Kruse Kronicle

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals

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by

mwkruse
in ,

From the LA Times: Head-in-the-Sand Liberals by Sam Harris. This an exceptional article. Here are a few excerpts:

TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.

This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.

This difference does not bode well for the future of liberalism.

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

…..

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

…..

Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration — especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq — liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.

Comments

13 responses to “Head-in-the-Sand Liberals”

  1. kairos Avatar
    kairos

    My main beef is that Harris in this piece conflates the fringe with the mainline, or with the diversity of views on the Left. It wouldn’t do to confuse Pat Robertson or Ann Coulter with the core of the Conservative movement in America. Most liberals don’t deny who exactly attacked us on 9/11, and that we continue to be at danger from Islamists even today.
    Is Harris right that Islam, at its core, is a violent religion? Well, I think the answer is that it depends on the stream of Islam. I know muslims. I’ve worked side by side in spiritual labor with some muslims. It would be wrong to characterize *their* faith as Harris does.
    I agree with Harris on this point:
    A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.
    This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.
    That’s fairly accurate. I’d go further to say that this is a danger that goes way deeper in the human soul than just Islam, and are trends not just within Islam. Rationalists and Humanists (both secular and religious) need to articulate the dangers of this form of religiosity, and we people of faith need to see and consider its own trends in our own traditions.
    So Harris is a muddled liberal. So are most of us on the left, too complex to label with a simple title. Same with those who might claim the title conservative. Those who write public op-eds ought to be less sweeping with their titles, particularly those who throw around ‘street-cred’ within the movement before attempting to distance himself from it.
    An example about this complexity that fascinates me: are liberals anti-religious secularists? Well, not most of the ones I hang out with, who are clergy. They’re some of the most religious folk I know. But others are. To argue, then, that “liberals” are anti-religious is just not helpful.

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  2. Dan Anderson-Little Avatar
    Dan Anderson-Little

    Mike,
    I echo kairos’ comments–Harris is talking about liberals “at the most extreme.” Compare this with mainstream conservatives (I assume most people would consider the President a mainstream conservative), who in addition to recognizing the Muslim threat has also sanctioned torture of other human beings. So, who is really guilty of an “astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason” that could help foster, not only the decline of conservativim, but the decline of Western civilization? Give me conspirary theorists any day.

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  3. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Thanks for these remarks Kairos and Dan.
    Actually, one of the things I liked about the article is that Harris started off the paragraph in my second excerpt with (which you noted, Dan), “At its most extreme…” which I took to mean a minority of liberals, not all. That is one of the reasons I liked the article.
    The thing that is the most disturbing to me is the statistic that more than one third of the nation believes that our government intentionally contributed to the action and 16% the Bush Administration actually staged the thing. These numbers are more telling than the first appear.
    National Surveys show that Americans self-identify in the following ways:
    Liberal = 20%
    Conservative = 35%
    Moderate/Other = 45%
    I just said 16% believe Bush planted the explosives but how many of those do you suppose were self identifying liberals? I am guessing at least half, or 8% of the whole population. Yet liberals make up only 20% of the whole population. 8 / 20 = 40%.
    These are very rough numbers (and I suspect more than 20% liberal) but my central point is that a large minority, if not a majority of self-identifying liberals, believe that 9/11 was a Bush initiated conspiracy!
    IMO, the majority of Muslims are not violent “Islamofacists.” But there is a sizeable minority who are. They are a real and present danger and they have the means and the will to destroy free civilizations if free societies remain passive. Harris’ criticism of the fallacious idea that “…the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities” is mine as well. The Pope’s recent observations about reason come into play here as well. IMO, this is a reality that has to be addressed. Period!
    Okay, for argument’s sake, let us say that Bush has bumbled any number of things and crossed the line on some ethical issues. What is the alternative? What the American public hears from liberals (whether it is the intended message or not), 1) that if we would all just make nice this will all go away, and 2) wild-eyed conspiracy theories about Bush orchestrating 9/11! Bush and the Right may be neurotic but the liberal message is full blown psychotic. I thought Harris’ point about the conspiracy liberals making the Religious Right look like models of sound reason was one of the most astute in the whole article. Liberals are slitting their own their own throats by A) not articulating a sound vision of how to address and defeat Islamofacists and B) obsessing with Bush and tolerating outrageous conspiracies.
    I am not saying that all liberals fit the critique Harris is making and I didn’t get that from Harris either. I am saying that they have the megaphone. Just ask Joe Lieberman.

    Reply
  4. kairos Avatar
    kairos

    Good reply, Mike. Thanks! Lots of red meat here!
    I kind of doubt whether it is true that more than 1 in 10 believe these conspiracy theories. I’d like to see more polling. If it really is 16%, that is indeed distrubing! OTOH, polls still show that tons of Americans still think Hussein was strongly linked to 9/11 or to Al Qaida (latest Harris number was 64% in July of 2006).
    I circulate among a few progressive communities, and to suggest that 4 in 10 liberals think that the US brought down the trade center is just nuts. Giffin is crazy, but he doesn’t represent most Liberals.
    On your other point: Liberals have been fairly neutered in providing a robust counterargument for how to address this islamist movement. In part, I think, this is because of a calculated political strategy to portray those who try to articulate an alternate vision as weak on defense or prone to permit another attack, and that has largely succeeded in both quieting public consumption of alternate visions and kept the opposition group with the most potential credibility (the democrats) on their heels. How many democrats bought into Iraq and the neo-con idea that somehow THAT would make headway in this global islamist threat? Too many. And they did so scared for their political butts, mainly.
    But there are “liberal” plans out there, which mainly argue for less dependence on outright military force and more use of diplomacy, calculated military force, attention to global poverty, health, and education as factors which contribute to whether these islamist movements can gain adherents, etc. Its not either/or: the republican vision or nothing. There are multiple other tacts, and I personally think they’d be more effective than the one we’re currently one. And I wager that we’d hear a stronger countervision articulated when the republicans don’t control every branch of government.
    (As an aside, I differ from many of my liberal brotheren in that I’ve long thought that we’ve now a moral obligation to rebuild and secure Iraq, which would have required a ton more troops a long time ago. At this point, I doubt that we are able to succeed there, and we need to be finding an alternate force capable of doing it without the baggage of our military, and we need to actually send a ton more resources. But if they really are in a civil war, then we’re in the way and can’t really succeed in that.)
    But on your strongest point I’m with you, we certainly *must* address what Harris is talking about here.
    ObLieberman: Lieberman is toast among liberals (among other reasons) because he said that critique of the war in iraq was harmful. He is seen as too cozy with Bush, in a rather Blue state (note “The Kiss”). In a free and democratic society, there isn’t a sentiment more anathema than shut up and don’t offer a compelling counter-vision. Plus that goes counter to the very point you helpfully articulated here–that there NEEDS to be a strong debate about how to combat this threat, which requires critique and positing other ideas.

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  5. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Great thoughts Kairos. I want to clarify one thing that I sense is in play. I get the sense that you (and Dan) may think my motivation in posting this article is a backhanded way trying to advocate for Bush. If so, I want to be very clear that is not my intent with this post. I just read Griffin’s book and I am about to do a post on it. This article happened to appear just as I was thinking about this.
    The poll was done by Scripps, so not likely a complete sham but with you, I would like to see the exact questions and know more specifics. I think my general point that there is at least a significant minority is true and they have a big megaphone.
    You wrote “Liberals have been fairly neutered…” One of my favorite op ed pieces came in November of 1996 by Jack Kemp. He noted that conservatives were complaining about unfair treatment of Dole/Kemp by the mainstream press and pointing to countless groups that opposed Republicans as the lost the election. He discounted all of that. He insisted that Republicans knew all those obstacles were there when they started and it was up to Republicans to devise and execute a strategy to overcome the opposition. His assessment as to why Republicans lost? “Republicans failed!” Yup! Democrats have a tough scenario. What are they going to do about it?
    It honestly was not my intent to throw red meat here. You know me well enough to know I am not a liberal but I live in a voting precinct that votes 90% Democrat and move in the circles of the denominational leadership that is decidedly skewed left. Harris point is that the extreme left end is into all this conspiracy stuff. But even among those who buy into none of the conspiracy stuff, I still get the sense that our problems in with Islamofacisim are overwhelmingly of Bush’s creation and even imagination. They seem to think that the way to address the dynamics of global politics is to attack Bush. But deconstructing the Bush vision without a coherent and widely articulated alternative version is ineffective. Add conspiracy theories into the mix and it is suicidal. From the beginning I have thought the Iraq strategy was a very high risk strategy but I am hard pressed to come up with many better alternatives and like you, I think that is largely water under the bridge and we now have to see it through. I am wide open to some meaningful alternatives but “Bush lied!” or “Bush planned 9/11!” are not alternative strategies.
    You wrote:
    But there are “liberal” plans out there, which mainly argue for less dependence on outright military force and more use of diplomacy, calculated military force, attention to global poverty, health, and education as factors which contribute to whether these islamist movements can gain adherents, etc.
    I like this angle and I am similarly inclined. Yet we also have to take into account that many of those who have done the international terror are not poverty stricken people from developing nations. They are well educated Muslims living as minorities in Western contexts who experience a cognitive dissonance between their faith values and the prosperity and dominance of the West. While globalization is integrating the world in economic terms, and thus improving the material aspects of the world, it is also bringing into direct confrontation worldviews/religions, and I doubt that theocratic Islamic rule is compatible with integration into the global economy. The irresistible force meets the immovable object.
    I am not singing Bush’s praises here. What I am saying is that we have a tough geo-political nut to crack and, to me, the democratic offers only deconstruction not leadership. I think Harris senses this and realizes the Democrats will fade in to an ineffectual minority party if things don’t change.

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  6. kairos Avatar
    kairos

    Thanks for this, Mike, and apologies for a lengthy response. I read no intention in your post other than commending it for thought. I don’t read you singing Bush’s praises, and even if you were, that’d be your perogotive. My apologies if I came across any other way. BTW: for me, red meat is a good thing, food for thought. I appreciate your raising these questions and for providing a forum for talking about them a bit.
    On your points: the branding of dissent as unpatriotic and as collusion with the enemy is something different, I think, than Kemp’s argument. I agree with Kemp partly: the democrats made their own bed, they capitulated and so I’m not laying all the blame with the political decision to claim that anything other than accepting the republican vision is inviting another attack. Kerry, for instance, is as much to blame about his loss as anything…
    But after 9/11, that sort of political tact is pernicious to the very core of our civil and political system. It is repressive of open and honest debate, and it’s not very healthy nor is it accurate.
    On the following:
    But even among those who buy into none of the conspiracy stuff, I still get the sense that our problems in with Islamofacisim are overwhelmingly of Bush’s creation and even imagination.
    I’m not sure about this, or where the evidence for it is. The complaints I hear are that Bush diverted us from the actual goal by entering Iraq, and has made us actually less safe by making Iraq more fertile for terrorists, by damaging our international standing, and so on.
    Unless you mean that Bush’s tying Iraq as strongly as he did to this battle is a figment of his imagination. That might be a view that many liberals hold.
    And:
    They seem to think that the way to address the dynamics of global politics is to attack Bush. But deconstructing the Bush vision without a coherent and widely articulated alternative version is ineffective.
    Add conspiracy theories into the mix and it is suicidal.
    It would be better to have leading dems articulate a better tact for the global struggle. I grant that. Right now Iraq is a huge anchor making much of that impossible. Its where most of our injured and dead soldiers are sustaining their injuries. Its where a good chunk of our military is tied up. And as a political matter, that’s where the American people are angry, and that’s where the dems have poltical hay to make. I grant that dems really need to talk more about what to do globally about islamism, and to link it to why Iraq is a dangerous detour. I’d like to see more of that, but it is there.
    On attacking Bush, it is true that Liberals are rather strongly critiquing him. Perhaps if there were actual bi-partisan involvement in the global war, there’d be less of that. There are other things about the Bush administration’s tactics in the global struggle against islamists that worry Liberals than just Iraq (some of them constitutional concerns).
    Liberals try to make the distinction between strongly attacking Bush on the Iraq front and supporting him on the things that do matter. That’s conceptually fine but a hard thing to actually do in the political realm.
    And:
    From the beginning I have thought the Iraq strategy was a very high risk strategy but I am hard pressed to come up with many better alternatives and like you, I think that is largely water under the bridge and we now have to see it through. I am wide open to some meaningful alternatives but “Bush lied!” or “Bush planned 9/11!” are not alternative strategies.
    Again, a major problem I have with this is that the former is fairly a claim about what the opposition is doing, not the latter. Credible democrats are not saying Bush planned 9/11, they are intimating that Bush misled or misread evidence that propelled us to Iraq.
    At this point, on Iraq, I think we’re past the point of doing much good there without a major change in how we’re doing it. I’d like to see a lot more international involvement and a lot less American control. But that really is a three-ethnic-group state that, without its dictator holding it together, is devolving to civil war. Not sure we can do much there right now (though a year ago, maybe we could have done things differently). And we’re going to reap the reprocussions of our actions there for generations to come.
    And:
    I like this angle and I am similarly inclined. Yet we also have to take into account that many of those who have done the international terror are not poverty stricken people from developing nations. They are well educated Muslims living as minorities in Western contexts who experience a cognitive dissonance between their faith values and the prosperity and dominance of the West. While globalization is integrating the world in economic terms, and thus improving the material aspects of the world, it is also bringing into direct confrontation worldviews/religions, and I doubt that theocratic Islamic rule is compatible with integration into the global economy. The irresistible force meets the immovable object.

    I think this is very accurate and a helpful summary of the problem facing us. I also think that much of the underlying support for this philosophy is from the poorer muslim communities around the world. We’d go a long way improving their situation, and focusing our military and intelligence efforts were these forces are actually operating, rather than trying to expand democracy in the mid-east at the barrel of a gun. We need to find a way to consider how we modernize these communities in a way that respects as much as possible their religious traditions. I believe that can be done. I’m not sure how it will be done.
    Finally:
    I am not singing Bush’s praises here. What I am saying is that we have a tough geo-political nut to crack and, to me, the democratic offers only deconstruction not leadership. I think Harris senses this and realizes the Democrats will fade in to an ineffectual minority party if things don’t change.
    I think that democratic leadership is there, and we can disagree on that, but I’ll agree that the Democrats need to be far more cogent about it. I’m hopeful that some of the “fighting dems” get elected and can provide some of the fodder for it. I thought Wes Clark was and is a strong voice in the matter. And there are others. We’ll see if they carry the day or not…
    Thanks, Mike, for some good conversation!

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  7. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    “My apologies…” Not needed. I always find your take helpful.
    “for me, red meat is a good thing, food for thought.”
    hehehe. Meat! It’s what’s for dinner!
    Good comments, Karios. On such a senstive topic I need to make more clear distinctions about who specifically I have in mind as there are no monolithic groups called liberals or conservatives. Here are a few more reflections.
    I know that something like half the US electorate believes the invasion of Iraq was directly linked to 9/11. I have never thought Iraq was directly linked to 9/11 but I would also say in the Bush administrations defense that I don’t think they ever said it was either. The scenario I have heard described is like when Rudy G. cleaned up organized crime in New York City. Historically, prosecutors would go after one crime family at a time. When they did this, the weakened family merely left a vacuum for the other families to fill. You never made headway. Giuliani took the strategy of going after all of them at the same time and it worked.
    I have always understood that one prong of the Bush strategy was to go after Al-Qaeda. Another prong was that of state sponsored terrorism of emanating from Iraq, largely unconnected with Al-Qaeda. There is no question Hussein was seeking WMDs and there was a widely shared (apparently erroneous) consensus that he had them. Thus, this was another of the “crime families” that had to be addressed. I am very willing to believe that some Administration officials may have seen what they wanted to see and some Neocon hubris may have been at work, but the extreme version that Bush orchestrated the whole thing is just ludicrous. That is minority fringe. Less extreme than this, but still excessive in my estimation, is the group that says Bush didn’t plan 9/11 but once it happened, lied about WMDs, linked Iraq to 9/11 and embarked on a plan for world domination. If the Bush’s strategy is wrong I think it has far more to do with a good intentions (some will argue “deeply misguided” and that is open to debate) combined with Neocon hubris. What I think liberals need to articulately expose is what was wrong with Bush’s “good intentions” (keeping it on the level of discourse) and cast a compelling vision for how to get done right.
    I agree with you that there are those who angrily denounce dissenters as unpatriotic and try to intimidate people into silence. But my point is that liberals play into this by harping on Bush as a maniacal thug and then try to state their vision. They make Bush the issue and most people don’t want to hear their leader derided in a time of crisis. That is what I think many people feel is unpatriotic, to impute sinister motives someone they think is generally moral person. Democrats put off the very people they seek to persuade before they ever get to their agenda. It also inadvertently communicates that Democrats don’t understand what is at stake here. Even assuming Bush is a maniacal thug, people don’t want to hear that about their president. So it comes down to a question of do you A) want to pursue winning the argument that Bush is a thug or B) acknowledge the good intentions and cast a vision that will bring the majority to your vision? I think this is an either/or proposition. Do you want to “be right” on the issue of Bush’s character or do you want to build a governing majority? It seems to me that Democrat leadership is still largely pursing (A) and that is what allows demagogues to bang away with the “unpatriotic” stuff.

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  8. will spotts Avatar
    will spotts

    Is it a good or a bad thing when the comments are longer than the original post?
    I agree with Kairos on 3 points. 1 – I too cringe at painting with the broad brush (though I know Mike is not attempting to do so). 2 – There have been way too many statements to the effect that criticizing the president, the decision to go to war in Iraq, or the security measures that may violate constitutionally protected rights is somehow anti-American. These are issues that all should be subjected to rigorous public debate. 3 – That we have an obligation to Iraq now that we’re there.
    That said, I haven’t seen many (secular or religious) voices on the left articulating a recognition of the threat faced by this militant form of Islam. To me Sharia law, forced conversion, death penalty for apostasy, targeting of civilians are things that must be resisted. Coupling that philosophy with nuclear weapons, for example, would be a disaster. I also have not heard a credible plan or approach for dealing with this threat being advanced.
    As a matter of strategy, being aligned with the hysterical will not work. The voices on the “fringe left” that get the most press — and are not strenuously opposed by more moderate democrats / greens / progressives are disturbingly similar to the comments of Chavez and Amenidejad in the UN. Unless the regular (non-fringe) left gets a lot more active in opposing these voices then it gives the appearance of support. The 9/11 Conspiracy crowd is often defended on the grounds that they are raising acusations that need to be considered because of America’s pretentions of empire. Unfortunately those defending them get the credit for sharing their views.
    I also take issue with one clause in this article: “But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good …” This is very misleading. I – and many people of faith agree – that dying for one’s faith was a good thing (e.g. better than living by denying one’s faith). I mean that’s what the whole Christian concept of martyrdom is about. There is to my way of thinking a HUGE DIFFERENCE between dying for one’s belief and killing for one’s beliefs. I fear the distinction is lost on some people — because dying on account of religious beliefs seems radical and extreme, it is equated with murdering others because they do not share those beliefs. I sincerely hope the author of the article did not mean to imply any equivalency between the two.

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  9. kairos Avatar
    kairos

    Glad to have Will’s follow-up thoughts, and Mike’s rejoinder. Thanks to you both. I find myself agreeing with, oh, some 90% of Will’s post. The only substantial quibble is that I think Will in his comment gives too much importance to the fringe in the voice of the left, but that’s largely a matter of perspective. Maybe those of us over here don’t listen nearly as much to the wacos there as those on the other side of the aisle. I gather we focus, analogously, much more on what Ann Coulter is saying than most conservatives, simply because she’s so outrageous to us (and that’s some of the point, I’m sure).
    I’m torn, Mike, by what seems to be a paradox. On the one hand you are right to point out that there needs to be a more cogent argument about fighting international islamism from the left, and part of that needs be (from my point of view) a compare and contrast session to what we are currently doing, and consequently a critique of how the present administration is handling things. On the other hand, you argue this:
    But my point is that liberals play into this by harping on Bush as a maniacal thug and then try to state their vision. They make Bush the issue and most people don’t want to hear their leader derided in a time of crisis. That is what I think many people feel is unpatriotic, to impute sinister motives someone they think is generally moral person. Democrats put off the very people they seek to persuade before they ever get to their agenda. It also inadvertently communicates that Democrats don’t understand what is at stake here.
    I think much of this is an assessment of emphasis: derision versus debate. Its fairly easy to claim that someone is deriding the leader when in fact there isn’t ridicule going on at all, but heartfelt presentation of a different vision. When we go back to Lieberman, one reason he’s facing such a challenge is because of his response to Murtha’s (swift-boated as he was) call to create a timeline for withdrawal (regardless of your assessment of the wisdom of that call). Lieberman called that countervision an attack on the President, and that such visions don’t do good during a time of war.
    How does one argue an alternate vision when the rejoinder isn’t an assessment of the vision but an ad hominem rebuttal or claims to anti-patriotic sentiment. Its infuriating.
    There has to be a space for critique of war operations during wartime. Even for the strongest supporters of Bush, wouldn’t one want an open, deep, pervasive assessment of what’s happening, what’s working, what’s been faulty, what other avenues are available? Instead, alternate visions are considered Bush-bashing, cut-and-running, cowardly, or not understanding the threat of global terrorism. That latter critique might actually apply in some circumstances, but that needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, by sound argument, not by knee-jurk punditry.
    Another thing that I was thinking about with this. I recently put up a rather strong post on torture over at my blog. It speaks in rather direct language against any adoption of torture by the US government and having concerns against both the politicization of the global war on terror (Kristol’s piece) and the need to hold those who choose to break the law to account, even if they felt compelled to break the law for practical or moral purposes.
    Now, does that post mean I’m deriding the president during a time of war? No, I don’t think so. Its one of the few things Bush has advocated for that I find beyond the pale. I can grant him the benefit of good intentions for a lot of things–for his Iraq policy, his tax cuts, etc. But I can’t do it for this one. My belief–perhaps not shared–is that people of Christian faith cannot reconcile torture with their religious worldview.
    So, perhaps not on the war, but on other issues such as this, what do I do with this statement:
    So it comes down to a question of do you A) want to pursue winning the argument that Bush is a thug or B) acknowledge the good intentions and cast a vision that will bring the majority to your vision? I think this is an either/or proposition
    I would disagree: I don’t think it is an either/or proposition. It’s not about “winning the argument” that Bush is wrong, nor is it about (falsely) acknowledging Bush’s good intentions (I think he is seriously sinful on this score). There is a way to articulate a third route that holds those in power to accountibility, honors the bind they are in, their humanity (and thus their ability, even propensity to sin and err), and the effects of power on their activity, and yet calls those who check that power (other branches of government, and the voice of the people) to enforce that accountibility and to choose a better way.
    By analogy, that could happen too with the Iraq war, but without the assumption of negative intentions. The struggle is to find that in a political atmosphere that warps dissent with derision.
    (Please don’t misunderstand, I acknowledge and regret the derision that does take place on the left. But I think there are more voices that are honestly disagreeing rather than deriding).

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  10. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Thanks Will and Kairos.
    I agree with you about the need for contrasting at times to make a point. That is necessary.
    To me it is the difference between saying something like,
    “President Bush correctly understood that challenges coming from Iraq could not go unchallenged but the invasion was not our most prudent course of action. Instead we should have….”
    And saying,
    “President Bush, instead of misrepresenting the facts to the American people and running off half cocked to protect American oil companies we should have…”
    In the much despised Robert’s Rules of Order, there is a passage about decorum that says:
    “When a question is pending, a member can condemn the nature or likely consequences of the proposed measure in strong terms, but he must avoid personalities, and under no circumstances can he attack or question the motives of another member. The measure, not the member, is the subject of debate. …”
    Clearly this does not apply in the same way outside of a deliberative body but I think it is a good rule of thumb whether we are talking about the “diabolical” Bushies or the “unpatriotic” Lefties.
    I wrote:
    So it comes down to a question of do you A) want to pursue winning the argument that Bush is a thug or B) acknowledge the good intentions and cast a vision that will bring the majority to your vision? I think this is an either/or proposition
    I think the key thing I would emphasize is the difference between convincing people Bush was wrong (which is what I read you to say) versus convincing them that Bush is thug. Making a case for why Bush was wrong is an essential but incomplete strategy for selling a new vision and should be a minor theme. Trying to win control by harping on Bush is a thug is a doomed strategy. That is my main point.

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  11. kairos Avatar
    kairos

    Very helpful reply, Michael. Even quoting from RRO! Well done!
    This is a particularly helpful precis:
    I think the key thing I would emphasize is the difference between convincing people Bush was wrong (which is what I read you to say) versus convincing them that Bush is thug. Making a case for why Bush was wrong is an essential but incomplete strategy for selling a new vision and should be a minor theme. Trying to win control by harping on Bush is a thug is a doomed strategy. That is my main point.
    I’d agree with this completely. And it is said with more clarity than I could have mustered. Much thanks…

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  12. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Thanks to you Kairos. I always enjoy or exchanges.

    Reply
  13. will spotts Avatar
    will spotts

    Kairos – You’re right that I tune out Coulter and similar voices – and that is probably the same phenomenon that permits those on the other side of the aisle from hearing the “lunatic fringe” statements that seem far more pervasive when viewed from a little distance. (It would be like the reaction to Rush Limbaugh in the 90’s — people who opposed certain policies desired by the Clinton administration were perceived as mindless automatons, when (many of) their actual motivations had very little to do with radio personalities.)

    Reply

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