Saw this on WIRED news this morning. Being on WIRED, I thought there might be something OTHER than pure conservative blindness from the other side, but
I fail to see it.
The second major thrust of Left leaning forums is sheer hatred of the President. That’s not unique. Conservative talk shows, columnists and forums flamed against Clinton. Clinton was a lightening rod, and anti-Clinton ranting elevated many a media career. But while conservative forums and some media stars rode the anti-Clinton wave, thoughtful and thought provoking conservative commentators were building the case against his Left leaning policies.
After 9-1-1, Republicans and conservatives led the battle against terrorists, boldly and active. The Left was unprepared. In fact, action led policy. The President’s preemptive attack policy was enacted. Conservative theorists and media leaders filled in the intellectual details. The gap empowered the Left’s hatred for the President and conservatives. The Florida vote count laid the groundwork for their hatred. Left wing forums are vents for their anti-war hatred, and frustration. The more extreme and more passionate their contempt, the more isolated they become. And the more their forums become an unchanging monologue.
The assumption here, and the accompanying automatic dismissal of “anti-war” as pure politics, is the moral failing of the conservative argument. The “anti-war” people I know and respect are so becuase of morality, not politics. They are so becuase they actually oppose many of the Bush administration’s moves because they were not only bad for OTHER people (this is a constant glaring absence from so many conservative arguments: they assume a USA-centric morality), but they were carried out in a deceitful and manipulative manner (the former reasons being much stronger than the latter).
When this author says:
But while conservative forums and some media stars rode the anti-Clinton wave, thoughtful and thought provoking conservative commentators were building the case against his Left leaning policies.
I have to shake my head. I see quite a bit of “case” built against the Bush policies in Iraq and at home. But , as arguments go, if the argument doesn’t make sense to the conservatives, then its no argument at all. To say that “anti-war” means “left-wing politic” is to dismiss the morality of the argument and assign it to pure posturing. Well, it’s not posturing. It’s rejection of the “macho” Captain America syndrome, because there are OTHER PEOPLE and OTHER CULTURES in this world, and OTHER FAMILIES; OTHER CHILDREN, with hopes and dreams.
I’ve said it many times: If this “war against terrorism” were required to be carried out right here, on OUR SOIL, the opposition would be enormous. It would be not only becuase people tend to react to individual “discomfort” in self-preservation, but also that they tend also to feel personal outrage against “accidents” and “collateral damage” when it’s THEIR families under fire. And this is where the dismissal of ANTI-WAR by the right as “political” totally misses the point, and that fact right there causes me to mistrust them.
I am sure that I am not the only one that does not fit this stereotype. I voted for Bush (would have voted for McCain), and I am generally more in agreement with Republicans than Democrats.
I agreed with Bush when he invaded Afghanistan. Iraq was a different story. I did not think this Iraq war was a good idea from the beginning. Bush’s whole preemptive war theory is a bad idea. An alledged criminal cannot be arrested before he is at least in the process of committing the crime. Police cannot shoot a person because they have a hunch he might commit a crime soon.
Now the whole situation of WMDs is making it even less likely that the war was a good decision. Bush is trying to sell it as humanitarianism now, but there are many other countries in similar straights. We don’t overthrow every unjust government.
Bush sold the war on pure emotionalism at first (nukes and other WMDs ready to be used against us and our allies). Now his humanitarian claims are trying to tug our hearts like the commercials that ask us to feed a hungry child while showing close-ups of kids with big, brown, longing eyes.
Now there are quite a few that criticize the President. Even the Army’s Strategic Studies Institute is critical. But at first, every critic was labelled as unpatriotic.
Democracy, as I realise, is something where the people cannot become apathatic. They must think and reason all the time.
Perhaps “anti-war” is not effective as a byword. I think “pro-peace” sounds like it achieves something. Interestingly, as Powell recently said, that they may never find WMD, but he was right about Saddams intent.
I don’t want to know, what happens the day when people fight each other over percieved intent. Thoughtcrime. A ridiculous concept, and ridiculous nonsense from the Right.
Mohammed,
The idea of pre-emptiveness as accepatable ammunition for decisions for war is indeed scary. “Thought crimes” brings the movie “Minority Report”. IN this case, I wish we had a “Minority pre-cog” who represented a glimpse into the future of proceeding on what are, for us , only predictions, and predictions based on often faulty and arrogant assumptions about the people whom we are supposedly “reading”.
I am thnkful that you “see through” the violence-complicit Christians to see the “disobedience”they are exhibiting to the one they supposedly follow….that Jesus taught nothing of the kind of “complicity with the powers” that they practice; and indded, not only complicity, but often direct advocacy of the Bush administration as some kind of “righteous empire”, which I find embarrassing to be associated with as a Christian. This is why I am so often so coarse and abrasive toward these “duped” and “compromising” and ultimately BLASPHEMOUS and disobedient groups.
Dale