A Damn Fine Post

Sometimes I persuse the blogs that show up on my site register as referring URLS. Sometimes these blogs are in Spanish, which doesn't make sense to me....but regardless, I found this post on one of them that I quite liked.

One of the biggest problems I have with the left is that it willing to apologize for those who stand against everything the left finds important: woman's rights, freedom on religion, gay rights. The left finds it easier to argue against the right, instead of against Islamic Fascism. The perverse thing about this situation, to me, is that the reason the left feels comfortable arguing against the right is that the right will actually listen to them. The left thinks it can change minds by arguing and proving their points, ie that Iraq is a disaster, that GW Bush is a disaster, etc, etc.

It is because the Islamic Fascists won't listen to any argument is what makes them so dangerous. The left refuses to acknowledge this immense problem by trying to heap the blame on American policies and so forth.

Kevin argued last night that I lambast the left for secreting pining for disaster in Iraq and high body counts in Katrina, so they can have proof the GW is fucking up the country, but I neglect the fact that the right takes a certain glee in getting to "take the fight to the terrorists," that people on the right secretly "get off" on fighting these guys.

Kevin's point is partially accurate. I believe there is about 20% of this country that would blindly support any war the US participated in - if we were to invade Mexico to steal burrito recipes, there would be a scary amount of American's who would support the endevour - "Just look at those Mexican's eating their big burritos, I know they're plotting something..." Most of these people tend to be right wing. (Although, some of the scariest right wing folks to me are the ultra isoloationists, who just want to erect walls around the country and not be involved with the rest of the world at all)

But there is another element to Kevin's argument, which Nate has also made on his blog about some fantasy enemy and how we long to be heroic (I'm combining similar, but not the same, arguments together here.)

I think they are on to something, but I'm not sure if it's as malicious as they argue. Growing up in the 1990s, it was en vouge to see the world as Ritter from Clear and Present Danger when he lambasts Jack Ryan, "the world isn't black and white, Jack, it's grey..."

In a grey, confusing, relative, world, it is a contrarian and reactionary position to long for something else, as Jack says, "Not black and white, right and wrong."

One of my good friends from home, when we were 19-20, playing golf during the summer told me once, "I wish there was like a war I could go fight in, to give me purpose." He wasn't "conservative," or malicious, just lost...

I think something changed for a lot of people on 9/11, we shifted from a grey world to a world that had a renewed sense of right and wrong. 9/11 was wrong, utterly wrong. And I can comfortably say that without apology, rationalization, or justification - and importantly, without a hint of irony.

Kevin seems to think that wanting to fight the terrorists is about violence. I don't think the right views it that way. The right may take a certain glee from a reaffirmation of "right vs. wrong," but I don't necessary see that as a bad thing.

If we look at the 1990s, we see what a "grey" world yields - ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Iraq, suicide bombing across Israel and in the US and Europe, the rise of Fascism across the Islamic world, the reaffirmation of autocracies across the Arab world. We would argue these things are undesirable, but would not have the moral sense to say they are wrong. I think 9/11 changed that for a lot of Americans and Westerners, and I think it that is a good thing. That is what we mean when we say 9/11 was a wake up call.**

So for all the condemnation of heroism and chest beating Churchillian rhetoric - we long for these things because they encapsulate a moral statement - this is right and this is wrong.

Some on the left will argue - who are we to judge what is right and wrong? This, to me, is cowardice, childish refusal to accept oneself as a moral agent, capable of making decision that affects oneself and others. It is also unjust to not grant this same agency to other individuals - to hold people accountable for their actions - good and bad. In the West, we believe in certain principles, most importantly, JS Mill's harm principle - "Do whatever you want so long as you don't fuck with anyone else." (paraphrase).

And then the question becomes: How do we deal with people who fuck with others? Lock 'em up. Fight 'em. Because if we don't, then we don't really believe in fighting or earning freedom, we just believe in consuming it. And to me, that's bullshit, like a rich kid inheriting a bunch of money and spending it willy nilly.

**One leftist argument is that 9/11 was merely an aberration, overexaggerated, etc, etc. I don't know what to say to this, other than I think that it is wishful thinking...they said the same about Hitler in 1933. Goddamit, I used a Hitler comparison - so lazy and cheap.