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Originally Posted by Lebell
by Victor Davis Hanson
There is much talk of post-election reorganization and rethinking among demoralized liberals, especially in matters of foreign policy.
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I've actually heard disappointingly little post-election talk of reorganization from the Left, absolutely nothing regarding rethinking matters of foreign policy. I have seen a great deal of advice from rightwing sources, such as this very article, attempting to sabotage future political endevour from the Democrats. As if the Right actually has a vested interest in making the Left more successful, please.
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They could start by accepting that the demise of many of their cherished beliefs and institutions was not the fault of others. More often, the problems are fundamental flaws in their own thinking — such as the ends of good intentions justifying the means of expediency and untruth, and forced equality being a higher moral good than individual liberty and freedom.
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Here Hanson is setting himself up as a priest figure ready to hear a tear-drenched
mea culpa from soon to be reformed Leftists. His accusations here range from the vague "forced equality" to the utterly meaningless "expediency." "Good intentions" are not an "end." The one organization which has done more than any other to ensure individual liberty and freedom in civil America is the ACLU. The ACLU is a non-partisan organization but it's supporters are overwhelmingly leftist.
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Whether we call such notions “political correctness” or “progressivism,” the practice of privileging race, class, and gender over basic ethical considerations has earned the moralists of the Left not merely hypocrisy, but virtual incoherence.
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Hanson fails to mention a single example of a "basic ethical consideration" that has been brushed aside by the left. This is most likely because the phrase is vague, holding no meaning. Hypocrisy requires an expressed belief, something Hanson has not accurately defined from the left, and a failure to act on that belief, again something Hanson doesn't provide examples of. I would accept "virtual incoherence" from a political body any day over the actual incoherance of Hanson's prose.
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Democratic leaders are never going to be trusted in matters of foreign policy unless they can convince Americans that they once more believe in American exceptionalism and are the proper co-custodians of values such as freedom and individual liberty.
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"Exceptionalism" is another term with such a wide range of possible meaning that it becomes meaningless without further definition. It could apply to the uniqueness which every nation posesses or a Falwellesque belief in the holy righteousness of America bestowed by a higher power. Every nation has the right to believe they are God's chosen people, none of them are. Again Hanson claims the left has abandoned "freedom and individual liberty" without any examples. I'm guessing by "freedom and individual liberty" he's not referring to the right of a woman to abort her pregnancy, the freedom to grow one's own medical marijuana, the freedom to speak out against Republican leaders, or the freedom to marry someone of the same gender.
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If in the 1950s rightists were criticized as cynical Cold Warriors who never met a right-wing thug they wouldn’t support, as long as he mouthed a few anti-Soviet platitudes,
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Were 50s rightists accused of this? Or is Hanson just providing this exaggerated untruth to cover up the stench of the unmitigated bullshit he is about to spew?
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then in the last two decades almost any thug from Latin America to the Middle East who professed concern for “the people” — from Castro and the Noriega Brothers to Yasser Arafat and the Iranian mullahs — was likely to earn a pass from the American and European cultural elite and media.
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This is stated as cause and effect logic (If--Then) which it clearly is not. So the statement is rhetorically false, what about the substance of the statment? Yes there are Castro sympathizers on the left just as there are Hitler apologists on the right (I've spoken to more than one). I've never heard or read anything from a leftist source that would indicate sympathy for Iranian mullahs. I have no idea who Hanson is referring to by "the Noriega Brothers," google returns a mixed bag of hits--mostly music related. Surely he couldn't be making reference to the CIA-GHWBush lovechild Manuel Noriega could he? Arafat did condone terrorist tatics both before and after he was invited to Camp David for peace talks, the ultimate failure of which cannot solely be placed on his shoulders. To say that any of these people earned something as vague as a "pass" from the unquestionably leftist "American and European cultural elite and media" is patentedly false.
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To regain credibility, the Left must start to apply the same standard of moral outrage to a number of its favorite causes that it does to the United States government, the corporations, and the Christian Right.
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What about Oliver Stone's fauning biopic on Castro, surely something like that would be universally embraced by the left who long ago gave Castro a "pass." You wouldn't expect such a film to be lambasted by leftist
Salon, attacked by
leftist reviewers, or
indefinitely postponed by HBO. It seems that the Left
does tend to apply the same critical standards to it's supposed pet causes, but Hanson chooses to remain ignorant of that fact.
Have you had enough or shall I continue?