The Left's ideas aren't better than the Right's; but it is smarter about how it pursues its agenda.
A friend of mine sent me a recent solicitation from The Nation which said the following:
In Washington recently a man cried out "You Lie!" in the middle of a presidential address.
That was just inside Congress, and as it turns out just the tip of the iceberg:
On the streets outside Capitol Hill people were waving signs calling President Obama "Hitler" and his healthcare proposal "national socialism."
The TV demagogue Glenn Beck demonized White House aid Van Jones, a gifted African-American expert on green jobs. And then he revealed the Grand Conspiracy: Van Jones was actually part of a White House plot to create a "Hitler youth brigade."
Crazy thinking like this hyper-ventilated the right-wing pressure groups who wanted to stop President Obama from making an address to school kids telling them to stay in school. To them he's another "Hitler" (or "Mao" in some circles).
The antidote to the wave of militant ignorance sweeping our land is more speech, more thought, more education — democratic education developing an informed citizenry — and one that knows the difference between a Hitler and a democratically elected President.
And just what is this program? Again, from The Nation:
In the face of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and other purveyors of misanthropic "free speech," our goal for the year ahead is to grow every aspect of our Student Outreach Program including expanding our Student Essay Contest, beefing up our Student Nation webpage, hosting more students at our Student Journalism Conferences, and aggressively marketing our Classroom Education Program that offers free teaching guides, an email newsletter, and discounted bulk subscriptions to high school and college teachers.
This, in a nutshell, explains why the Left has success advancing a weak agenda, while we on the Right stumble and often fail to take control of an issue before it reaches crisis mode, when everyone's attention is focused regardless of ideology.
I wrote about this a few months ago in an article entitled "What's Really Going On", where I spoke about the real motivations behind Barack Obama's pronouncements, and how difficult it would be to reverse the trends which allow him to get away with misleading the public.
Counter-action requires two things: awareness and leadership. The media will do its best to hide or excuse the Obama administration's duplicity and incompetence. What they can't hide, Congress will address through a reauthorization of the Fairness Doctrine (albeit by another name). Even in the best of times, when information is readily available, most people would rather watch MTV or a sporting event than try to understand what is really going on in Washington. Suppressing what little truth exists magnifies this ignorance a thousandfold.
. . .
Add to this the fact that liberals with money are willing to spend their money on acquiring power, while conservatives with money are in it solely for themselves. I'm not speaking here about the Obama-rich conservatives making $250,000 or so. They'll write a check for a thousand or two every once and a while. Rather, I'm comparing the George Soros' of the world to the Boone Pickens' of the world. Soros pumped in bazillions of his own dough to create Moveon.org to achieve a political goal. Boone Pickens pumped in $25-50 million of his own money to educate the country about the benefits of wind power and natural gas – two commodities he just happens to have a direct financial interest in promoting.
The wealthy Left aspires to power to exert control over others, and reshape the country into its image. The wealthy Right uses the acquisition of power as a means to further line their own pockets. Until the ROWGs (rich old white guys) on our side look beyond their own immediate interests, we're going to keep losing this battle.
After I wrote this I was challenged by a friend of mine to come up with an action plan that might reverse this trend, instead of simply acknowledging it exists and lamenting the fact that it does. That response was sent out in early June of this year, and I hadn't thought about it much again until I received The Nation's solicitation.
So with hindsight and foresight and all that exists in between, let me share those same ideas with a wider population. I contend that the Left today, which understands the value in acquiring political power to implement their ideas, already does much of this and more. We, on the other hand, don't like to get our hands dirty by actually practicing politics, when it's so much easier just to whine and complain about things in the guise of offering abstract ideological principles.
Please don't misunderstand me. These principles are necessary to guide actions to a meaningful purpose, but they are the first step in a process, not the last step or only step. And, it's equally important to recognize that promoting an actual agenda in the real world takes actual resources — which means time and money — that goes toward advancing a cause, rather than lining one's own pocketbook.
These are the lessons we still need to learn; lessons the Left has assimilated all too well.
Below is the action plan I offered to change the nature of political discourse in this country. It began with a simple acknowledgment that there is something that can be done to re-take the country, but it requires three things:
(1) Money
(2) A focus on issues rather than personal gain, and
(3) Time
Unfortunately, given the penchant for wealthy businesspeople to bankroll only those projects that directly impact their own bottom line (Boone Pickens funding CNG-related lobbying vs. George Soros creating Moveon.org to advance a political agenda), I hold out very little hope that anything substantive will be done.
Like leftists in general, when Soros created Moveon.org he not only had a political agenda, he knew that this was just a first step (a foundational step) in a long-term process. If he succeeded in his primary goal to blunt the Republican juggernaut against Clinton, he could use that as a basis to pursue future goals that would directly benefit him. His focus was long term, not short term. If he benefited at all personally from this effort, it would only be after certain ideological goals were achieved. The Right, by contrast, wants its ROI upfront, with the ideological changes that may one day accompany it the proverbial icing on an already eaten cake.
So, when Conservatives with money act for the greater good, they jump into a political issue for a discrete time, then withdraw. On those rare occasions when they stay around, they create organizations that essentially speak to themselves. Contrast this with Moveon.org, which went after both traditional Democrats who opposed traditional Republicans, and then as it matured, targeted new groups. And when they did this, they spoke the language of these groups and appealed to their venal self-interests (even getting into nasty, trench warfare politics if need be to advance their cause).
By contrast, Conservative institutions tend to speak to the public in a sophisticated but irrelevant (to them) manner, or attempt to "educate" them to think about life differently. For every convert they get, there are a thousand other people who simply ignore the message because it doesn't intrinsically catch their interest. As wonderful as the Heritage Foundation is, for example, it has none of the pragmatic, practical impact that Moveon and other left-wing organizations have. It's simply not relevant to the "average" guy.
Why is this important? It's because turning out the vote — or suppressing your opponent's vote through dominating the public debate — is how you win elections. Ideas are important to ground the movement, but these "ideas" aren't tactics.
Conservatives/Republicans tend to speak about lofty, abstract goals (the true nature of American justice), and strive to make sure that they are seen as acting in a fair and impartial manner.
Liberals/Democrats speak about justice too. But they define it in pragmatic, practical terms that directly benefit the individual voter (tax the rich to give more benefits to you; it's now turn for a woman/Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, etc.). And when it comes to advancing their goals, they could care less if they are seen as being fair or impartial. They will smear an opponent if necessary, change the rules if necessary, support one position on Monday and disavow that same position on Tuesday if they need it to gain a strategic advantage, etc.
In short, Liberals/Democrats have played the political game using base, old-fashioned, self-interested politics. Conservatives/Republicans play the political game by talking about abstract ideas (abstract to people who care about their own interests first and foremost), and by acting in a principled manner and holding themselves to this high standard which they cannot sustain 100% of the time, and thus expose themselves to charges of hypocrisy when they fail. They simply will not get in the trenches with the Libs/Dems; and it is the trenches — not the boardroom — where the battles for political power are fought.
This doesn't mean that Conservatives need do overtly illegal things. Rather, they need to stop acting like politics is a gentleman's sport, and recognize it for the bare-knuckles fight that it is. This is the "easy" part — it simply involves growing a political spine.
The harder part is to make Conservative politics relevant to the common man. This doesn't mean that we need to out-compete the Liberals to "give away" public goods. It means re-defining the notion of "practical, pragmatic politics" in a way that is relevant to the common man. You do this ultimately by educating them about a new truth. But — and this is what Conservatives/Republicans fail to grasp — before you can educate someone, you need to counter the opposition's lies in an effective, relevant way.
That's the real problem. Conservatives/Republicans will not get down in the trenches to counter liberal lies when they can just sit in their think tanks and pontificate from afar. They won't go the extra mile to truly educate a person, when simply bestowing knowledge from a distance is so much easier. In effect, our side is unwilling to do the hard work (and incur the corresponding expense) to change minds, when we can just issue position papers and assume that the truth will somehow filter down into the community.
Conservatives could regain the advantage and ultimately supplant the Liberals, but it will take a lot of years and money to do so. A couple of basic ideas come to my mind about how this could be done.
1. Buy/create Black and Spanish language newspapers, TV stations, radio, etc and begin the long process of exposing liberal lies. Notice that I didn't say "teach the truth." First, you need to undo the damage so the mind is receptive to learn. This is a very long process, and very expensive. It will not produce anything close to a quick ROI for these "investors." But it will attack the power base of the Democrat party, and if this base can be undermined with a competing view of reality, it will pay electoral dividends in the future.
If there isn't money to buy newspapers, TV stations, radio, etc, then buy billboards. Or create TV and radio programming that can be given to these entities. The point is that we need to counter the lies, and help re-shape the way people see reality on their level.
It's simply not effective to "teach" new abstract principles to them, or ask them to appreciate the real-world impact disastrous liberal policies are going to have, if they only understood the underlying economics or social theory behind our concern. We need to speak to these people on their level, as the Democrats do: with sufficient, sustained resources to keep the effort alive.
Which leads to my second proposal.
2. Create a nationwide foundation to subsidize the pay of public school elementary and high school teachers who teach history, economics, social studies, and related subject matter. The foundation cannot tell them what to teach, but the foundation can be selective in who it subsidizes through its grants. Part of this could be the opportunity to increase the scholarship award by continuing education that emphasizes conservative values: making them better teachers and rewarding them financially for their success. An extension of this program would be to fund Chairs or sabbaticals for college level instruction, so the same message could be carried forward in the universities.
This would have the effect of offering public education as a more meaningful career path to intelligent people who would otherwise choose private sector jobs. Liberals are indoctrinating our kids because they are the ones who either willingly forego a private sector salary to advance a political agenda, or can't find a real job in the private sector. Either way, they turn out students who have no appreciation for how things might work other than the Liberal bilge that they've been taught. We have to find a realistic way to inject a different point of view into the schools, and this begins by making it financially possible for a different type of person to consider this profession.
All of this takes time, and more importantly, a lot of money. This can't be funded by ordinary people or even conservative "millionaires." It has to be funded by billionaires, or people with a substantial personal fortune who are willing to use their money for a cause that does not directly impact their bottom line, and/or may not be achieved in their lifetime.
Unfortunately, I don't see the business world rising to the challenge. On the other hand, the Left has already figured this out, as The Nation's appeal reminded me once again. They have George Soros, Ted Turner, the Rockefellers (individuals and foundations), Martha Stewart, Progressive Insurance, the Ford Foundation, Warren Buffett, the Pew Trust . . . just to name a few. We have Boone Pickens, who's willing to spend a bundle of his own money to promote — gasp! — his own business interests, or the big drug companies which are willing to spend millions of dollars on public education to pass Obama's health care program in exchange for promoting and protecting their own interests.
It's time our side got equally serious about politics as a real-life exercise, not an abstract concept or a gentleman's sport. It's time we actually did the things necessary to win, which requires more than fixating on the next 12 months, or figuring out how to personally profit from each dollar spent in this effort.
That's how we'll change the dynamics of the American political process, and with it reap the ideological rewards that follow. It will be by doing real things in a real world context, not by looking for shortcuts or ways to profit individually from the experience.
By the way, for a good companion piece to this essay, you might want to have a look at the comment section in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/09/18/rnc-chairman-steele-welcoming-pro-abortion-candidates-to-gop/
That discussion is about the appropriate electoral strategy to win Republican seats in individual elections in moderate or liberal districts — thus cutting into the Democrat power base in Congress, and through this diminishing their actual political power. The point there was that focusing on ideology is what you do “between elections” rather than make ideology the litmus test in each individual House and Senate election.
This essay, by contrast, is about what is necessary to reverse the long term trends in this country which inhibit the spread of conservative ideology, and thus pave the way for electing stronger conservatives in even weak Congressional districts. It’s the “between elections” component to the overall electoral strategy.
Phil,
I like your article's premise as far as it goes, though I have to disagree with the assessment the left won or is winning because they are politically smarter, more cunning, or adept than our guys. I mean, come on, Obama isn’t exactly a rocket-scientist, and many of his closest, best and brightest are clearly deranged. How can a guy who is so totally wrong both about fixing the economy and the political fallout that comes of failure-piled-on-failure be the ‘grand strategist’ who somehow took it away from McCain. This is a guy who has never accomplished anything really solid his whole life other than whip up mob support. The final contest was like ‘Aunt Martha meets the Flim-Flam Man’. The one caveat I concede to this is Obama is a great campaign fundraiser, but only because he paid scant attention to the unconstitutional rules McCain imposed on himself and the rest of the ‘we need greater accountability’ crowd (who were then stuck adhering to said rules or get trounced as liars and hypocrits), and knowing those other candidates would never dare take him to task as the lone rogue. Even Hillary, wife of the ‘Teflon President’, got stuck in this one. Recall, we even predicted something like this would happen back when McCain-Feingold passed.
As I see it, we did not lose because the left is brilliant; we lost because a) our guys weren’t sufficiently better, b) because the left’s outrage was greater than ours, and c) because, in the minds of the Great Unwashed, it was Republican's turn to yield the crown to the other party. Of these three, the last is the most significant; and was why, early on, I cautioned we’d probably lose this one. Take a look at voter patterns since the Republic started and listen to what passes for most people’s notion of how to pick a president and you will see I am right. One-party dominance of greater than three presidential terms is both rare and mistrusted. Overall, Democrats have held power for significantly longer periods than Republicans (or Whigs before them). At any given moment, only about 15-20% of the country is really engaged; and roughly half of those are liberals. Given the notion Democrats are barely distinguishable from Republicans (untrue, but widely believed), the voter who updates his political information just in time for each Presidential recycle (if ever) invariably decides it is time for a change of scoundrels (not entirely wrong), totally ignoring the ‘fresh and more honest’ face he votes in is a greater threat to his freedoms than the ‘damaged-goods’ he deposes.
There is one more factor that clearly favored the Democrats this round; that Chaney did not run. Historically, VPs have the home-field advantage over contenders. They are perceived to have ‘on-the-job training’ and an organization that is mostly in-place and running smoothly. Exceptions to this rule include those who embarrass their party or boss (Henry Wallace), and those embarrassed by an outgoing President on whose reputation they depend (Clinton, Nixon).
These advantages can be overcome, but you need an exceptional candidate with an exceptional message to do it. I didn’t see anyone remotely that strong taking the field this time (from either side). Many potential Republicans probably did the same calculus I did and concluded it was smarter to wait and spend their voter-capital when they have a better chance of defeating a self-damaged Democrat. Fred Thompson did the calculus but jumped in late only because he realized no one else of sufficient heft and caliber was running. Fred also realizes, at his age, this would be his last shot at it; but then, again, I doubt Fred’s really all that hungry for the job.
Bob: Enjoyed your comments.
If you measure “success” by who controls the White House and both Houses of Congress — not just by a bare majority, but by a commanding majority — I think it’s fair to say that the left is currently winning the political battle.
Like you, I don’t necessarily assign the reason for this to Obama’s brilliance as a politician or to a complicated Democrat party strategy. In fact, if Obama was actually as smart a politician as the Obama myth suggests, and if the elevation of the Dems was a conscious, philosophical repudiation of Conservative philosophy instead of a guilty-white-liberal angst-driven reaction to Bush (fed by an equally incompetent candidate in McCain), we’d be in real trouble.
My point is, for the Dems to whip up support they can rely on false truisms about America, American politics, Conservative philosophy, and smears against individual Republican candidates — none of which are challenged by “conventional wisdom”, which is the product of a liberal education system/philosophy and a compliant mainstream media sympathetic to that world view. Add to this our side which picks up its electoral marbles and leaves if their candidate isn’t ideologically pure enough, compared to the Left that will support anyone who says anything if the end result is to protect the liberal power base in government, and we’ve got a real problem that isn’t going away soon.
An exceptional candidate with an exceptional message won’t win elections unless the people can understand and appreciate what he is saying. Absent a crisis, appealing to conservative values falls on deaf ears where moderates and independents are concerned (the Hard Left will never be persuaded; so the task here is to isolate them politically, not convert them). Reagan won in 1980 because the country was in such a mess thanks to Carter’s 4 years that one didn’t need to understand anything about conservative ideology to know that Carterism/Liberalism wasn’t working. However, in non-crisis years, there is nothing to focus the people’s attention to help change some basic assumptions and elevate a Conservative philosophy to power. Accordingly, winning elections here become infinitely more difficult.
My argument is that we’ll continue to lose a lot more than we win if we don’t do something to change these underlying assumptions people have about capitalism, a market economy, Conservative values and philosophy, etc. This needs to be addressed by taking control of the education system again, and reinforcing what is taught there by regaining control over as many elements of the mainstream media as we can.
In doing this we may not be able to “teach” the people anything, but through this we can blunt the effect of liberal propaganda as my article suggested. Then, we let reality (real reality, not fantasy versions of reality) shape electoral decisions. At the end of the day our side always has a better practical grip on addressing real-world problems than the Left, which wishes threats away instead of addressing them, and creates programs (like the Stimulus and National Health Care) to mask their actual, hidden agenda.
The best way to illustrate what I’m saying is to excerpt a passage from something I wrote a few years back on the Myth of Man Made Global warming. It illustrates the challenge our side faces when we try to argue a point from an ideological basis that runs contrary to “common sense”, because the other side has succeeded in defining what is real and what isn’t from their point of view.
I had a conversation with an acquaintance of mine not too long ago about the legacy of Pope John Paul II. This man was not Catholic, but he admired the pope (as did I) for the positive role he played in human affairs. Religion aside, he said that John Paul II was a great man who was universally admired, and as evidence he cited the fact that “at his funeral, most people in St. Peter’s Square weren’t even Catholic. They simply came to pay their respects to a truly great man.”
I could see that his sentiments were genuine, and I wasn’t trying to pick a fight about an inconsequential matter, but I was very intrigued about his statement regarding the crowds in St. Peter’s Square. So I asked him, “How do you know that?”
“What?” came the puzzled reply.
“How do you know that most people in St. Peter’s Square weren’t Catholic?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Well, that’s what the commentator on TV said.”
So I asked, “How did he know that?”
My friend was a little taken aback. He’s an intelligent, highly educated person — not some bible-thumping fundamentalist who speaks in tongues, has a gun rack bolted to the back of his pickup truck, and votes Republican. He isn’t given to making wild pronouncements about politics or culture, and may even be a Democrat for all I know, though he seemed a little too sincere and consistent in his beliefs to tar him with that accusation. No, by all accounts he’s the kind of guy you’d take at his word and not think any more about it, so it caught him off guard when I continued to challenge the credibility of his information.
He thought for a moment longer and replied, “I suppose he, or someone on his staff, spoke to some of the people in the square.”
“How many people?” I persisted. “There were over 100,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, not to mention the crowd spilling out into the adjoining streets. Do you think he interviewed 10, 20, 200, a thousand? Was it a scientific study with random samples, or just the people along the edge he could get closest to?”
My friend thought again, this time long and hard, and finally said “I don’t know. I doubt if it was more than a handful of people, and I don’t think it was a scientific study.”
“So why did you believe him?”
His answer, in essence, consisted of two parts. The TV commentator was a respected figure. There was no reason to believe that he didn’t have a solid foundation upon which to base his conclusions — whatever they might be. And, the notion of John Paul II as a universal figure rather than simply a Catholic religious leader was perfectly consistent with his own preconception of the pope. Therefore the statement made sense. It seemed reasonable, at least on the surface, and it came from an authoritative source, so there was no reason to doubt it.
The truth is, there was no way short of a scientific study based on a randomly selected, statistically-valid sample of the crowd that this statement could be proven. It may have been true, or it may not have been. There was simply no way of knowing.
But there were no disclaimers accompanying the commentator’s statement to indicate that it was merely an opinion. In the words of the famous Greek philosopher Anonymous, opinions are like the exit point of the human body’s alimentary canal; everyone has one. Instead of a learned judgment based on all the relevant pieces of information, it should be characterized for what it really was: complete conjecture disguised as fact.
It’s my belief that honest people with good intentions fall into this same intellectual trap when buying-into the hyperbole of the Left on man’s supposed responsibility for global warming. Unlike the alarmists who advocate this theory — and who, I contend, deliberately manipulate or misinterpret data to promote their positions — these people have a sincere desire to protect the environment. They are willing to change any personal “destructive” behavior that is said to harm the environment, and will support policies that will supposedly repair this damage. They don’t question the underlying assumptions that the activists use to draw their conclusions, and they accept at face value the often draconian solutions these activists maintain are the minimum requirement for sound environmental policy.
Why is this? Why would otherwise rational, intelligent people accept the notion that a car’s exhaust is heating the Earth to a dangerous level, but never once ask how this conclusion was derived, whether there are other factors that better account for this phenomenon, or whether the Earth is really warming at a rapid rate — or getting hotter at all?
The answer, I believe, can be traced to our shared value system, which provides a common frame of reference to address these and other issues. It is the shorthand, connect-the-dot reasoning we all engage in to navigate through daily life. Critical thought is only needed when the matter at hand is something unique, and we’ve been talking about – and worrying about — global climate change for at least 40 years.
These values and reference points are not bestowed upon us at birth, like Moses receiving the Holy Tablets. Rather, they are taught to, absorbed by, and reinforced within each individual through a life-long process that begins with our earliest years and extends throughout the remainder of our life. For example, we’re all taught from an early age that the environment is fragile. As children we write school papers on this subject and participate in community projects to “save the environment.” When we get older, we get our news from journalism school graduates who show us pictures of melting ice caps or drought-stricken farmland and talk about the importance of driving hybrid cars, practicing resource conservation, and signing the Kyoto Treaty.
As adults we happily segment our garbage to cut-down on environmental pollution, and set our thermometers at uncomfortably high or low levels to “save energy” — thereby reducing the nasty, dirty fossil fuel emissions needed to produce our electricity. The world, and our role in it, is put clearly in focus, as are the notions of “good” or “bad” behavior regarding our treatment of the environment.
This common frame of reference allows us, as a group, to make certain judgments that are universally accepted. Windmills are good. Solar energy is better. Conservation is best. The internal combustion engine, to quote Al Gore, is an example of man seeking to “artificially enhance our capacity to acquire what we need from the earth . . . at the direct expense of the earth’s ability to provide naturally what we are seeking.” By manufacturing “millions of internal combustion engines [that] automate the conversion of oxygen to CO2, we interfere with the earth’s ability to cleanse itself of the impurities that are normally removed from the atmosphere.”
No one laughs at the main theme of this passage which presumes to know intrinsically — just like the idiot savant — what man “needs” from the Earth, and what is an “artificial enhance[ment of his] capability” to acquire natural resources “at the direct expense of the earth’s ability to provide naturally what we are seeking.” No further justification is required to support these value-laden judgments, because they’re not seen as expressing anything controversial. They’re just obvious statements about obvious matters that are plainly obvious to any thoughtful, thinking individual.
From this basis it’s a logical conclusion that cars are “interfering” with the natural state of affairs of Mother Earth, which leads to an equally obvious policy objective to deal with this cancer. As for the finite-supply of fossil fuels that are mined, drilled, and otherwise gouged from the Earth to feed these poison-producing internal combustion engines, they serve only one purpose: to make Dick Cheney richer, and help George Bush justify an illegal, immoral war against Saddam Hussein whom we’re all glad is out of power, even though Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction and ought to be impeached.
Because our schools, celebrities, TV anchorpersons and other opinion leaders accept these observations as fact, who are we to disagree? Since 1975 (my earliest memory on this subject) I’ve been told repeatedly that the world is running out of oil. There’s only so much dead-dinosaur juice in the ground, and it will all be gone in 20 years or less. Thirty years later, the same 20 year prediction is still being made. If we don’t switch to hybrid cars, solar powered electricity, or wind-driven generators, we’ll use up all the world’s oil by 2030, or 2040, or 2050, or [pick a date] sometime in the near future.
And when all the oil is gone, and coal is too dirty to burn, and nuclear power is too unsafe to produce, where will we be? Ergo, we need to start changing our lifestyles NOW!
At no point in this conventional-wisdom analysis does anyone stop and say, “but wouldn’t there be plenty of oil if we’re willing to pay $100 a barrel to recover it?”
The Earth isn’t running out of oil. It’s running out of easily-acquired $20 dollar a barrel oil. There’s plenty of oil off the shores of California and Florida, in Alaska, Mexico, the Middle East, the North Sea, Russia, and a whole bunch of other places in the world, including oil locked in shale. It’s harder to get, and therefore more expensive to acquire. But it’s there.
This doesn’t argue against practicing conservation or pursuing alternative means of energy production. A solar power car would be great — if there’s a strong enough market demand to justify the billions of dollars of research and development needed to expedite its arrival. Windmills are a fantastic source of cheap, clean energy, unless they happen to spoil Ted Kennedy’s oceanfront view, at which point good old fashioned gas guzzling cars will do just fine.
If Al Gore’s prescription for responsible environmental management makes sense, he should be able to propose it without the intellectual legerdemain of over-hyped, value-laden judgments disguised as impartial analysis. It’s one thing to illustrate a point with a dramatic example. It’s quite another to have the example itself stand as a substitute for any further thinking about the matter. If the issue is real, the evidence will support it.
Just one comment about a peripheral issue (although you were talking about other things).
When you say "we're all glad Saddam is out of power" you are correct if you mean that that is what nearly everyone says. But is that how nearly everyone feels? I wonder.
Maybe that's why Obama won easily without being anything close to a genius.
Ruminator. You are indeed correct. Not everyone is glad that Saddam is out of power. The Left never met a dictator it didn't like (Stalin, Castro, Mao, Chavez … the list is endless.)
My reference above was to the rhetoric of the Left that felt it was necessary to say "of course we're glad that Saddam is out of power" (without meaning a word of it) because that is what the majority of Americans felt back in the early days of the Iraq war. This rhetoric was necessary to win elections — thus returning to the point of my original essay.
It's kind of like the Left saying "we support our troops" while trying to cut off their supples during combat, and "Afghanistan is the good war that must be fought" while delaying sending any additional troops to the region because we're not sure we really want to fight this war any more.
No argument to any of that. But suppose you took the position from the outset that occupying Iraq, removing Saddam etc. was not the best course of action for our country, and maintain that today. You now have relinquished your privilege to associate yourself with the statement "I'm glad Saddam is out of power."
Isn't that what "choosing the lesser of two evils" is? You take an option that stinks, because, by your calculation, the other one stinks more.
You might be wrong, but you're not being dishonest.
>But suppose you took the position from the outset that occupying Iraq, removing Saddam etc. was not the best course of action for our country, and maintain that today. You now have relinquished your privilege to associate yourself with the statement "I'm glad Saddam is out of power."
*** That is a theoretically true conclusion to draw. Unfortunately, the same political and opinion leaders who condemned Bush in 2002-on for going into Iraq had a different position about the issue in the prior years.
“Regime Change” in Iraq was an official US policy under Clinton. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was signed into law by Bill Clinton. It stated that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."
[Yes, I know that Democrats and the Left routinely say things for public consumption they don’t really believe. But it just goes to my previous points that they are not trustworthy in believing anything they say. Their “opposition” today to Iraq --- and now Afghanistan, contrary to the “good war” rhetoric of the 2008 campaign --- is just their normal political opportunism.]
And then there’s these little gems from the late 1990s pre-Bush era:
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
– Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time since 1983."
— Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998
"[WE] urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
— Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry ( D – MA), and others Oct. 9, 1998
It’s an old story. The Left cannot sustain an honest point of view.
Thank you.
Ruminator: I consider you to be one of the few on the "not-Right" (not quite sure exactly where your politics lie, so I don't want to label you a Leftist if you’re not comfortable in that camp) who actually engages in debate, so it’s always good to hear from you. Phil
Thanks for the welcome. Since you are generous with your time and knowledge, I’ll tell you another thing I wonder about.
From your explanation one thing I conclude is that the Iraq war vote was an example of pretty poor service from many democrats, some of whom voted contrary to the position they had publicly taken, and others who voted to support the President, but didn’t mean it this time either.
How well did the republicans do their job that day?
The position I described in post #6 was the position of, I am pretty sure, Gerald Ford. Was Ford so unusual a republican that only one republican senator also suspected that this war would go poorly, and was not a necessity? Most of the republicans (and maybe a few democrats?) voted to support the president because they agreed with him. Fine. But maybe two or three voted “yea” because the president was doing a good job of selling the war. If so, I would wish they had been willing to cast the unpopular vote that matched their belief. Of course Lincoln Chafee was an unusual republican. That may be beside the point, maybe not.
That wouldn’t be the same kind of disservice as voting contrary to your public position, or voting in agreement with the President and then saying he acted like a criminal. But it is concerning, isn’t it?
According to Rush Limbaugh, one is not obligated to rally behind the president merely because he is facing a crisis of unusual size. That would be the time that you should scrutinize him even more. That sounds right to me.
Since neither of us is a mind reader, I doubt we can answer this. But maybe you'll agree that the question presents itself.
>From your explanation one thing I conclude is that the Iraq war vote was an example of pretty poor service from many democrats, some of whom voted contrary to the position they had publicly taken, and others who voted to support the President, but didn’t mean it this time either. How well did the republicans do their job that day?
*** I’d put it this way (based in part on my experience in Washington when I actually dealt with people like this on various issues). Modern day, post-JFK Democrats, as a rule, see things as a zero-sum game. The “pie” is static. Every dollar you make is a dollar someone else doesn’t get. [Republicans see it as a positive sum game. My dollar can help create jobs/wealth by my investment/spending that creates new dollars in an expanding economy, and that new dollar goes to you]. This is an oversimplification of the nuances of both positions, but it pretty much captures the essence of their world views.
Democrats, further, want to spend taxpayer money on domestic social programs. They do this because that’s where the votes are (their constituency “needs” social spending; and by a convenient coincidence, this social spending helps insure their reelection). Therefore, anything that competes with this, like the military budget and/or a foreign war, is undesirable.
There are times when common sense dictates that we must engage militarily, such as in the days and weeks after 9/11. This common sense is further bolstered by public opinion. If the country wants military action, the Democrats get on board (except for the fringe elements that are extremely ideological; something that affects both parties — paleocon Ron Paul Republicans were anti-war too). But again speaking in broad terms, if public demand is high for “X”, both parties will at least give lip service to “X”.
The main difference between the Dems and Reps, however, is that the Dems tend to patronize the issue by passing “regime change” resolutions to give “substance” to their politically popular stands, as well as make declaratory statements that Saddam definitely had WMD like many did during Clinton’s administration. They do this to be seen as acting tough. But, when push comes to shove and the US is attacked (WTC 1993, USS Cole, Nigerian Embassies, etc.), they don’t actually follow through on their stated beliefs. Lob a few cruise missiles, pass a few more resolutions at the UN, declare victory, then go back to the social agenda where their re-election votes are.
Republicans, by contrast, tend to actually follow through on things like this. Remember that one of the early criticisms of Bush in 2001 was that he was actually doing the things he promised during the campaign (tax cuts, etc.).
So, to get back to my original point, when Democrats rattle the saber, it’s for political show. When the driving force behind that show fades with time and memory, or the Democrats and media succeed in changing the public’s view of the issue, then the “principles” embodied in those policies fade. It’s simply done to gain votes or protect their political power, not because they actually believe in what they’re saying.
Again, both parties are guilty of this to some degree. But the Democrats have elevated it to an art form. [If you still have doubts, look at Clinton and the Democrat leaders public statements on WMD and Iraq in 1998 when they needed to distract from the Lewinski scandal and became bellicose towards Saddam and Al Queda, and their statements in 2003. Then look at Bush’s statements in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and his last days in office. There’s virtually no change in Bush’s language, or conclusions about the need to pursue aggressive military action].
>Most of the republicans (and maybe a few democrats?) voted to support the president because they agreed with him. Fine. But maybe two or three voted “yea” because the president was doing a good job of selling the war.
*** Again, there’s a natural tendency for senators and congressmen to support their president. This is not unique to either party. And, there will be a few outliers in either party (think Lieberman today with the Democrats on Iraq, the Blue Dogs on taxes).
When an issue is first presented to the congress and the public, information is incomplete and the future is unknown. These issues tend to get framed in philosophical terms (liberal/conservative, states rights/federal authority, etc), or economic philosophy (trickle down vs. welfare state; zero sum game vs. positive sum game, tax cuts stimulate growth vs. tax cuts “steal from the poor”), etc.
So it’s not unusual to find party line or philosophically-inspired votes. What distinguishes Iraq from Viet-man is that Democrats rallied around a Democrat president in the 1990s to support a rhetorically tough stand on Iraq, then backed away from these same identical statements once a Republican was in office. By contrast, Republicans who voted to support JFK and LBJ on their Vietnam policies did so because they believed the actions were fundamentally correct. The issue of which party might benefit from the action was not the driving consideration.
>According to Rush Limbaugh, one is not obligated to rally behind the president merely because he is facing a crisis of unusual size. That would be the time that you should scrutinize him even more. That sounds right to me.
*** Actually, it’s a Hillary Clinton quote from the Bush years that ‘Dissent is Patriotic’, and in fact is the measure of patriotism itself. More Democrat tripe aimed at a Republican. Now that Obama is in office, many of the same Democrats who echoed this view now accuse opposition to Obama’s policy as “un-American” or “Racist.”
Hillary Clinton April 29, 2003: “I am sick and tired of people who call you unpatriotic if you debate this administration’s policies. We are Americans and have the right to participate and debate any administration.”
Pelosi and Hoyer August 10, 2009 “[D]isruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."
I can find no quotes from Democrats condemning the vocal Code-Pink and other protesters who were “drowning out opposing views” of Republicans and Conservatives as un-American.
Moreover, I can find no quotes of actual Republican officials during the last 8 years saying that it was “unpatriotic” or “un-American” to oppose Bush or his policies. [I can find lots of references from commentators putting those words in Republican’s mouths as they “interpreted” their meaning, like Maurene Doud of the NYTimes heard the word “boy” from Joe Wilson when he said that Obama lied.] But I can find lots of examples today of Charlie Rangle and other Democrat officials saying that opposition to Obama is racist as well as un-American.
Once again, it’s an example of the Democrats saying things they don’t really believe just to score political points, then abandoning those same “principles” when it’s politically advantageous to do so.