuary here in Baghdad until he died last year? How did Ansar Al Islam, a radical surrogate of Al Queda, operate training camps in Northern Iraq until 83 of them were killed by US SOF? How was it that our forces found Al Queda training materials including recipes for bio toxins here? Who bombed the Jordanian embassy, the UN building, and the Shia mosque in Al Najaf?
In spite of what you hear from the hyped up election year media, we are winning this fight. At the tactical level, your loved ones are conducting operations every night that directly target the remains of Saddam's murderous regime, along with those who seek to prolong the post-combat chaos in Baghdad for their own personal gain.
We have hired almost 2000 Iraqis who are working alongside of our troopers every day to preserve security and protect critical infrastructure.
We have recruited and are now training the first members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the new Iraqi Army. There are now almost 6000 Iraqi policemen in Baghdad and training will continue until there are 16,500. In AO Falcon, we have also started our own security force called Neighborhood Watch. We recruited men from each neighborhood to protect their families and property from criminals and enemy fighters. There are now over 1300 men who prevent evildoers from entering the Al Rasheed community. We have also formed both Neighborhood and District Advisory Councils made up of Iraqi citizens who support our cause and they are beginning to take charge of their own affairs. The fledgling representative government is taking shape and the Iraqis are learning that freedom, prosperity and Islam can in fact co-exist. Each of these groups is beginning to understand that the propaganda being spread by the anti-coalition media is simply not true. We are not here for their oil, or to destroy their religion or install a Jewish government.
They now understand that what was caused by 35 years of neglect and decay cannot be repaired overnight. They have come to know our troopers for what they are: decent, caring, honorable people who treat everyone with dignity and respect unless given reason not to. They also realize this the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to them is to have American Paratroopers as their enemies.
The Iraqis of our district are learning that they can trust us. Consequently, they are no longer afraid to approach us with the information we need to eliminate the resistance fighters. The Iraqi people remain our best sources of intelligence. Because of this, we have transitioned from a strategy of near continuous presence on the streets to one of precision.
We are no longer alienating innocent Iraqis by conducting searches of entire city blocks. Instead, we wait until we know for sure, and then strike quickly to snatch our enemies from their hiding places.
Every hospital and clinic in Baghdad is now operating. The coalition is printing 5 million new textbooks, handing out school supplies to 1.2 million children and rehabilitating 1000 schools. Iraq is producing over 1 million barrels of oil a day. For the first time in history, Baghdad has a garbage collection service. Power production has jumped from 300 mega-watts per day after liberation to 3300 mega-watts per day. There are 1.3 million Iraqis drawing salaries, 92,000 receiving social security payments, and 90,000 working to clear irrigation canals of obstructions.
So the next time you listen to the presidential contenders and media - with their predictions of another Viet Nam, failure and hysteria, you know the real deal. Military campaigns are never easy - and replacing a tyrannical dictatorship with a democracy where one has never before existed is especially difficult. But, our troopers are making it happen and making it matter.
We will not fail and with the help of the Iraqi people, we will finish this fight and head on home.
The only hope now is that Arnie holds the legislature responsible.
Veto. Veto. Veto.
The legislature has taken this past year to make themselves immune to anything like that by (with Davis waving things through) making as much as they can a "fait accompli" as possible. How is Arnold going to veto the licenses-for-illegal-aliens bill? It's already been signed into law. Any reforms Arnold wants will have to be pushed through the legislature. I know that, given what was said about him during the campaign, it seems some expect him to burn down the Assembly Building and get himself granted emergency powers to rule by decree, but that isn't going to happen. The legislature doesn't have to do anything; the rotten stuff is already in place.
Arnold is going to need stuff passed - the Legislature is going to be in the position to "veto" (in effect) any reforms. As for holding them accountable by going over their heads to the people to put the heat on them, many of them have so adeptly made themselves immune to accountability by choosing their voters (rather than being chosen by the voters) via Gerrymandering that they are immune to traditional democratic (small d) pressure.
Steven Den Beste has, as usual, a lengthy and detailed post on the ideology that is taking shape from their statements and positions. Fit that in with what we've been discussing here of late:
That's because they know that we're not really failing. They talk about failure because they fear the terrible possibility of success, and know that it's becoming more and more likely.
Or, put another way:
"The Democrats seem to be constantly trying to figure out how to make this look like a quagmire rather than trying to figure out how to win it."
- Mort Kondracke, Special Report, Sept. 30th 2003.
Not everything is gloom and doom. Richard Meixner sends in the following:
Assume you haven't all seen the reports about how Sears is treating its reservist employees who are called up? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up...
Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution.
Suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves. Pass it on.
Someone who received this decided to check it out before forwarding and sent the following email to the Sears Customer Service Department:
I received this email and I would like to know if it is true. If it is, the internet may have just become one very good source of advertisement for your store. I know I would go out of my way to buy products from Sears instead of another store for a like item even if it was cheaper at the other store.
Sears' actions were confirmed by a customer service rep and also by Snopes. Shop Sears, I say.
Folks often recognize bad corporate behavior and respond accordingly. We should also recognize good corporate behavior and respond accordingly to it.
Further feedback, this time on Polarization and more. Before I get to the mailbag, though, some general thoughts. The focus seems to be on "them", on how they are behaving. Yes, that is distressing. It is simply an observation of fact that they view Bush and his supporters, conservatives and Republicans generally, as the enemy. I'm not putting that word into their mouths, I'm observing what is coming from their mouths. If they found it objectionable - they and their supporters in the media (80%+ voting Democrat) would certainly see it as controversial if a Republican candidate described Democrats as "the real enemy here" - they would have raised an objection rather than nodding along and acting as if the Bush and his supporters were the enemy.
It is important to recognize how things are, and the degree to which this infuses them. But one of the depressing things that I don't think many are taking account of is that it isn't just how they're acting, but how we're going to act in response. We're going to have to act in certain ways to mount a defense against the smears and misrepresentations that are being hurled in this domestic political war by the other side. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Maier (From: Milwaukee) once said:
We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children
I never really felt this statement. After all, if someone is trying to kill you, you defend yourself and have nothing to apologize for. But I'm finally beginning to "get it". I'm not just upset at what I see "the other side" doing. I'm unhappy with the position it is putting me in.
I never wanted to be a "partisan warrior", of either stripe. Not then when I was a Democrat and really meant it when I tried to be open minded about other views (including - *gasp* conservative ones). I didn't like it last year when I decided, for the first time, that I couldn't vote for a single Democrat - not even ones, like my State Senator (who won anyhow), that are decent people. What if I lived in the district of Rep. Jim Marshall (D - GA), would I vote for him? Could I vote for Zell Miller (D-GA) if he were running for re-election, and as a Democrat?
I would not vote for them. Even if the Republican opponent was inferior, I would vote for the Republican opponent (not some third party protest vote).
Voting for them would be rewarding the Democratic Party as a whole for its destructive, scorched-earth behavior. Voting for them would be voting to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House and Tom Daschle Senate Majority Leader. It would be a vote to make people like Leahy, (Ted) Kennedy, Durban, and their ilk Committee Chairmen. This sickens me. But if it's war they want, it's war they shall have and in war we do things that we wouldn't otherwise do. But I'm not happy about being in this position, and it's part of the reason I'm so depressed by it. A not insignificant part of the reason.
Richard Heddleson writes, via e-mail:
I think there is more going on to create the polarization Armed Liberal deplores than you have identified. Although opposition to the war is part of what is polarizing, it is not most nor even a major part of what is happening.
That's probably true. If there hadn't been a 9/11, their would still be the embittered Left for other reasons. The problem is, there was a 9/11 and the stakes are much higher. For a time it seemed that this would wash away some of the bitterness and recriminations of the past as people realized that we had a greater threat than each other to fight, and needed to do so together. That, then, we would be drawn together, as people on the same side are in wars. But it's clear now that this did not happen and much of the unity seems, in retrospect, to have been feigned, driven temporary political expediency, cast aside at the earliest convenience (then re-donned when it seemed necessary, then cast aside again). So one then had to ask, which was the sincere attitude? The attitude of unity against a common foe? Or the attitude of the real enemy here? Observing, empirically, where the emotional force is behind their statements, the answer is clear.
Don't let those "peace" oriented bumper-stickers, fliers, office postings, and the like fool anyone: all of America is at war. It's just that some Americans prefer peace with our foreign enemies because they are effectively co-belligerents with them against the rest of America and its civilization.
Now, that is a provocative statement. Note that "co-belligerent" is not the same as "ally". But it's clear that for many on the other side of the domestic political divide, spreading untruths that damage our will and ability to fight is a price worth paying if it harms their enemies, and that they'd rather make common cause with domestic forces on the Left that don't think much of either American or Western civilization than make common cause with the despited Right that wants to assertively defend that civilization. They feel more fellowship with people who admire Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and Howard Zinn than people who admire William Bennett, Daniel Pipes, or even Christopher Hitchens.
That's a simple fact, the ramifications of which a lot of people blink from recognizing because those ramifications (another word for consequences) are too terrible to contemplate. As I have maintained, the external enemy cannot defeat us in this war unless we let them, unless we essentially give them a lot of help. Some are willing to give them that help if it means bringing down their domestic political enemies in the process.
Anyway, the big losers over the next decade will be the liberal Democrats. They already know this is coming, from the way Clinton treated them and from the House of Representatives election of 1994.
They are going to give it one last try with Dean, but they will be as thoroughly rejected as the Republicans were with Hoover. They are probably thick enough to do it with Hillary in '08 too, but the demographics and issues will just keep working against them. They will then go into the wilderness for 40 years to lick their wounds as a new establishment directs the country quietly with minimal opposition from a party that all know is incapable of effective resistance.
Polarization ended.
I would not yet forecast that it will be a neo-con establishment because I don't know. A lot depends on the crisis that seals the transition, which I expect to be a life or death struggle with islamofascism. But I do know that the Democrats will be the losers and that they will scream bloody murder as it happens until it is finished.
The reason the war is such a hot topic is because the leadership on both sides is now boomers. The central event of their youth was the Vietnam war. The leadership on both sides know they are replaying Vietnam but they don't realize that it is what they have always done on every issue. Unfortunately for the anti-war Democrats, the swing boomers in the middle, older and more conservative, are no longer on their side. Even worse, they know the young are lost as well. They will squeal till they're done. But they know they are cooked and it's only a question of when the fork is inserted.
Look, we don't know that's how things are going to turn out. Strauss & Howe's work emphasizes "good" Generational outcomes mainly because, by and large and for the most part (with the partial exception of the Civil War), thats how things have gone for America. But history is littered with the skeletal remains of bad outcomes (see also here, even in otherwise promising conditions. People make history, make choices, and they can have bad outcomes as well as good.
Ray writes:
I started reading occasionally your essays a number of months ago. I first was linked to Porphyrogenitus by an unrecalled blogger and I was impressed by your industry and your breadth of opinion. I bookmarked your site as I thought you fell into a group of persons who are going to be instrumental in waging (and hopefully eventually winning) what you have described as the "internal" WAR.
"What kind of a person do you take me for?" you may ask. You came close in your post of October 6, 2003 at 10:04 AM, to describing the kind of person that I thought you had been in the past. In your "bio" you suggest the futility of trying to determine the character and wit of a person by reading something such as his "bio." Yet there you make it clear that you were in fact inclined to the left wing in your younger years. It would not surprise me if you were an archetype of the persons you describe in the 10/06/03 post where you say:
But lots of people have a hard time thinking logically and rationally about things because they do not have the tools. That's just one gap[s] that results.
(There is another important factor besides "tools" that you do not mention. I want to note, but not discuss here, the force of "belief systems" that often are not susceptible to change through the use of the tools of logic and rationality. Holding a belief that we have not had the opportunity or ability to evaluate independently is by definition not logical or rational. Herbert A.Simon refers to this state as "bounded rationality." A Mechanism for Social Selection and Successful Altruism, Science, Vol. 250, 1665 (1666), 21 December 1990.)
And then you do address the question with respect to yourself when you say:
How did I avoid the pitfall, you ask? Am I exalting myself: I'm somehow immune, it's just these others who succumb? Well, it helps that along the way I did have some good teachers. It's also a fact that I read "serious" (non-fiction) stuff on my own. If more people did that, then that would be one thing. I'm hardly immune, though. There are, indeed, lots of things I have had to rectify and there are still more yet.
You make the argument that to win the internal war we must win over the persons such as you yourself seem to have been in your early years and I take it that you agree with me that these are the persons who must be won over and must be instrumental in the waging and winning of the internal war. In this post you are not optimistic (I think correctly) that these persons can be won over. Still, you are the best example that the cause is not lost. I bookmarked your essays, as I have certain others, because I am not sanguine about the task but I am not dejected. This part of your subject requires much more examination and discussion.
The reason that I wanted to write to you was not to discuss the material in your October 6, 03, post. It had not been written by you when I concluded that you were overlooking an important factor in what you allude to there as this infamous post.
In the part of the post in which you define as The Battle Lines, I think you are absolutely correct. In the following section which you denominate as Not the Cause, But the Effect, I think you are absolutely incorrect. When I read the WAR essay, just last week, not when it was written, I decided to write to you to present my views as to why I believed you were under a misapprehension. I thought, and think, that you seriously were underestimating the threat that the "fellow travelers," the "parlor pinks," are to our way of life. I am prepared to make that argument but before I do, I want to ascertain whether are not you are still holding that position. My reading of your October 6, 2003, leads me to believe that you may be seeing for yourself that our country and our way of live is in trouble if we allow any quarter, any sympathy, any withholding of criticism from these "misguided souls." Am I mistaken in thinking that your thinking is not headed in this direction? If I am mistaken and you will let me know, I will be pleased to give a full court press to try to disabuse you of your charitable thoughts expressed in the Not the Cause, But the Effect, section.
Without regard to specific issues, I want to say that I admire your efforts and I am not unknowledgable of the efforts and countless hours that you have had to expend in reading and thinking for you have been able to reach the point of wisdom and sophistication that you have reached.
People can be "not the cause, but the effect" and you still wouldn't want to give them whisky and car keys - or the levers of power. By that I mean that it may very well be that they are not the source of a problem but a symptom of it and you still wouldn't want to put your fate in their hands.
Lets look at things. Not a lot of people read blogs, for example. Ok, "a lot" is a relative term - a blog may get "a lot" of hits, but still, in a country of nearly 300 million people, far fewer people read blogs than read and are influenced by the NYT, WaPo, LA Times, Boston Globe, &tc. Still more are affected by similarly tilted broadcast media (sure, Fox News may have the largest audience of cable news, but lets look at things more broadly: less than 1% of the country is tuning in to Fox at any given time). These people can, perhaps, be forgiven for believing that there is no good news in Iraq, that Bush mentioned "Niger" in the State of the Union speech, that Joe Wilson conclusively and absolutely disproved any connection between Niger and Iraq, that Bush claimed in the same State of the Union speech that the threat from Iraq was "immanent", &tc. &tc.
Even for those of us who are a bit more wider read, as Glenn Reynolds notes that just means we know we don't know how things are actually going in Iraq - we can't fully trust the press accounts, we know that, but beyond that it's hard to say.
This is the result of the simple fact that a number of America's important, vital, institutions are corrupt. There, I said what I mean when I harp on how we need to reform and revitalize American institutions - because a number of them are corrupt and are not doing what they need to do. One of those, clearly, is the press (and the growth of "conservative", alternative, sources of information, is a symptom of that). They do not provide people with the information, with an accurate portrait of the world, upon which to base decisions. They are currently doing this deliberately.
They are being deliberately deceptive and misleading. How can I assert that? This is yet another grave charge to hurl. But, look, it doesn't take that much effort to check on what Bush actually said. They know, but don't care - because to them it's more important to destroy Bush than to convey information accurately. Bush is the enemy. No matter how many soldier's lives have to be sacrificed in destroying Bush, it is worth it to them (they probably do not give it a moment's thought). (Ralph Peters is hopping mad and Glenn notes the coverage).
But what does this mean when it comes to most folks out there, who read these things or hear the statements on "news" shows? It means they have an inaccurate perception of the world, and they form their opinions, positions, and decisions based on it (that is, after all, the intent). Perhaps not everyone. . .but enough. Or so the other side hopes. Are they to be blamed for holding views based on other people's misrepresentations and distortions? Sure, they cannot be completely let off the hook - after all, as I said, it's not that hard to check and see what Bush actually said - or to remember, having heard the speech(es) ourselves.
If there is one thing this blog can do beyond a place for me to vent my frustrations it is to combat this and be a forum to set the record straight, in its own small way.
Ending on a more optimistic note, Fredrik writes:
Depressing as your recent postings have been (are you Rocketman's twin brother?), I'm glad to see you call things as you see them.
Even though you don't have any solutions to propose at the moment, I think it's helpful to state the bitter truth; to recognize the D's for the traitors that they are. Harsh words, certainly, but that's what they are in actively working towards our defeat.
On a more optimistic note, today's CA election gives some reason for some hope; apparently the electorate isn't quite as stupid as the D's and their lackeys in the media think.
I hate using words like "traitor" (more here) to describe the political opposition. I hate seeing the other side of the political debate as "the enemy". I really don't like where we are today. That said, I'm literally praying that Fredrik is right. I pray for the defeat of the Democrats and the victory of the Republicans, because I believe the chasm is so great that our victory or defeat in the larger war is at stake.
I'm not fond of anyone who reads that and feels glee. I think it's sad and horrible.
Update: Ron has another example of bile finding an outlet. Can't help him with his question, though. Can anyone give him a suggestion?
Bush says the CIA leak is a criminal matter and seems more determined to get to the bottom of it than Dems on Capital Hill are to get to the bottom of leaking of classified information there. E.J. Dionne dissembles so he can blame Bush for what he and others have wrought, while Colin Powell mounts a rebuttal of media dishonesty on the Kay report.
Armed Liberal is disturbed by what he sees as increasing polarization in American civic discourse. He's not wrong in his observation, nor is he wrong to be disturbed by it. But he apparently believes that it doesn't have to be this way. Well, it does - though I doubt he'll like the explanation for why this is happening.
In wartime, people on the same side tend to be drawn together. But people on opposite sides of the dividing lines are rarely, if ever, drawn together - they find themselves driven even further apart. In his "War on Bad Philosophy" thesis, Armed Liberal implicitly recognized that we weren't all going to be on the same side in this fight for our civilization. However, I think he not only underestimated the degree of the problem, but the extent to which it affects Liberalism today in a way that it does not affect conservatives. Armed Liberal seems to blame both sides equally, but the fact is that conservatives (or, if you prefer, the Dread NeoCon Cabal), has been much more successful in pushing unhealthy, anti-American conservative voices to the margins, while Liberalism remains largely blind to (often willfully) the problem in their ranks.
On the very day of the Sept 11th attacks the New York Times showed where their sympathies were ultimately going to lay when they ran a flattering profile of a terrorist. To those who think that's a cheap shot on my part, that only demonstrates how skewed your mindset is on these things, not mine. In any event, though for a bit of time they were apparently affected by this, as with many others they soon returned to their steady-state, natural position.
Today if one reads the pages of the Times (or the WaPo, or the LA Times, &tc), you will see that they are infused with invective and sinister insinuations towards Bush and the Republicans and those who favor a strong prosecution of the war - invective and insinuations that these same people would declare "unhelpful" or "not diplomatic" if applied to our foreign enemies. So, who are they at war with? The answer is pretty clear.
Lets take Congressional Democrats. For a period after the Sept. 11th Attacks, they were all about "don't politicize the war". But it is rather obvious by this point that this was political positioning and that, when Bush and Daschle embraced on the House Floor after Bush's speech, Bush was sincere but Tom Daschle looked awkward - because Tom was searching Bush's back for the best place to plant the dagger at the first opportunity. Recall their antics during the March to Baghdad - when it was presented as going badly, they all dumped on Bush. When it appeared successful, they claimed credit and support. At the first sign of difficulty, they used it as an opportunity not to help find a way to win, but to try and destroy Bush's credibility and undermine his efforts. Look at their antics now. They are clearly driven more by a desire to wage and win the domestic political war than overcome our foreign enemies.
But, really, who can blame them? Lets examine their base constituency. People often let average Democrats, typical Liberals, off the hook. But who are those people driving the cars with bumperstickers expressing a hope not for quick victory, but peace (and we know what they mean by peace - it isn't our victory in the war, but rather that we stop waging it). On the other side of the bumper there is not infrequently a sticker slamming Bush or Republicans. Get out and talk to some of these people, filled with an attitude of peace and understanding of our foreign enemies - but talk to them about Bush and Republicans, and the bile comes forth. No understanding there. Who are they at war with? The answer is clear. Who do they want their standard bearers - candidates, pundits, intellectuals &tc - to wage war against? The answer is again clear.
So there is a polarization between those of us who believe it is important to fight and defeat our enemies in this war, and those of us who believe it is important to defeat the people who are fighting our enemies.
That doesn't mean they're with the terrorists. It just means they're against those who are for fighting them agressively and pro-actively, and that their war, the war they are waging, is definately not the same as (nor helpful to winning) the war abroad. People are going to have to decide where they stand, because this is a polarizing matter with little room for "both, and" solutions.
The responses to this post continue from where they left off yesterday. Richard Patton proposes to go through the Universities like crap through a goose. Oh, wait; that was the other Patton, and it was Germany. Richard proposes a Carthaginian Peace:
I have a simple solution - eliminate these departments. All taxpayer-funded schools of higher ed should ban the teaching of Political Science, Sociology, Anthropoogy, etc., on the grounds that these subjects, as they are taught and researched, are fundamentally dishonest. Fire all of the teachers, let them squawk about tenure, and tell everyone that there will never be a course taught at Podunk State U. on these topics.
In other words, defund them. Also eliminate the job market for the Ivy graduates, who always figure they can land a job at these institutions. The only way to respond to people who do not deserve respect is to stop respecting them.
Yah. That's gonna happen about the same time as monkeys fly out of my butt. Sorry, but as satisfying as it may be to fantasize about that, it's about as practical a solution as Walter E. Williams' proposal that Libertarian sorts move to Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma and secede to form their own country. Terrey Cobb has an idea that is a bit more practical, writing:
Your recent post was depressing indeed*. I do not think it is unrealistic, but it is depressing. Thoughts and beliefs do acquire social and intellectual momentum which continues over time even when the original premise has long been discredited or discarded. If such currents are old enough they are called superstitions.
As to the sorry state of education, I have a modest proposal. It would not cure anything overnight, and it might not take flower at all even if it was implemented. As to the proposal, it would simply be that in all high schools it would be mandatory for every student to take a course on Logic, with special emphasis on logical fallacies. As for myself, my college course in Logic was the most valuable course I was ever had. And in truth, logic and its child, the scientific method, are arguably the greatest achievements of Western Civilization.
Most propaganda that relies upon any sort of argument tends to be guilty of one or more logical fallacies. Despite certain elites' beliefs to the contrary, the majority of people are not stupid. And Logic is a most addictive thing. Its almost like a magical power. Not only is it a tool to be used to dispell deception and sloppy thinking, it manifests its own value in the real world when it comes to manipulating the environment around us. If a human being becomes a "conductor" in a standard 440 volt electrical circuit, it will cause them damage if not death, and it does not matter if the subject is a "white male oppressor"or not. The fact that logic "works" in the material world tends to inspire confidence in its ability to deal with more subtle philosophical subjects such as political theory.
The power to reason in a logical manner is the most precious of all gifts. Although everyone is given an innate talent in this regard, like all talents they can be sharpened by the proper training. Let's give it to the youth of America. There is no better weapon that they could have, although I'm sure this would work to the detriment of the so-called political class. I've often been mystified by the fact that no one, to my knowledge, has ever asked a politician who has used the phrase "social justice" to give a definition of that term, and there are certainly a lot of other gems of "equivocation" out there that also deserve to be put into plain and understandable language.
That would have some affect (we would have to have an "over and under" on how long it would take these guys to subvert that, too, though). For those who object to my defeatism (and you know who you are), another reader (who prefers to remain incognito) reminding me of the Students for Academic Freedom, the group with the "Academic Bill of Rights" proposal.
A month or so ago, when I was in a more optimistic frame of mind, I donated some $$ to them, something I rarely do (not because I'm parsimonious, but because I haven't the money to give). If you object to my defeatism, feel free to put your money where your mouth is, too. Support groups like that, and F.I.R.E., among others. Feel free to try and get them to put Terrey Cobb's suggestion on the agenda, especially as it is a "positive" measure and we're often accused of being "negative". Support doesn't have to be cash, either. It can be time and effort, which is what it's really going to take.
Even as a defeatist, there's nothing to do but keep buggering on, anyhow. Doug at andunie is more upbeat, hoping the middle ground can be reached. I had that hope, too; all I really hoped for was a swing of about five percent "our way", in the middle, opening up the opportunity to grapple with these issues with serious national reforms and win the "War on Bad Philosophy" both abroad and at home. More on that in a post to follow this later today. Tangentially related, David at the Waterglass comments on that Hero of Open-Minded Tolerance, Elton John.
Regarding the War itself, Tom Grey writes, via e-mail:
I agree that there needs to be a better name than "war on terror". I suggest Human Rights War. Using article 19 of the UN Dec'l as the standard: is there free speech?
This is testable. Have an organization, like a NATO Human Rights monitoring group, set up and publish objective and editorial content critical of each gov't -- including the US and France. Only places where this is not allowed, and folks are not allowed to receive such news, would be candidates for regime change.
But the NATO HR enforcement group could decide to enforce the rights,
or not -- only coalitions of the willing.
The UN? Enforce? NATO (the French and Germans and Belgians included?)
We have to face facts: The UN is an obstacle to these things, not an agency for their achievement. The UN is a forum for people to bloviate about them (and also about how Amerikkka doesn't live up to them and how "we have a different conception of these things than you, and rather than preach to us you should learn from us, too"). The UN has become an institution for making the world safe for Dictatorship.
My proposal is that a Commonwealth of Democracies be formed, with two firm qualifications for membership absolutely required. This would supplant the UN. (I know, I know - monkeys will fly out of my butt before that happens, too). Well, that's it for now. More later.
Elton John is known as a man who epitomizes the values of tolerance and open-mindedness for which Liberalism is well known. Here he is, displaying those virtues as they are commonly practiced today:
"Americans are always asking why the rest of the world hates them," John said after singing his first song, "Tiny Dancer." "Well, the reason is Dennis Miller."
"You've all gone mental if you liked that," John said, before looking at the floor and shaking his head in disgust.
That the death camp was one of tolerance highlights a truism about liberalism, which is all for tolerance - that liberals only support tolerance so that their voices - and only their voices - can be heard. Anyone disagreeing with them might as well shut up, such is their intolerance to other views.
