Wishing the world was different is not the same thing as advocating real-world policies to deal with real-world problems.
I’ll leave it to others to provide the technical play-by-play of the 2006 midterm elections and explain the whys and wherefores of the Democrat takeover of both Houses of Congress. Suffice to say that the Republican Party shares a large part of the blame for squandering their opportunity to lead these last 12 years, contenting themselves with pandering for votes with pork barrel legislation of their own instead of pushing through real institutional change as the Contract with America promised.
Of course, the Dems helped by holding back the election night tally in key congressional districts (Kansas City and St. Louis are two that come to mind) until they knew how many extra votes their candidates needed to win, but this was to be expected. Corruption is corruption only when a Republican candidate is involved. You can have sex with a 17-year-old intern and be a hero of the gay rights movement if you’re a Democrat, but you are a homosexual pervert if a Republican sends dirty text messages to an adult male former intern while never actually having sex with him. Just like you must go to jail if you are a Republican congressman who takes bribes, but you win re-election if you are a Democrat congressman who takes bribes and uses the National Guard to help retrieve $90,000 in ill-gotten loot from your hurricane ravaged refrigerator.
But we knew all this going into the election, so it’s not fair to pull a Casablanca moment and suddenly “discover” it on November 8. Life isn’t fair, and we all know that the mainstream media is in the tank for the Dems, so we play the cards we’re dealt with and recognize the hurdles we have to overcome. We didn’t meet the challenge, and we lost. Whether it was by a few thousand or a few hundred thousand votes makes no difference, unless your victory strategy includes litigation. Republicans, for better or worse, don’t play the game that way, so we have to accept defeat.
There is, though, one area where we didn’t give the differences between the two parties enough attention. Sure, we all knew it was there, like that itchy, lumpy rash that started out as a little spot and now has spread to half of your body. You kept hoping it was just something you ate, or something that would eventually go away if you left it alone and didn’t pick at it, but now it’s too big to ignore. A simple trip to the doctor won’t help any more. The point of no return was passed a long time ago, and now your only hope is to get it under control because reality tells you it will be with you until the day you die.
I’m speaking here of the thought process illustrated by Speaker-To-Be Pelosi, who just finished giving her assessment of the future course of American policy in Iraq. According to the Number Three person in line for the U.S. Presidency, “This is not a war to win; it’s a situation to resolve.” One simply needs to “define winning any way you want,” and then presumably declare victory and get out of Dodge.
I guess the thinking is that this strategy worked so well in Vietnam, it deserves to be resurrected for wars in the 21st century. The only difference is, Uncle Ho did not have as his objective the elimination and/or extermination of all non-Ho’s in the world. The Big Ho up in Ho-heaven wasn’t directing him to send suicide bombers into civilian population centers, and little-Ho’s weren’t flying airplanes full of innocent passengers into buildings full of innocent people. Unlike Vietnam, when we leave Iraq the war will follow. And of course it will be all George Bush’s fault.
I thought that “Iraq as Vietnam” was simply a convenient metaphor employed by the Left to rally support against Bush’s Middle East policy. It turns out I was wrong. I’m convinced that the main reason we lost on November 7 — I say “we,” because I think it was the country, not just Republicans, who suffered a defeat — is that the anti-Bush voters really believed what was expressed by Nancy Pelosi. The battle between the West and Islamo-Fascism is just another political and social dispute. Thirty years after we declare victory and leave Iraq (and Al Quada moves in to pick up the pieces), we’ll be trading with them just like we are with Vietnam today.
This is patently absurd. These people aren’t just socially and ideologically opposed to Republican Party politics; they are sworn enemies of all things Western on a holy mission from God to convert or behead their opponents. There isn’t any room for compromise here. The only choices for either side is victory or defeat.
But this isn’t the way Nancy and the gang see it. The product of a culture that embraces all things diverse and instinctively seeks mediation over conflict, they are convinced that these jihadists aren’t all that different from us. If we can just sit down with them over a cup of coffee (er, I mean, some drink without caffeine or alcohol or anything else prohibited by God) and talk things over, they’ll see that we mean them no harm. We understand that Osama was provoked into sending those planes into the World Trade Center because Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore, who like them only wants to make the world safe from Global Warming.
We’re all reasonable people, this thought process goes, and reasonable people will find a reasonable way to reasonably compromise. Like our school systems have taught us, through dialogue and understanding the other person’s point of view, we’ll find a way to deal with those pesky issues (like the existence of Israel) that complicate our Middle East relations, and in doing so make the world a more peaceful place for all of us.
This is what the people who blindly opposed Bush — instead of voting for an actual policy alternative proposed by the Democrat Party — had as their mental frame of reference when they cast their ballot. The Democrat Party refused to state what they actually would do once in power, other than to say they wouldn’t do it the way it was done by Bush. The closest thing I ever heard to a policy pronouncement came from Howard Dean about a year ago. If only the US wasn’t so bellicose and disrespectful of Arab sensibilities, we would have avoided the need for military action at all.
And if only my farts smelled like perfume, I wouldn’t have to blame the dog every time I ate Mexican food. But they don’t, so I do.
Wishing the world was different is not the same thing as advocating a real-world policy to deal with a real-world problem. Those who supported Bush’s policy in Iraq, its flaws and all, intuitively understood this. Those whose primary focus was on getting rid of Bush gave the policy consequences of their actions no real thought, other than to assume that the world is filled with basically decent people, and that everything is solvable through negotiation and compromise if we’re willing to keep an open mind.
But the world isn’t like your family, or your neighborhood, or your community, where people share a common set of values. It’s filled with Hitlers and Stalins, and Osamas and little Korean dictators with funny looking hair. They aren’t interested in “hashing thing out.” They’re interested in hacking you up.
This belief that we can find a compromise solution to the threat of Islamic Fascism involves the same tortured reasoning I wrote about at length before in my essays on moral relativism.
What we need instead, these same people say, is to find common ground with the terrorists (I mean, “freedom fighters”). We should not make them even madder by resisting their aggressive actions toward us. It’s an interesting thought. However, I’m still waiting to see what kind of compromise is possible with Israel’s enemies before I support that same policy for the U.S. What Israel wants is to be left alone and not attacked. What their Islamo-fascist enemies want is to kill all Jews. If land was the only stumbling block, the withdrawal from Gaza would have prompted Hamas and “Hezabaloo” (to quote Charles Rangel) to recognize the state of Israel and enter into new negotiations for other concessions, not to keep attacking and killing Jews.
I guess the compromise for all Israelis, then, is to commit mass suicide, since that represents the logical middle ground between continuing to live unmolested, and being exterminated. The terrorists will not kill the Jews, denying the terrorists what they want. And the Jews will not continue to live, denying the Jews what they want. Only suicide prevents the terrorists from killing the Jews, while at the same time denying the Jews the opportunity to keep on living. The logic of compromise for compromise’ sake is flawless; unburdened by the need to assign moral superiority to either of the competing objectives.
Or, to pull out my usual example when I talk to Relativists who think that the definition of peace is nothing more than the absence of war, consider this dilemma. Talking to a Feminist (a sub-genus of relativous morales) I say the following. Joe wants to rape Sally. Sally doesn’t want to be raped. What’s the compromise? Sally and Joe have consensual sex. Each side “compromises.” Joe doesn’t rape, and Sally gives in on her no-sex position. Conflict is avoided, we have peace in our time, and everybody is happy. Right?
Or could it be that Joe’s desires are morally wrong? If so, there should be no compromise. Resistance by Sally is the proper course of action. If this is indeed the case, then what makes rape wrong? Is it a law passed by a particular government? If that’s all there is to it, what happens if Sally finds herself in a place where rape is lawful, or there is no law at all (like the old American frontier, or other parts of the world today)? Does that mean if Joe and Sally ended up in Somalia, Joe would be justified in raping Sally despite her wishes? (No law, no prohibition against rape, therefore rape is an acceptable practice.) Or is the prohibition against rape something that transcends man-made law, cultural differences, or historical periods of time? If so, just where does this higher moral authority come from, if it isn’t from the laws, culture, or decisions of man?
The same dilemma that faces Israel exists for the U.S in its war with Islamic fascists who want to kill all Infidels. Actually, it exists for the entire Western world, but like pre-WWII Europe, most of the world would rather appease a bully than fight them. Fighting subjects you to the threat of immediate injury (vs. the possibility of even greater injury farther down the road — but until that day comes, injury remains a theoretical problem so appeasement will do just fine). It also allows other people to say unkind things about you, like the world does about the U.S. today. It’s important that the French, and Germans, and Russians, and Chinese, and Cubans, and Iranians, and other inhuman, repressive regimes around the world think good thoughts about us.
Which means to the Relativist, it’s important to be liked by the rest of the world, even if we have to let a few Jews get slaughtered here and there as Hezabaloo attacks innocent Israelis, or Saddam puts a hundred thousand more Kurds into mass graves while shooting at our planes enforcing the no-fly zone at the same time he refuses to allow U.N. inspectors to verify the destruction of his WMD program. At least we can travel to Paris in the summertime and not have to hold our head in shame because Uncle Jacques looks down on us with disappointment while accepting oil-for-food bribes from the Iraqi government.
So where does this lead us? In Liberal-think, if a terrorist wants to kill me just because I pray in a church instead of a mosque, or because I believe that women should be allowed to work outside the home, drive a car – or even vote — it's incumbent on me to reason out our differences and find common ground.
Unfortunately, in the real world that common ground is normally about 6 feet of soil covering my rotting corpse, because that's the only compromise a terrorist will agree to. You can compromise with your spouse. Sometimes, you can compromise with your neighbor. And occasionally, you can compromise with your boss (if you still have the negatives from last year's Christmas party to use as an inducement to his cooperation). But you can't compromise with evil.
Wishing for a better world won't make it happen. But a couple of tons of bunker-busting bombs dropped on the right target will.
I just hope that the Democrats who gained power in the last election understand how the world really works, despite their rhetoric pandering to their base. If not, instead of two years of endless hearings about supposed Republican corruption, we’re likely to be treated to different kinds of news stories that focus on body counts. Not of U.S. military personnel, but American citizens abroad and at home who will re-learn the lessons of history the hard way.
A little bitter, Phil? *smile* Can’t say as I blame you. However, I figure that our country has survived a civil war so we can probably survive a liberal Congress.
The key phrase is in your article is: “And of course it will be all George Bush’s fault.”
This is why the democrats in power now will get a free pass on any foreign policy blunders they might make. We withdraw from Iraq and the country tears itself to pieces? It’s all Bush’s fault. More terror attacks on U.S. soil? It’s all Bush’s fault. Stub your toe on the stairs? Well, you get the idea.
The democrats get the idea too. That’s why they’re so giddy.
In passing I’d like to mention that I’m a registered independent, but I lean heavily conservative. Am I the only conservative who feels that he has no party anymore?
Dr Phil you are right.
And for what it is worth,
as most reasonable people know, and as a quick look into the archives of any right wing blog would clearly show
( well who else keeps tracks of of facts ? ) for the last 6 years democrats have been more interested in tarnishing Bush and republican’s image then they were interested in what is good for the USA or what is good for the safety of the USA.
Their “empathy” for Islamic nuts or illegal immigrants might be a small part of their motivation but I think what makes democrats do things that are bad for the USA and good for the terrorists or the illegals
( or unborn babies for that matter ), is that all they care about is keeping republicans from getting elected.
Like a person who takes rent money to get high on drugs, democrats cannot see the consequences; they want what feels good to them and they want it now.
While Republicans were trying to win the war against terror, democrats were trying to win the ” war against republicans” to win the next elections.
To democrats the war on terror is just another thing used against republicans, other than that to democrats it is at worst a ” nuisance” like prostitution ( or loud music I suppose? )
In the next 2 years democrats will become even more obssessed with “destroying” republicans than they have been so far, and in the next 2 years democrats will care even less about the consequences of their decisions on terror and Illegals.
The war on terror will become less and less important as destroying republicans will become more and more important to them.
If you thought it was bad when democrats opposed pretty much everything Bush did to protect the USA from terrorists, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
More and more in the next 2 years, democrats will do pretty much anything – no matter how bad for the safety of the USA – to destroy republicans, and with the MSM covering their butt the average voters won’t know what is really going on.
My only hope is that democrats go too far, do a mistake big enough so that the MSM won’t be able to help them, and enough voters will turn on them.
Update; I just saw on ABC news ,
democrats have asked McGovern to come and tell them how to start getting troops out of Iraq as early as in the beginning of 2007…
democrats will do anything to make Iraq another Vietnam, anything to make republicans look bad and get a democrat president elected in 2008.
they don’t care about US troops, they don’t care about Iraqis, they don’t care about anything but hurting republicans and gaining more power.
Two days and already they are working on the “cut and run ” plan, or what they call
” the new direction for America ”
Nice.
“I figure that our country has survived a civil war so we can probably survive a liberal Congress.”
It really depends on what you mean by “survived”. We “survived”, but we took away the rights of states to secede from the union or defy the federal government. We “survived” the New Deal as well, but we still have Keynsian economic policy and Social Security to remind us of what was. We “survived” the 60′s, but we’ve killed more unborn children since Roe v. Wade than there are citizens (legal and illegal accounted for) currently living in the United States. And we may yet “survive” a liberal congress, but give up the right to close our borders, to engage in armed conflict without global UN approval, and see income and capital gains taxes doubled or more. In the sense that there are still human beings assembled in the same territory using the same national affiliation that they have been for many years, we have “survived”. In the sense that our country still operates even remotely as our forefathers designed it to, has the same philosophical or ideological goals and standards as they did, or in any way reflects the spirit or letter of the constitution and laws they designed to govern and protect it, our country died a long time ago.
“Am I the only conservative who feels that he has no party anymore?”
Not in any way, shape or form. If you want to know the real reason why Republicans lost this election, look no further than your own question.
“Survived” as in we are still here as a country. As long as we are still here as a country we can hope to delay the inevitable decline from superpower to just another country.
I know why the election was lost, I just don’t know why republicans in office abandoned their principles. Why did they decide to abandon their principles on spending and limited government? Why did they decide to compromise with democrats instead of legislate? Why did they decide that hanging on to power for powers’ sake was more important than governing? Why, in short, did the republicans in office decide to be democrats?
““Survived” as in we are still here as a country.”
In the sense that we still occupy the same land and identify ourselves by the same name we have indeed survived. But is a country just a hunk of land situated in a static location? America used to be about ideas and ideals. In that sense, I think we stopped surviving many long years ago.
“Why did they decide to abandon their principles on spending and limited government? Why did they decide to compromise with democrats instead of legislate? Why did they decide that hanging on to power for powers’ sake was more important than governing? Why, in short, did the republicans in office decide to be democrats?”
I think that’s the question on everyone’s mind. I know I’ve sat there yelling at the Fox News commentators from my living room about it on many an occasion. I don’t know what they’re thinking. It was true blue conservatism that swept them into power in the first place, and then as soon as they got comfortable in power, they start pandering. It’s quite a shame, but Republicans are really do-nothing politicians. I mean for God’s sake, they let Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an ACLU lawyer who has been quoted as saying “We need to look beyond our borders at foreign and international law when interpreting our constitution” onto the Supreme Court with nary a peep (I believe it was 10 dissenting votes). John Roberts, a Harvard Suma Cum Laude with years of bench experience and a track record even the liberals had a hard time disparaging, made it through by only like 20 votes. I wish they were half as stubborn as the Democrats. I hate their ideology, but at least they stand for it. Republicans historically have really been spineless.
I would go even further to say that their for the country are based on the naive humanistic notion that everyone is basically good. They see the world problems as “anger management”
Sorry didn’t finish up last comment.
I was also going to say, that the defeat was NOT a defeat of conservatism but a rejection of RINO’s. If you notice in CT, Joe Lieberman, beat a flaming Librocratic Ned Lamont. The losses of those seats in the house and the Senate were to conservative or at least moderate Democrats.
That being said I too feel like a person without a party. I wish all conservatives, both Dems and Reps could found a new party!
Richard (and others) —
If we had it to do all over again, I’d opt for a parliamentary form of government for the US with ideologically-based parties. But, in keeping with the theme of my article — remember what I said about Mexican food — we don’t, so I won’t dewll on it.
So, the next best thing is to elect a president with ideological principles, and let him split the parties like Reagan did with the conservative Democrats. I like Bush’s leadership on the war against Islamo-fascism, but domestically he’s not much of a conservative. Unfortunately, as I see it, the war trumps everything for the immediate future.
Phil
Dr. Jackson, I actually think your title sums up part of the problem. Your use of the word “we.” Now you say in the article that you mean the United States, and I will take your word for it. But that is not what most mean when they say “we” with regard to the election. The best essay, in my opinion, in the much discussed American Conservative issue about “What is left? What is right?” was the article by center leftist Michael Lind. He made the absolutely true observation that partisanship and partisan loyalty has replaced actual adherence to and belief in conservative principles. (The same is true on the left.) The problem is that it has become about “we.” About us vs. them. More like loyalty to a sports team than to ideas, concepts and principles. People are now conservatives and Republicans (in many people’s minds they are the same thing) in the same way they are a Dallas Cowboy fan. You root for the team against the enemy or the opponent instead of advancing ideas. Since it is all about winning the game, election vote counting now trumps adherence to conservative principles.
Many conservatives in congress opposed Clinton’s foreign policy meddling in the Balkans based on sound conservative first principles. But their guy wants to intervene in Iraq and everyone is enthusiastically on board. Old Right conservatives, who said interventionism is inherently big government and that spreading democracy is a Utopian liberal idea, were vilified. Called traitors and un-American and Democrats or at least “in bed with” the left. Propping up “the enemy” against “the good guys.” Etc.
Logical intelligent debate can not take place in that environment. It is a scary form of enforced group think.
For conservatism to make a comeback it must disengage itself from being just purely partisan cheerleaders. It must shed this us against them mentality and get back to thinking first about what we are supposed to be conserving, and then about the practical political ways of achieving that. Not the politics before the ideas as it is now.
Dan –
You make a lot of good points. All I’ll say is that the way our political system is set up, party affiliation is the determining factor in assigning power. At times it coincides with political philosophy, but often it does not. Since this is the system we have to operate in, rather than disengage from partisan politics, I’d rather see us infuse that partisanship with a distinct ideology so that Republicans are synonymous with one belief set, and Democrats with another.
[Note: How to do this tactically is a long, long dissertation. For example, do you vote for imperfect Republicans to preserve Republican control of the Senate, so that conservative-oriented judges can be approved; or do you punish them for their deviation from conservative principles and let the Liberal-oriented Democrats back in power, and hope to throw these bums out in the next election when the Republicans have “learned their lesson”?]
What’s lacking in American politics today, I believe, are a sufficient number of elected officials who are willing to put the country’s best interest ahead of their own. [Sadly, it’s always been this way, with rare exceptions]. I believe that Bush exhibited these traits with regard to prosecuting the war on terror (from Iraq to the Patriot act), but on domestic issues he’s acting very short term. The problem for “us” is that Republican officials in charge of the House and Senate acted like political hacks in dividing up the pork and pursuing other short term, at times purely personal agendas. The Dems do this routinely, but managed to put enough outwardly conservative candidates up against Republicans in troubled districts to split off the “Republican-by-default” vote.
The next few years should be interesting as we see whether the Far left House sand Senate leadership will co-opt these newbees, or whether they will form the “gang of 40” and essentially dictate policy to Nancy and Harry like McCain and the Gang of 14 did. And then there’s Joe Lieberman in the Senate, who is a “Gang of One” who controls similar power.
So when did wasting $400 billion dollars to make the US less safe become the conservative thing to do?
19 nutcases mostly from Saudi Arabia but trained in Afghanistan and armed with razor blades get lucky and manage to kill thousands of our people. While the nutcases had quite a support organization they by any measure were a fringe group out of the 1.4 billion Islamic people in the world. We made good initial steps to make the fringe group even more of a fringe group with support of many Islamic nations when we went to Afghanistan.
Then we blundered into Iraq, with no support from the Islamic world despite some really intense lobbying and more than a little fudging on the intelligence. Iraq is not Vietnam other than both wars were follies that made us less safe, less respected in the world, at great costs. Every day we stay in Iraq we create more terrorist than we eliminate.
Not all wars are wise. We are taking the blame for the civil war killing that is going on in Iraq. We will get a black eye when we leave and will suffer some humiliation. But, who really feels we can stop the bloodshed? Going to Iraq was a colossal mistake. The wounds we are taking will not start healing until we leave. The longer we stay the deeper the wound and the more terrorist we create. Ten years after we leave and they are still killing each other we will still be partly taking the blame. But, we will be on the road to better relations with the 1.4 billion Islamic World. Stopping terrorism requires good relations with that world. We started to win the war against communism when we left Vietnam and we can once again start winning the war on terror when we leave Iraq. We can once again make the Islamic terrorist the fringe group that the Islamic world and we fight together.
If we really want to stop terrorism we must get justice for the Palestinians. I support Israel. But, lets be fair, The Palestinians have gotten a raw deal there. How would Texans react if the United Nations decided that Texas should go back to the Native Americans or only those of Mexican Catholic heritage? How long would they fight?
The $100 billion a year we are spending in Iraq is making us less safe and is not the conservative thing to do.
Christianzog — have a look at Chapter 3 of my “Looney Liberal Chronicles”, and see if you come to the same conclusions about “justice” for the Palestinians.
Regards, Phil