Comment of the Week: On Democracy
Dean
On the subject of spreading democracy and human rights, Steve Donohue wrote in the comments in an earlier thread:
Oh, it's no surprise Steve. It's long been obvious what today's campuses have deterioated to: a wholesale abandonment of liberalism and an embrace of authoritarianism, racism, and irrationality.The problem is much more ingrained than you think...
I'm a freshman at the University of Illinois going for my Poli. Sci. Degree, as well as my history degree, so I have to take the Intro. to International Relations class. Not much I didn't already know came up, but when the topic of international aid organizations came up, our teaching assistant was insistant that authoritarian governments could spend money better than democracies because democacies were too cacophonous and couldn't focus on spending the money correctly. When I explained that a huge amount of the money spent on Africa has simply gone into Swiss bank accounts for dictators, she scoffed.
Maybe the worst part is that the class merely chirped in and agreed, because it was another of how spreading democracy was a fool's errand and it contradicted President Bush and dreaded neo-conservativism.
Just think what these people are saying: the darkies in Africa, they don't need these things we take for granted. Hell they don't want 'em and maybe aren't even smart enough to handle 'em. Let 'em be grateful to their masters--just as long as the masters are black not white, it's okay right? They love kissing the boots of Mugabe, Wolde-Giorgis, Zenawi, Al Bashir, Eyadema, and all the rest. Besides, only a strong man with a firm hand and an iron grip can keep order among these squabbling hordes of ignorant blacknecks.
And wealthy westerners feeling the "white man's burden" happily hands hundreds of millions of dollars to the slavemasters of Africa to assuage their guilt, without ever once thinking about what it is they're really doing: enabling the slavemasters to stay in power.
It's infuriating and it's disgusting, and worst of all these dictator-appeasing, fascist apologists have the audacity to call themselves liberals. [spit]
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- No Democracy Has Ever Experienced A Famine: Part II...
- Africa and Aid money
- Comment of the Week: On Democracy
- No Democracy? No Money....
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- More on Democracy
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Ah, well - we've all seen it, Dean; our hope is that eventually we'll crush the life out of the political left, and then the GOP can split into two normal American political parties...
Bill
They probably mean that darkies are so smart, they don't need democracy. You know, like Plato.
This response was prompted because I suggested that we could use a movement that recognized energy conservation as a patriotic duty--as a way for individual Americans to help the war effort.
She told me that such a suggestion was raw propaganda and launched into the "we must change our culture" bit. She went so far as to say she has no duty to help the war because she thinks it's wrong. Not just Iraq, but the whole war on terror.
To hear this not from some leftwing nut but from an otherwise level-headed friend was quite disturbing. She was in essence saying that those who hate us can be excused for their actions. That, in fact, it is WE who should change and not them.
I don't get it. The liberalism I was raised on believed in freedom--that the dictators and thugs of the world should be stared down, not appeased. That our ideology was fundamentally good. I don't understand what happened. I don't understand what kind of mindwarping can twist my friend's thinking to the point that she is comfortable making excuses for terrorists.
Does anyone know how we convince these otherwise intelligent Americans they are horribly wrong?
The truth hurts.
dale
It's a little like my hatred of the New York Yankees. Unless Jesus was pitching for the Yankees, I'd root against them. And if Jesus was pitching for the Yankees, I'd watch something else rather than root for them.
Civil war? Yeah right. Tell me you're ready to take up arms to fight the evil Bushies. Otherwise, get a grip. Elections will take place as scheduled in 2006 and 2008 and beyond. See you then. Meantime, regardless of the outcome of the next elections, the first amendment will continue to allow us to call the people who make excuses for fascist oppressors and terrorist murderers what they are.
Am I "intolerant" if I harshly criticize people who act as if religious fascists and former Saddam loyalists who would deny free speech, free press, free elections, and rights for women and minorities are the good guys and the Americans are the bad guys? Okay, I'm intolerant. See Bill of Rights, Article the First. Then ask yourself why YOU'RE so tolerant of fascist apologists.
I think in many ways the far left (who, as noted above, aren't liberals) has managed to exploit the mainstream left's strong dislike of Bush and whip what should have been a robust but loyal opposition into a borderline anti-American fervor. Certainly there are many mainstream liberals that have declined to join the paranoia of the far left, but there are many others who have bought into it.
I don't know the way out, but I think it will take a couple of elections and a number of true liberals standing up and taking back their ideology from the clutches of far left. I think it's likely that liberalism will soon experience an intellectual renaissance--but first this period must pass.
Yep, that's what I think too. We have to shuck our fascist apologist and hate-America element first. Then we have to slough off the arguments we lost, remember our real roots, and start engaging conservatives on the field of ideas again instead of sitting around pretending we're right-by-definition and that anyone who disagrees with us is crazy or dishonest or driven by sinister secret forces.
It'll happen. I give it ten years. The South Park Republicans of today will be the liberals of tomorrow, mark my words.
As long as the "complete" intolerance is limited to critical blog comments or less, I doubt that this has any chance of starting a civil war. Honest.
I also doubt that we toppled Saddam because of his snarky comments.
"I don't think the problem is as bad as it sounds. These nuts aren't so much as pro-fascist as irrationally anti-Bush."
But why are they so anti-Bush? They hate Bush because he represents rural America and traditional Christianity. If Bush wasn't there, they'd find another scapegoat. They hate their own country, their own culture (the West). They are collectivist nihilists. Add to that their racism, their hatred for Jews ("Zionists"), and their love for fascist dictators, and you have Communists-turned-Nazi.
This weekend, I heard this on NPR: Talking about Africa, one of the commentators noted that "instead of appealing to America's conscience", some are "appealing to America's greatness". But then said that some others "say this is the wrong way to go," as it "reinforces the idea of the omnipotence of the West."
They obviously want America and the West to be impotent instead. I also heard an attack on the value of independence. These are the termites who are destroying us from within. Why are we still fighting insects? Like Dean, I would far rather fight my foes on the Right such as Santorum. They, at least, are much worthier enemies.