Demosophia

An Open Letter to "Progressives"

O'Reilly's book is #1. Excellent! The problem is that both Franken and O'Reilly are talking to their choirs, and no one is even remotely engaged in real dialogue. I was a "progressive" for years, and it seems to me that all Americans are under a common threat, so my falling away has more to do with the extent to which I think my former progressive mates have undermined a (I think very real) sense of common threat. And the threat isn't so much Al Qaeda, as the general discontent in the Muslim world about having had a great civilization that turned a cropper with the birth of the European Renaissance and Reformation. As long as their self-referenced world remained relatively isolated the acute distress caused by the status gap between their failed God 3.0-inspired civilization and the remarkable success of the God 2.0 world was tolerable. But now they are in a stage that Europe passed through 70 years ago, dominated and seduced by the ideology and rhetoric of hate that fits their discontents like a key in a lock..

In short, WMD were something of a distraction. The threat is, and has always been, a "status gap" (to use a term coined by Tom Friedman) that has become the seedbed of hate. And the literary traditions of Islam, that refer to the peoples and lands of Christendom as "dogs" in the "house of war" are no longer quaint. They have become fertile ground for "Totalitarianism 4.0." No, there is no common ground between "progressives" and that world. Believe me. Indeed a genuinely progressive element in the Islamic world would seek to end those offensive traditions, seeing in them an obstruction to progress. And that, in a nutshell, is the whole of the "Iraqi Freedom" strategy.

I think there's a sort of dysfunction that afflicts the socialist-inclined ideologists in the liberal democracies. There are certainly people who have failed in the socio-economic game through no fault of their own, and they need help. And it also isn't really that far-fetched to suggest that even those who failed as a result of their own folly deserve a second, and perhaps a third, fourth, fifth and sixth chance. (What's the wisdom on that? 70 times 7?) But the institutional level of the national government is not appropriate to doling out first or second chances, let alone third, etc. Because there is no love or individual understanding in government at that level. Only aggregated and institutional power, and some illusion. So, what we lack is the middle level of intervention... the level where people know one another face to face, and where I know "Pete's" story, and he mine. And I can make a reasonable assessment about what he needs, and why... even if it's not an "expert" assessment. It doesn't require a Ph.D. It requires knowing Pete.

So, progressives, you have failed to recognize or cognize the common danger, and have settled for some strange reason on belittling it. Not a convincing act, which is why it has only been taken up by clowns (humorists, may be a kinder term) like Moore and Franken. And this error casts doubt on all your judgments. Your compassion isn't at fault. it's your common sense, and your critical faculties that have failed. No, no one with any sense ever said that Saddam was harmless. Whether or not he happened to have weapons of mass destruction at the time is largely irrelevant. So it *is* foolish to contend that only the "imminent threat" argument was important, even if it was the only thing important to you. (Because if you thought that, you were just mistaken.)

And likewise it's foolish to see a federal remedy for the harsh world we live in, confusing the power of the state with human compassion. It's just silly. You know yourself it's just plain bad judgment, right? I can see now how wrong it was, thanks to your grievous foreign policy error. Prior to that, it took it for granted that having the right intentions would eventually lead to the right policies. But you've convinced me that good judgment isn't something that can be taken for granted. We all know Michael Moore and Paul Krugman lie without a second thought, as though they're entitled to do so by some license they picked up in the "People's Bazaar." And would they be so cavalier, if you stopped permitting it? You've issued the license. Revoke it. Even those of us who once admired them now know they have a kind of aversion to objectivity and honesty. We've noticed, and we're not covering for them. And neither should you.

However I have little confidence that a compassionless devil-take-the-hindmost ethic will deliver us either. So, it's important that you "get well." It's important that you climb down from that wrong tree that you've barked up, and get both feet on the ground. You may need to sit this one out, until you calm down. You're off to a pretty bad start. I think your cheese has slid off the cracker, and you're too distracted to notice. We've noticed. Lots of us.

Posted by Demosophist at October 4, 2003 11:46 PM | TrackBack