And The Not-So-Smart Liberals . . .

Are a problem, too. Conspiracy theories about stolen elections, while perhaps finding a launching pad in reality, end up way out in the stratosphere--and make their proponents sound like refugees from the asylum.

In Election Theft Emergency, Terrence McNally seriously reviews a book that seriously argues that the only reason Republicans have been winning elections all over the place, from the 1994 sweep to 2000 (admittedly, a coin toss, and I can see their complaint there)and 2004, which was an unambiguous and clear victory for Bush from an engaged electorate that showed up in the highest numbers ever. And the margin of victory, both electoral and popular, was clear--with over three million votes over John Kerry, Bush won big. And engineering the theft of three million votes across fifty states would be a trick, even for the Evil Geniuses at the RNC.


That so many on the left treat this sort of foolishness with a gravity that should be reserved for serious ideas is yet one more nail in the coffin of liberal electoral and ideological victory in this country. And it works against them on two levels (well, more than two, but here's the two I'm going to point out right now):

1. It alienates voters. It makes them appear crazy. It marginalizes them, and pushes them further out on the fringe, even with some true believers--not just left-of-center moderates, but serious liberals who still think Marx had it right can and do find themselves at odds with leftwing loons who think anything and everything, especially if they lose, is a conspiracy. So it alienates them from potential voters, not just folks so far right they would never vote for a liberal or a Democrat, anyway.
   
   
   
2. It focuses them on the wrong thing. While costing them potential voters, it also keeps them busy on imaginary problems that will not help them on election day. While at the end of the day, they may be able to console themselves with the idea that they lost, again, because the election was stolen, that's the only purpose worrying over stolen elections will serve. It won't help them win.

But wait! Can't elections be stolen? Doesn't it happen? Don't dead people vote and aren't ballot boxes stuffed?
Sure. It happens all the time. Were there fraudulent votes cast in 2004? Yep, on both sides (which also has something of an equalizing effect) and people bused in and sometimes compensated for their votes when they don't have a clue, really, who or what they are voting for. But you can't steal a nation wide election like that, and you sure can't steal three million votes. And you can't steal every GOP house and senate win, either. And if the Republicans were so good at stealing them, why do they occasionally lose? Why can't they steal more of them in liberal enclaves? What's up with that?


With suitable drama, Terrence McNally writes:

For GOP voters, the 2004 presidential election was little short of miraculous: Behind in the Electoral College even on the afternoon of the vote, the Bush-Cheney ticket staged a stunning comeback. Usually reliable exit polls turned out to be wrong by an unprecedented 5 percent in swing states. Conservatives argued, and the media agreed, that "moral values" had made the difference.

First of all, conservatives didn't argue that "moral values" made the difference. It was liberals and Democrats coming to that conclusion (thus, why the media agreed). In fact, most conservatives argued that "moral values" was liberal code language for "gay marriage", and if that if liberals thought that was the only albatross around their electoral necks, they'd be in for a rude awakening in 2006 and 2008. Most conservatives argued it was our policy positions, and the fact that the Democrats couldn't seem to do anything but run against how bad Republicans were, and the fact that John Kerry was a flip-flopping elitist who was both out of touch and absurdly patronizing toward the average American. But, then, I shouldn't be surprised Terrence McNally gets it wrong: the left is prone to tell itself comfortable fictions, especially when it loses.


Usually reliable exit polls, as McNally notes, are just that: usually reliable. But the pollsters themselves claimed they oversampled women, and that doesn't fly. Dick Morris treated the issue here, and concluded that the polls were sabatoge against Bush (which, if one is prone to suspect conspiracies, is certainly more rational one). But the issue is probably random sampling error, in part caused by the large turn out, and is more rationally treated at Moveable Type. Mystery Pollster also treats the issue, and the general conclusion, even from many on the left, is that the exit polls were in error (although folks on the left like to think that Bush voters were ashamed to admit it, thus leading to the under-reported Bush voting, which, again, is another comforting idea that provides them no insight into why they actually lose).



In the article, Terrence McNally is interviewing Mark Crispin, the author of the new "important" book, Fooled Again: How The Right Stole the 2004 Election, and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), which, naturally, presumes that people don't actually vote for Republicans, so that elections where conservatives win must be stolen.


Crispin says:

[I]t's also a story about the colossal failure of the American press to do precisely the kind of job that the framers had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. What they had in mind was that the press would function as a reliable check on executive power.

Huh? I'll have to check that consitution on that. I thought the First Amendment was about making sure that the press was free, not to specifically "provide a check" on executive power. But Crispin is reliably on the leftmost fringe of the radical left wing, because he complains about the current corporate-owned press and the conservative bias of such right-wing stalwarts as Salon and Mother Jones.

Yet the press has for the most part ridiculed those who have come up with very solid evidence of fraud. They've been in the business less of talking about the situation than of preventing anybody else from talking about it. And this includes some of the progressive media as well. In fact, the most hostile reviews that I've received have been in Mother Jones and Salon.

Which should be your first clue that, even to true believers, you sound like a lunatic. Or that the liberals at Mother Jones and Salon don't want the left to be any further marginalized than it is, and would like the left to actually win elections, rather than lose them, and lose them again, while complaining that they were robbed.

But since Watergate the press has preferred to deal with meaningless and trivial scandals like the Clinton scandals. They will not talk about 9/11, they will not talk about the theft of the last three elections.

So we're supposed to believe the Clinton scandals were nothing--like laundered campaign donations from China, fund raising at Buddhist temples (and having Buddhist Monks destroy documents!), and and here's even more on the Clinton/Gores influence-peddling. And let's not forget the pardon of Marc Rich. But the real scandals are how Bush was somehow responsible for 9/11, and how all the elections where Republicans won were stolen! Even there is some hanky-panky on the Republican side of the aisle, it seems that Democrats steal elections, too. In fact, some Republicans suggest that it's their main strategy to deal with the rising tide of Republican wins. Some things like Motor Voter Legislation seems designed to aid, legitimately and perhaps illegitimately, the election fortunes of Democrats. And more on Democrat voter fraud. Or you can find your own, the list is quite long. And that doesn't even include things like slashing the tires and other forms of sabotage directed at Republican "Get out the Vote" efforts. By Democrats no doubt trying to prevent the "stealing" of the election. And frankly, I think I've seen more in the press about questionable Republican victories than I saw about ballot boxes getting stuffed on Indian reservations for Tom Daschle.


Crispin says:

If people want to get a strong sense of what was happening at the grassroots level coast to coast last year, go to a website called the Election Incident Reporting System, EIRS. Then type in the name of a state or a county, and you'll get a transcript of all the complaints that were lodged that day by people who called 1-866-MY-VOTE.

Although he doesn't mention that democrat activists, "anticipating" Republican voter fraud, were coached where to call and what to say, helping drive that number up substantially.

Tom Daschle was supposedly beaten in South Dakota by 4,500 votes. There was so much chicanery going on there, that it's easy to argue that John Thunes should not have won. I know Daschle believes he was robbed.

Apparently, Crispin doesn't feel it's relevant to notice that almost all the chicanery was on the Indian reservations, by people in Daschle's camp, and in Democrat-controlled districts under the auspices of Democrats.

This isn't only a matter of the White House, it's also a matter of the Congress. I don't believe that this government represents the people of this country. The people of this country, however frightened some of them may be by terrorism, are essentially not theocratically inclined. They don't want a Christian republic.

Oh, jeeze. There are more secular folks in public service and in the public eye that ever in the history. Christianity is much more marginalized in the community than a century ago. Christian symbols have been ejected from public places where it used to be integral. And, finally, there are still plenty of Christians in the country--the majority of people in the country self-identify as "Christians". While they may not want a "Christian" republic, they probably don't want God obliterated from public life, think arguments over Nativity scenes at City Hall are foolish, and don't have their paranoid fear of a Christian theocracy as a big influence on who they vote for.


Talking about the exit polls, Crispin says this:

Now a lot of people think that it's not a reliable gauge, it doesn't tell us anything. That's actually the result of propaganda obfuscation.

Who says that? Where is that from? The people most agitated by the wide divergence of the exit polls from the actual election were conservatives and Republicans, and almost all the ones I have read commented that such a divergence is unheard of, and suspect left-leaning manipulation (but I don't think there is much evidence for that view).

And, as is so often with the left, it becomes even more clear what the real problem is, who is really stealing elections and destroying democracy: those damn Christians!

This has to do with the peculiarly paranoid quality of the crusading mindset. I believe this theft was to a great extent carried out thanks to a kind of crusader mentality. I've got plenty of evidence in the book that the religious right played an enormously large role in the theft of the election last year.

In this vein, Crispin reports:

One Democratic election judge tried to observe the vote count in Pima County, Arizona. A roomful of polling personnel who all belonged to the same evangelical church in the area started to call him a liberal demon, a liberal scum.

Sounds suspicious to me. Any other witnesses? Any actual evidence? The interview is not the book, but it certainly does seem long on accusations and short on evidence. While omitting important facts that I'm aware of (which makes me wonder what else they might be omitting . . . hmmm).



The interview goes on (and on and on):

TM: When you talk about a crusader mentality, you basically mean that if you do not support my candidate you are an infidel -- and the ends justify the means?

MCM: Precisely. See, all these crimes that I attest to in the book were committed with impunity by people who regard their political adversaries as demons. And that's not an exaggeration. You know, this government is to a great extent dominated by people who have that metaphysical view of the current political situation.



It is a very serious mistake I believe to think that all of this is happening only because of the excessive greed of certain corporate powers. That greed is decisive It played an enormous role. There is no question about it. But it could not have succeeded without the vigorous grassroots assistance of a lot of people who are religious true believers. And I think that they include the likes of Tom DeLay and others.

Frankly, I think this is projection. I've met more folks on the left with a crusader mentality for their particular politics than I ever have on the right--and I've met a lot more people on the right. I hear a lot more "ends justifies the means" when it comes to getting the right people elected and the right sort of policy in place on the left than I do from the right (I wish I had the time to do a survey of published materials, because it's not, like, private or anything). And "regard their political adversaries" as demons? Jeeze! That's projection if ever I heard it. Whatever else one says about the political left, they are far more prone to demonization, on the whole, than conservatives. I wouldn't have necessarily thought that after the Clinton impeachment, but the subsequent years have proven it to be true. Bush is a Nazi, Bush is a devil. Anybody else see the map showing America as the blue states being America, and the red states being Jesusland? And then, the red states being "Dumbfukistan"? When have you seen anything like that on the right? Yes, there is some, but come on. Jerry Fallwell might have demonized Bill Clinton, but the rank-and-file left finds a money-stealing, war-starting, gun-toting, banjo-playing, black-hating redneck in every Republican they see.


Then, Terrence McNally almost gives me a heart attack by asking an actual question instead of lobbing a softball:

TM: I've read that in New Hampshire, Ralph Nader's Green Party campaign paid for an actual recount. They picked the precincts they thought were suspicious, and the hand recount confirmed the actual vote totals and showed that the exit polls were, in fact, wrong. What do you say to that?



MCM: Well, the recount that they paid for found no evidence of fraud in that particular case.


TM: It confirmed the hand recount, showing that the exit polls were in fact wrong. So how does that fit your analysis of the whole scheme?



MCM: The only thing one can say about that with any scientific certainty is that the particular hand count that they carried out did not reveal any evidence of fraud. That does not mean that no fraud was committed. This is a very fine point, but when we're dealing with questions of electoral honesty and accuracy, I think we have the right to make fine points.

There ya go. No evidence of fraud, in that particular case. Not that that means that there wasn't any fraud, we just can't find it with a fine-tooth comb. Yet the left has money out the wazoo. The the George Soros's of the world really thought there was fraud, wouldn't they pay for recounts everywhere?


Finally, Crispin addresses why he wrote the book:

TM: To the question "What is the point of revisiting the last election?" you point out that there has never been a great reform that was not driven by a major scandal. Do you believe that true election reform is not going to happen until the people and the media finally wake up to this?



MCM: I think it's going to depend on the people. It's going to depend on the people simply and irresistibly insisting that the media finally deal with this subject. That's why I wrote the book.

Frankly, I think the idea that a parnoid, conspiracy-ridden book is going to "wake up the American people" is hubris of the highest order. I believe folks like Crispin, and their wide exposure, do more the Republicans than the Democrats. Because people who lose, and constantly insist that they were robbed, reveal more about themselves than their opponents with their protestations.



So I hope Crispin gets the public exposure he so richly deserves.

Smart Liberals, Foolish Choices, Part II

The left has trouble dealing with the real world: that is, the real views and agenda of their political opponents, and the real world results of both political agendas.

Another problem in terms of advancing themselves both politically, and their philosophy in the hearts and minds of those not yet converted to the faith, is that many of their ideas are flawed and they refuse to even consider that possibility. That so many people so profoundly and verbosely and extensively disagree on many of the fundamental ideas and policies they embrace should inform them, but largely, it does not. The problem is, those foolish people don't understand the "complexity" and the "nuance" of the issues, that's why they make the mistake of not agreeing with liberals--which is, naturally, why a liberal elite needs to run things, to the protect the masses of stupid tax-generators from themselves.


The left in this country argues for tax hikes, more government control of the free markets, less educational choice (it might benefit a private company or, gasp, a religious school, so kill it, kill it, kill it quick--don't, for example, argue for an exclusively secular version of school choice), less spying, less defense spending, and greater protection of the rights of terrorists and criminals (because, heck, you never know when someone might decide you are a terrorist or a criminal). Despite the fact that these positions don't sell well with the public at large, or bring much in the way of positive results they can point to.


I just don't see how, in the twenty-first century, the left can realistically expect to make progress as long as they embrace ideas that clearly don't work and actively oppose things that do. Just one example:


Doug Henwood argues, in Laissez-faire Olympics
, that economic freedom--that would be, say, the right to own property, sell property, save your own money, keep what you earn, and own and start a business--have no relationship to political freedom, or (oh my gosh he did not, did he?) wealth creation. He actually wrote, in March of 2005, that economic freedom doesn't really have much to do with wealth creation? I mean, huh?

But as anyone who lasted a week in a basic statistics course knows, proving a correlation doesn't prove causation; it could be that increasing wealth causes the index to rise, and not vice versa.

While I'm sure Marx would approve, it flies in face of both logic and a century of history. While Henwood makes good points about how the index is calculated, and how any random increase of wealth (from the wealth fairy, I suppose, or from all the wealth that naturally occurs by workers owning the means of production) would impact it favorably, the fundamental implication of Hendwood's piece--that there's no overall relation between economic and political freedom, or economic freedom and wealth generation--is just absurd. Several paragraphs of verbal acrobatics and obfuscation--

Instead of using GDP expressed in U.S. dollars, as is sometimes done, it's better to strip out pure currency market changes by using so-called purchasing-power parity (PPP) values, which attempt to express incomes at exchange rates that correspond to actual buying power. It's not a perfect measure - there's a lot of estimation and imputation involved - but it's become a standard for international economic comparisons. And instead of using aggregate GDP, as the report does, it's more revealing to use per capita figures; if a country's economy is expanding as rapidly as its population, the population isn't materially better off. Of course, GDP per capita is also a highly imperfect measure; it simply divides the monetary value of a country's economic production by its population. It says nothing about how income and wealth are distributed, much less the actual distribution of material welfare. But it too is the orthodox metric of comparison, and not useless as a guide to relative welfare across time and space. It makes good sense to test the economic freedom index against orthodox measures, since it emerges from sources whose only beef with current orthodoxy is that it's not capitalist enough.

While not completely unclear, that such a "proof" ends with the line "It's so much fun being on the right - you're liberated from the tyranny of having to make sense" has a certain ironic ring to it.



Irrespective of a particular index (Henwood's supposed beef is with the index, while implying the more fundamental assertion--with an implication seized upon many of the socialists on the left--that freedom and economic growth have no relationship whatsoever), it is simply common sense that you will have more economic growth in a country where you have more freedom to grow economically, even if that growth is small. Where your borders are more open, you will have more foreign capital and more foreign business investments (sources of economic growth that Henwood appears to discount), and where you can own and start a business, where you can keep more of your own money, where you have greater access to the marketplace, more economic growth will happen. And no amount of statistical contortions, or arguments against one potentially flawed index, will change that fundamental fact. In essence, Henwood and his compatriots are arguing against freedom, economic or otherwise, and though they would (and many often have) suggested that it's simply a lack of nuance, or understanding of complexity, to make such a simplistic accusation (that they are arguing against liberty), that doesn't keep them from coming off that way to pretty much everybody who doesn't already agree with them, a priori.


Some of them seem almost to willfully get the conservative view on economic and political freedom wrong. Jonathan Weiler wrote at the Gadflyer (you'll have to scroll down):

And, as the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik (see, for example, his March 2001 article in Foreign Policy), among others, has argued, studies correlating openness to trade with economic prosperity get the relationship exactly backwards – recent economic success stories, like the Asian Tigers, developed economically behind a protective wall, and then later opened up once they were in a relatively advantageous market position.

I mean, seriously. It makes my face twitch. That's exactly the point. Political freedom is often engendered by economic freedom. When economic freedom (that would be the growth of capitalism and free markets) is present, political freedom often follows. Slowly, and in fits and starts, but it does happen. That's exactly the sort of correlation conservatives argue for. Indeed, political freedom and democracy in an environment where nobody can own property or start a business, is not likely to create wealth. And no conservative has ever argued that it is.

Which goes back to my fundamental premise: that a primary problem liberals and the left have in regards to advancing their agenda politically, and in the hearts and minds of average folks, is that they refuse to accurately consider and understand the position of their ideological opponents, and so they argue against things that conservatives don't believe and policy positions that Republicans don't have. Combined with the fact that they cannot admit that history has proved, again and again, that economic freedom pays dividends, and that tax cuts--that is, keeping more money in the free market economy, rather than in government coffers--is good for the economic welfare of everybody.


But the Democrats still don't like tax cuts, and still like tax hikes. Despite the obvious and substantial increase in tax revenues trailing Bush's tax cuts, they still want to call them "costs", suggesting that somehow that economic growth that led to those increasing revenues was inevitable, and that despite the government having much higher tax revenues now than it did when Democrats were in power and higher taxes ruled the day, important things aren't getting paid for because of the lower taxes. Even though when tax receipts were much lower when taxes were higher, we'd have to assume that important things didn't get paid for to an even greater extent, simply because there's less money. But the left, and the Democrats, weren't complaining then.


Wealth redistribution doesn't work. While conservatives often argue that wealth redistribution is immoral or unfair, and the left argues the opposite, the fact that it doesn't work, especially with practiced in perpetuity, is difficult debate. The fact that socialism fails where capitalism and free markets succeed is largely ignored by liberals, who still want to nationalize healthcare, education, and fight against any private choice, or free market exercise, at all in regards to things like education and Social Security. Yet there is no shortage of evidence that it does not work, does not work well, or works only as a parasite sucking off of much better free market solutions. As Thomas Sowell noted in a recent book review (covering the economic growth of China):

People on the political left make a lot of noise about poverty and advocate all sorts of programs and policies to reduce it but they show little interest in how poverty has actually been reduced, in China or elsewhere ... If the Chinese government hasn't done it, then who has? The Chinese people. They did not rise out of poverty by receiving largess. The only thing that can cure poverty is wealth. The Chinese acquired wealth the old-fashioned way: They created it.

And it's demonstrably true. Only when the government stopped trying to create a workers paradise, and it's opened up it's marketplace and gave it's people a choice about things like what they did for a living and where they decided to live, did the Chinese miracle begin.


But what's happening in the real world appears to inform left-wing political strategy less and less. And if that doesn't constitute a foolish choice, I don't what does.

Smart Liberals, Foolish Choices, Part I

Liberals are smart folks. So why do they keep making such bad political choices?

Liberals, by their own testimony, are smart folks: sometimes the most broadly educated, widely read, erudite folks in the room. And over the past two centuries the left had made a tremendous amount of political progress, much of it a source of great good for humanity.

So why is it that they can't win elections in this country anymore? Why did they just lose, even temporarily, elections in Canada? Why are they finding it so hard to bring the common man, supposedly their raison d'être, around to their point of view?

I think there are a lot of reasons, and the primary one is not the one that most prominent liberals keep pointing to: they think they aren't forceful enough. They don't think they fight conservatives and Republicans hard enough. They don't think they are tough or nasty enough when, oddly, that seems to me to be the one thing they've got in spades.
The examples are plentiful. Before the 2004 elections, a site dedicated to "tough liberalism", http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200603was founded. It's really a blog/online magazine with a different article every week, but the link I point you to above is a great example of their tough liberalism. "Anti-choice" is too "soft", the author says. So how does tough liberal Joshua Holland see conservative, right-to-lifers?

They call us baby-killers and blood-thirsty perpetrators of infanticide. They harass women trying to get a safe, legal medical procedure with horrific insults. They display disgusting photographs of mangled fetuses - the result of emergency, late-term abortions. They blow up clinics and shoot doctors in the head while they're eating breakfast with their families.

Wow, that's some great spine he's showing. Yeah, I'm definitely thinking the problem with the Democrats is that they don't spend enough time talking about how pro-life folks shoot doctors in the head.

And "emergency, late-term abortions" my ass. Unless the emergency is second-thoughts about the cost of day care, or an unexpected break-up with boyfriend or spouse, you could count the real need for emergency, late-term abortions on one hand. If honest appraisals of the issues can't go with that "tough-minded" liberalism, they are going to continue to have problem.

So, what about evangelical Christians? "It's a Christo-fascist death-cult." And what sort of change to the language does he want to make?

It's high time we get off the defensive and start getting tough with these people. So I'm not pro-choice anymore. I'm pro-sanity and anti-fucktard.

Oh, yeah. That's the ticket.

Helen Thomas covers the issue, too. Here we go:

On the domestic side, the Democrats should put on a well-lighted marquee the fact that the Republican-controlled Congress plans to save $50 billion over five years by cutting food stamps and student loans, by slapping new fees on Medicaid recipients and reducing child support enforcement.

So much for compassionate conservatism.

Ah, yes. Only one definition of compassion for the left: wealth redistribution. But, honestly: haven't the democrats touched on these issues? Haven't they come out strong against Bush? Does anyone think the Democrats support the War in Iraq, or NSA spying? Does anyone think they want conservatives on the court? I don't watch the news that much and I've heard Democratic party leaders talk about the "Republican culture of corruption" dozens of times. I've heard the Iraq is a mistake and the Bush lied hundreds, if not thousands, of times. The problem is not that the message isn't getting out: the problem is that the message is not sufficient. It either needs to be something else, or something more.

So, I think we can safely say that what the Democrats think their problem is, it is not.

So, what is it?

I think the first problem is, they are smart, and they know it. So smart that it's unthinkable that any of the positions they may embrace might be wrong, or that they might actually lose in a "fair" election. So smart that the only possible reasons that they aren't in power are because (a) the other side cheats or (b) their message isn't getting out. Such a lack of sobriety when it comes to self-appraisal is going to make future electoral victories difficult, and completely a product of how poorly their opponents perform, relative to them. When they cannot accurately assess themselves and their positions, or their opponents, they are left with no choice but to lose elections, and in the marketplace of ideas, unless those they are competing against royally screw up. And that's not a basis for lasting political and cultural success.

When you can't honestly assess the problem, you can't come up with an actual solution. While Fox News and talk radio have hurt the left, and the Democrats, tremendously, the problem is not that they somehow magically have more influence, or reach more people, than more liberal news media and opinion. Thus, attempts to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine or otherwise curtail the New Media are wrong-headed and self-defeating. Equally, attempts to create a New New Media--with the same old stuff that's available in the old liberal media is also not an answer, but a "solution" enthusiastically pursued by the left. With obviously mixed results: as Air America's ratings might indicate (no ratings info is available, even in opinion form, for Current TV, which sounds a lot more promising and open, when it comes down to it, than Air America ever did . . . but, even if it's wildly popular, Current TV won't teach anybody anything about liberal positions and opinions we didn't already know, which was not the case with talk radio, Fox News, and conservative blogs). With such cultural saturation of the liberal viewpoint, the problem is not that people don't have an idea of what Democrats stand for or the problems and solutions as liberals see them--the problem is, they do.

Tom Cosgrove has some good ideas, but I don't expect it to filter up the Democratic leadership (or, in fact, many of the writers at AlterNet, where his missive was posted).

Among a few other nuggets of wisdom, Cosgrove writes:

Americans may know what group we stand against -- Republicans -- but they do not know what ideas we have for change or what principles and moral values we share as a party.

That's only one of their problems, but it's a big one. That's one place where "the message isn't getting out"--because they don't really have one. Complaining about tax cuts for the rich should never even come up, because most of the people they need to convince to vote for them don't see life as a zero sum game, and they don't see wealth redistribution by the government as the secret to their future success. Advocating research, education funding, government-sponsored job training, head start programs, and that sort of thing--that can really work for them. Higher pay for men and women in the military--that could be a great platform plank. Rolling back taxes on Social Security checks--wouldn't that rock?

Fighting to repeal tax cuts that have apparently improved the economy, and certainly put more money in the voters' pockets, and haven't impeded the government's ability to spend, since tax revenues are up, not down, since the tax cuts took effect. That's not really Cosgrove's take on the details, but we certainly do agree on the central point: that just being against Republicans is not a winning campaign strategy. In fact, just being against things, period, is not a winning strategy.

Democracy Still Works! Thanks, MoveOn.Org!

And what defines "Democracy Working"? Why, the left getting what it wants! Surprise, surprise.


As you may have noticed (all five of you that read my rantings), I am often drawn to pointing out the underlying template of those on the left, the core beliefs that inform their assumptions in politics and beyond. And this is no different. I just got a fund raising solicitation from MoveOn.org (unfortunately, I just don't have anything to give them this year--perhaps they can ask George Soros) and it starts by letting me know that "democracy still can work".


And how do they define democracy "still" working? Why, they got what they want: ANWR defeated, the Patriot Act down (and if they think that's a lasting win for them, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn they might want to buy) and, they seem to suggest, they've done something to defeat the "reverse robin hood budget" (and don't get me started on how in Robin Hood, the poor were poor because of the excessive taxation of the government, and Robin Hood was stealing from the government's treasury to give the money back to the over-taxed citizens, making their whole "reverse Robin Hood" poll-tested catch-phrase awfully ironic).


The fundamental logical problem they are suffering here (as the left so often does) is the idea that, when they lose on issues, it's a failure of democracy. That's an infantile, egregiously self-centered way of looking at the larger world. While I, personally, was for drilling in ANWR, think letting the Patriot Act lapse was probably not a real accomplishment, and fully support more tax cuts and less government spending (i.e., the "reverse Robin Hood" budget of the historically illiterate folks at MoveOn.org), I don't see democracy as "broken" just because what I wanted didn't happen, this time around. It isn't a failure of the system simply because I don't get my desired outcome, when the system is designed to modulate numerous competing interests over time. The system is working fine, even when liberals get exactly what they want.


Thomas Sowell refers to the structure of the underlying belief system of the left (in general terms) as "the unconstrained vision", and one of the features of the unconstrained vision is that it's focused on outcomes rather than processes (i.e., "equal treatment" for conservatives, or those with a "constrained vision", means that the process is the same for everybody, while "equal treatment" for liberals means that the outcome is the same, or largely the same, for everybody, and that the processes, such as they are, are adjusted or dismissed so that being with different "natural advantages" can all be modulated, or equalized, into the same, "fair" and "just" result).


And the idea that democracy (a process) is "broken" when liberals don't get there way (the desired outcomes), and is working when they do, is a perfect illustration of this orientation. Although nothing whatsoever has changed about the democratic process bettween, say, the 1994 Republican sweep of congress, the 2004 election of George W. Bush, or the 2005 successes of liberals in frustrating the Republican agenda, the only time democracy has been "working" and not "broken" (either via problems inherent, and not correctly adjusted for, in the democratic process, or by outright manipulation and cheating by the opposition) is when Democrats and the political left get their way.


I have recommended before, and will again, that if you want a solid understanding of the fundamental, underlying differences of right and left, forget the goofy liberal meandering of Thomas Franks (What's The Matter With Kansas, see my excellent review here) go straight for Thomas Sowell. I recommend A Conflict of Visions, a more academic treatment of the subject, and Visions of the Annointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, a book that covers the basics of the different visions, but also is full of facts, statistics, and real-world examples as to how those visions conflict in the real world, and how you often don't know the whole story (i.e., the outcome of much liberal social activism), because the negative outcomes from their good-intentioned initiatives is, for liberals, beside the point. As such, it's rarely covered or acknowledged, but Sowell takes on liberal touchstones like Unsafe at Any Speed and Silent Spring, and demonstrates how these efforts at self-congratulatory activism had results that were almost wholly negative. It is truly a great book.


The rest of the email covers the many ways in which MoveOn.org members have helped accomplish their goals, thus ensuring that "democracy still can work". While it's about what I'd expect (lambasts Republicans for doing things like attaching ANWR to the defense spending bill, something that all politicians from the farthest left to the farthest right have done, but you'd think the Republicans had only just invented this dastardly strategy, at this moment, to try and pass ANWR) it is interesting how hard they make the argument that their members helped make the difference. I wonder if they are losing cash and/or volunteers? If so, it's the right time to try and make up the difference: nothing succeeds like success.


However, I think their successes may be short-lived, and at least some of them (for example, just letting the Patriot Act lapse ain't going to last through the next session) are going to be largely reversed. And then, no doubt--at least, to the fine folks at MoveOn.org--democracy will be broken again.

There Are Good Arguments Against the War in Iraq

So how come nobody on the left can make them? How come it's all conspiracy-theory, black-helicopter, America-is-evil nonsense?

While there are always arguments against war, certainly arguments against waging pre-emptive wars, arguments against the costs and hubris of nation-building, and obvious arguments to be made against the war in Iraq, the anti-war movement and the left in this country seem to be incapable of making them.

So, for much of this post, I'm going take the position of a rational devil's advocate--someone who is against the war (which really isn't me at this point) and believes it was a mistake, thinks there are probably good reasons to withdraw, but recognizes that the American and European left are all as detatched from reality as the most homicidal terrorist who believes blowing up a bus is going to lead them straight to honor and prestige in Heaven. Because the left is missing every opportunity to make a solid case against the war, and instead weaves political spin in with fantasy in with self-congratulatory delusion in with blind pessimism to make a mix of wishful black bile that makes them impossibly good and their ideological opponents, and America (at least, those who believe in American exceptionalism and endorse and support America's super-power status, and consider America a force for good in the world) as greedy, evil and self-serving. When, if they were serious about arguing against the war, they could make real progress. If they could resist the tempation to villify their enemies and gaze wistfully at themselves through the soft-focus lens of their own narcissism.

Where to start? I couldn't begin to encompass all the examples. So, I'll start here:

For example, AlterNet refers to it's ongoing war coverage as 'The War On Iraq', and certainly isn't alone in calling the war 'The War On Iraq'--in order, of course, to make the point that the U.S. is waging war against a nation and it's people, not, say, engaged in a hubristic effort to bring Western-style Democracy and freedom to a troubled and oppressed part of the word, where such an effort is largely unprecedented, and the history of such well-intentioned meddling isn't very good.

Which, to me, suggests that if you find it difficult to agree that the U.S. is conducting an imperial or unjust war on Iraq, most on the left are telling you that you are wrong, and that you are, in essence, the enemy. I find this even more ironic given the left's repeated, completely hollow claims of patriotism and "love of country". It's one thing to claim patriotism while dissenting from policy; quite another to claim patriotism while claiming that your country is imperialistic; that it is waging an unjust war on innocent people; that it's men and women in the military terrorize Iraqi men and women in their houses in the middle of the night. It's one thing to say that nation building is not something we should do, that it's not an effective use of our resources, and even that (as is often suggested) it is not, strategically, the way to wage a war on terror. Quite another to say that the war on terror is an excuse for the evil US to torture brown-skinned people and steal their oil. If you really consider yourself a patriot, but have questions about the war in Iraq, is looking at your country as a source of evil and bad things in the world (which is not an unusual refrain from the left) going to resonate? Or is it going to alienate you from people you might otherwise support and vote for, because they've gone too far?

At the very least, it's an open question.

Going on: in a recent book (reviewed here by AlterNet, my convenient source for all the left's best irrationality), called Unembedded, four "independent" journalists show us the true face of the Iraq war. It is a photo documentary of the "human face of war-ravaged Iraq". I tend to wonder if it touches any upon the human face of opressive-dictator-ravaged Iraq, where entire families often ended up shot and buried in mass graves, where all the prisons were dens of torture of the tongue- and hand- and eye-removing kind, where there were rape rooms, and so on. While it may not be our job to save the world from despots and dictators, no matter how many children get shot in the head in front of their parents as part of government intimidation, and no matter how many political dissidents get blinded with a red-hot poker or have their tongues cut out with dull knives, to simply behave as if that didn't happen while simultaneously bemoaning the human cost of war seems disingenous. Certainly, there would be reasons not to have gone to war in Iraq, and the human cost is one of them. But to pretend the human cost in Iraq started (and ends)with American military action is simply untrue, and certainly doesn't strike one as the kind of "patriotic dissent" the left is so fond of claiming.

The review bemoans what they feel is an attractive portrayal of American soldiers (and if you think that, by and large, anything has changed on the left in regards to how they see and feel about the American soldier since Vietnam--other than a vague awarness that spitting on them and calling them "babykillers" does not serve their political goals very well--then I have a bridge to sell you; a heroic portrayal of the American soldier, no matter how accurate and newsworthy, is anethema to the left). But here's a book to the rescue that shows you what happens when the American military does it's job (which, if you don't know, is to kill people and break things): things are broken, and people get killed.

And that's the whole problem. We rarely see who is at the receiving end of a hellfire missile, or a 50-caliber rifle, or a 500-pound bomb. The politics of that destruction and the anger and desperation it fuels, remains hidden.

So, that's the problem: the American people are stupid, and don't understand what happens when people get bombs dropped on them or get shot repeatedly by a machine gun! People who supported the war, or voted for Bush, don't understand that people die, and things get blown up, in wars.

As is often the case in regards to difference between the right, the middle, and the left, I have to question the entire orientation of that sort of thinking, the entire template they are operating from. American's have seen the face of war, and most everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has been to Iraq, and almost everybody has known somebody, or known someone who knew somebody, who was injured or died on the battlefield.

Many of the people who voted for Bush were veterans of wars and military engagements in the past and, indeed, the military--those most likely to have seen, up close and personal, the ravages of war--voted overwhelming for Bush (something the left knows and expects, which is why they have, at various times, tried to have military absentee ballots disqualified for technical reasons). This is not a nation of complete ignoramuses who don't know that people die in wars and that bad things happen when bombs start falling. Right at the beginning, I think they lose everyone who isn't already one of the enlightened faithful (who can sorrowfully shake their head and how others don't understand the true face of war), because their foundational assumptions are just wrong.

Along the way we visit hospitals in Fallujah and Baghdad where relatives wash their dead and care for the wounded. We see a mosque in Baghdad where women mourn more than 50 killed by a U.S. bomb. We see an Iraqi boy triumphantly celebrating the explosion of an American vehicle. And from the courageous Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the lone Iraqi photographer in the group, (Alford and Anderson are Americans, Leistner is Canadian) we see an extraordinary sequence of photographs of civilians running from a U.S. helicopter attack on Harif Street in Baghdad in September 2004.

Now, maybe it's just me, but does anybody else detect a potential political agenda in this "journalism"? There was nothing good to see? At all? I wonder if there were any pictures of, I dunno, Iraqis voting in free elections for the first time. Or Iraqis picking through Saddam's mass graves, trying to find evidence of loved ones, long lost without a trace. Or maybe a picture of the woman who, when voting in Iraqi parliamentary elections for the first time who said, "Anybody who doesn't appreciate what America has done, and the president Bush, let them go to Hell!" No pictures of her, I'm betting.

And, more to the point, since the template is wrong--stupid ignorant Americans don't know people die in wars!--they completely miss what seems to me a very logical question: couldn't what they, the authors, are doing have been done during any war? Couldn't it have made the rebels look like quite the murderous cads during the revolutionary war? And wasn't the human cost terrible? Certainly, it was during the Civil War. Perhaps America should have just let the South secede? And during World War II, and World War I, and the Korean War? And certainly, we did it in Vietnam. Certainly, I'm sure there were plenty of French collaboraters unhappy with America fighting the Nazis in France, and I'm sure there could have been plenty of ugly pictures. Again, the human cost of war is not unique to Iraq, and acting like it is presumes and either (a) an ignorance in the intended audience that is not there or (b) a near religious devotion to the anti-war, anti-American-exceptionalism crowd that is really the exclusive domain of the far left.

And in case it isn't obvious, they hate American-exceptionalism, and believe that anyone who embraces it does so through ignorance:

Consider this: The picture most widely distributed during the Marines' violent siege of Falluja last November was a close-up shot of Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, otherwise known as the Marlboro Man, his face smeared with the grime of war and a cigarette seductively hanging from his lip. This image was taken by Los Angeles Times embedded photographer Luis Sinco and published in over 100 newspapers on Nov. 11, 2004. On that day in Baghdad alone an estimated 19 people were killed and an unknown number lost their lives in Falluja. But it was the Marlboro Man who made the front page coast to coast. There are no Marlboro Men in Unembedded.

See, the reason you aren't against the war, and the reason you don't loathe the American military, is because you have been brainwashed (you stupid people) by these "artificial" images of American soldiers looking like strong, brave, honorable American soldiers, and you were too dumb to know that people also died during military actions in Baghdad and Falluja. Because you're ignorant and shallow (proof: you voted for Bush), you think the American military and war in general are all about standing around looking cool with cigarettes, and don't know that real bombs get dropped on real people, and real people get shot, and people really die in wars.

This one just amazes me: Ten Ways to Debate Iraq, by Michael Schwartz. You must read it to believe it, and unless you are already a die-hard leftist, I expect you, too, will be amazed at the willful ignorance and unapologetic, unwavering single-minded one-sideness to the orientation. These "Ten Ways to Debate Iraq" are an excellent example of why the left has so much trouble debating Iraq, and why they can't make the sort of traction with the public at large, or the American voter, that they feel they should (indeed, Bush never should have been elected--much of this was going on, and being "debated" by the left, before the 2004 elections in November).

Just some samples. A reader complains that no mention is made of anything that has improved in Iraq since the U.S. "invaded", and the author explains why this was, previously, just ignored as a topic: it's wrong, everything is, in fact, worse that before, in every conceivable way!

Water and energy delivery as well as schools are worse off than before the U.S. invasion. Ditto for the state of hospitals (and medical supplies), highways, and oil production. Elections are a positive change, but the elected government does not have more than a semblance of actual sovereignty, and therefore the Iraqi people have no power to make real choices about their future.

To prove this, the author cites this "report" on YubaNet (interestingly, a "community-created" website where the material on it is completely unvetted, and no one is particularly accountable for the content, and the author is given as "Committee on Government Reform - Minority Office". The article cites it's request for the investigation by representative Henry A. Waxman (he couldn't have a partisan dog in this fight, could he?), which is interesting as the Commitee on Government Reform - Minority Office seems to, for all practical purposes, be Henry A. Waxman and is clearly a house organ of the Democratic Party. Fascinating.

Nothing was mentioned about Iraqis who want the U.S. to remain (especially the Kurds and the majority of Iraqi women. ... I know of no study indicating that Iraqi women favor the U.S. presence. Perhaps you are referring to the fact that large numbers of women in Iraq are upset and angry over the erosion of their rights since the fall of Saddam. I know some commentators claim that the U.S. presence is insurance against further erosion of those rights, but everything I have read indicates that a significant number of Iraqi women (like all Iraqis) blame the Bush administration for these policies. After all, the Americans installed in power (and continue to support) the political forces spearheading anti-woman policies in the country. Polling data do not indicate that any sizable group of Sunni or Shia women support a continued U.S. presence.

I note they don't mention this poll, from ABC News (they're going to lose their MSM media credentials if they don't watch it), which seems to indicate that most of the people in Iraq are optimistic and thinks are and/or will be getting better, and at least half feel that things are better off than before the war. Nor are the more informed and thoughtful comments and folks like Peter Beinart, of the once-lefty now more moderate New Republic: who notes both that the Kurds (those who have benfitted most from Western-style liberal Democracy, and have been in more direct contact with America and her military, over the past 15 years) want America to stay, and that bad things that would happen if America simply cut and ran, or started scheduling immediate troop withdrawal, as most on the left advocate.

Indeed, it's curious as the left argues against the war in Iraq and agitating for withdrawal without candidly acknowledging the almost certain consequences, for both the Kurds and everybody else. As Peter Beinart (traitor to the left) notes in his article, "anyone who thinks U.N. peacekeepers can protect Kurds against armed fundamentalist militias should do a Google search with the terms 'Rwanda, 1994' or 'Srebrenica, 1995'".

Certainly, the U.S. gains military and political "experience" from the war, as from any war, but at the expense of many deaths (2,127) and injuries (at least 15,704) to American soldiers. Beyond these publicly listed casualty figures lie the endless ways in which the lives of our soldiers are permanently damaged: On November 26, for example, the New York Times reported on a recent army study indicating that 17% of all personnel sent to Iraq have "serious symptoms of depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder." Since about a million American troops have now seen service in Iraq, approximately 170,000 have gained the "experience" of having a severe mental problem. Moreover, the war experience in Iraq has proved so demoralizing to the military that many of the best soldiers are leaving at the end of their tours, instead of staying on in active or reserve status. This is undermining the viability of the military, long term.

This is simply sophistry. While I don't argue, and would never, that training and educating our military in modern warfare is a reason to go to war, or remain engaged in war, the idea that having the military actually do what a military does--that is, fight enemies and occupy territory--somehow weakens our military strength is nuts. There are plenty of indications that the "many of the best soldiers" canard is just that: re-enlistments are up, not down, and most of the best soldiers would in fact be leaving at the end of their tours if their companies weren't engaged in Iraq (there are more profitable and less dangerous lines of work for such people). They simply aren't willing to leave their brothers in arms in the midst of a war. It's a reason commonly cited for going back into the field, and even wounded soldiers do their best to find their way back to the battle lines. American soldiers don't want to leave their fellow soldiers while there's still work to be done. An idea, I'm sure, quite alien to the author, Michael Schwartz.

While I wouldn't normally engage the point about the future benefit of oil reserves, given I don't think it's really an argument for or against the war, I do have to quote one part of the author's debunking of that as a good thing about the Iraq war:

Moreover, such privileged access would have deprived the Iraqis of their right to use the oil to their own benefit -- something they desperately need now that the Saddam Hussein regime, twelve years of brutal sanctions, and the current war have gutted the country.

Catch that? Twelve years of "brutal sanctions"? What's the template of this guy, do you think? One wonders why he didn't just say "now that Saddam's benevolent but misguided regime and fascist America's brutal Sanctions of Death have gutted the country". Why not just go all out?

In regards to the benefits of Democracy in the Middle East being a potentially good reason for the Iraq war, and at least for not cutting and running now, the author says this:

We can all agree that a strong democracy in the Middle East would have huge benefits for Iraq and for its neighbors as well as for the rest of the world. If I thought that our actions there were actually helping to bring this about, perhaps I might also believe that the benefits of an active democracy outweighed at least some of the many problems we have been creating. But from the beginning, the talk of democracy was a hollow mantra, just one of a group of public rationalizations for a war motivated by the Bush administration's desire to dominate Middle Eastern politics and economics. The U.S. government has never actually relinquished sovereignty to the Iraqi government.

It's been, what, two years? A little impatient, aren't we? Did anybody ever say we'd be relinquishing complete control the day Saddam was overthrown? Uh, no. No. Nobody said that. And it's not a reasonable expectation. And it's really a non-issue--immediately relinquishing sovreignty wouldn't make anything better for anybody in Iraq. While the author claims, bizarrely, that he would be for a strong democracy in the Middle East, if he believed we were actually helping bring this about, he fails to mention how leaving Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq (until his admittedly more psychotic and belligerent kids finally took over) would have been better for democracy in the Middle East. But, the author claims, talk of Democracy was a "hollow mantra" (no, if it were hollow, there wouldn't have been two significant elections in the two years since the U.S. "invaded" Iraq to "impose" freedom and democracy). Again, sophistry. It makes no sense. How is having two elections in two years paying lip-service to democracy?

Next, the question is raised about what fundamentalist Muslims hope to achieve. The author, being liberal, feels a compulsive need to mention that Christians can be bad people, too:

I assume that, when you refer to "fundamentalist Muslims," you are referring to terrorists, including those in Iraq and those who attacked the World Trade Center, the London tube, and the Madrid trains. First, I have to disagree with this identification of the terrorists (who are indeed fundamentalist) with all fundamentalist Muslims. That would be the same as characterizing those who bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building as "fundamentalist Christians" and then implying that the destruction of such buildings is what all fundamentalist Christians yearn to achieve.

Actually, it wouldn't be, because the folks who bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building weren't fundamentalists. They weren't even Christians. Timothy McVeigh was agnostic. Check out this Townhall.com article on the subject.

The longer the U.S. stays, the more the Islamic terrorists there are likely to gain strength; the sooner the U.S. leaves, the more quickly the resistance will subside, and -- with it -- support for terrorism. The administration's Iraqi occupation policies are the equivalent of a nightmarish self-fulfilling prophesy.

Nothing is cited (except the author's previous opinion piece on the subject) to prove this claim. And it would need to be proven. But, again, it's the template: America is bad, so the longer every day Iraqi's are exposed to America and American badness, the more they will hate America, and the easier it will be to recruit new terrorists. Couldn't it be that the longer we are there, the more the humanitarian side of Americans will win over ordinary Iraqis? No, that's crazy talk, they'll all hate America more, just like the American left! And how does leaving before we've finished huge infrastructure projects that will take years to complete help anything? Before, he complains that water and electricity and everything else is worse than before, and even though that's largely not true, it can sure be a hell of a lot better than it is today, and it certainly falls short of American standards. So, while there are still many improvements to be made, we should just leave? That would make them like us better? And as the "resistance" more and more targets Iraqi police and recruits, Iraqi government officials and ordinary Iraqi citizens, where exactly are they supposed to withdraw to to make the "Iraqi" (i.e., former Baathist/Syrian/Iranian) insurgency subside? And it doesn't even address the main issue, which is what was that nothing was mentioned about what fundamentalism Muslims wish to achieve, which is a fundamentalist theocracy under which women are slaves and dissenters are dead. While Hussein's secular despotism was despicable, an Islamic theocracy would and will be worse. And is the likely outcome of an early American withdrawl.

7. Nothing was mentioned about the results of the U.S. evacuation from Southeast Asia (over a million killed within 5 years).

I think we need to disentangle two different events involving the (forced) American departure from Southeast Asia. First, there was Vietnam, where it was always predicted that a horrendous bloodbath would follow any American withdrawal. Indeed, there were certainly deaths there after the U.S. left, and many refugees fled the country, some for the United States. But whatever these figures may have been, they were dwarfed by the incredible bloodbath that the U.S. created by being in Vietnam in the first place. Reputable sources suggest that millions of Vietnamese died (and countless others were permanently wounded) during the war years.

Our withdrawls from Vietnam were forced? By what, other than the U.S. Congress, Nixon, and the U.S. Media? And it was "always predicted that a horrendous bloodbath would follow any American withdrawal"? Then why did the left, the anti-war movement, and many of the Democrats agitate for that actions that led directly to that horrendous bloodbath? And "dwarfed"? All facts--that is, documented evidence--contradicts that. The deaths in one year after our withdrawal, in fact, dwarfed the Vietnamese casualties of the entire Vietnam war.

But he's not done with the morally myopic historical revisionism (and he's not done earning David Horowitz's label of leftists as "soaked in the blood" of the results of their cluess policies and causes):

Second, there was the holocaust in Cambodia, which may well have resulted in a million or more deaths. This was also, however, a complex consequence of the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia, not a result of our departure. Cambodia had a stable, neutral government until the Nixon administration launched massive secret bombings against its territory, invaded the country, destabilized the regime, and set in motion the grim unraveling that led to the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge. If the U.S. had withdrawn from Vietnam in 1965 or 1968, that holocaust would quite certainly never have happened.

Even if you grant, without reservation, the template the author is writing from, you could still ask would the holocaust in Cambodia have happened if American troops had still been there? And the short answer is: no.

But the idea that Cambodia had a stable, neutral government before the "massive secret bombings" is willful blindness. That the Khmer Rouge would never have been, except for America, comes from the left's normal template: everything bad is America's fault. Bad things happen because America was involved. And it's just stupid. It's an infantile understanding of the world. And even if the Khmer Rouge was only there because of America (just like the terrorists in Iraq are only there because America is in Iraq), pulling out clearly wasn't the answer. But it will work in Iraq? Huh? Oh, he explains (not):

The situation in Iraq is not that dissimilar. If the U.S. withdraws soon, there is at least a reasonable chance that the violence will subside quickly and that peace and stability in the region might ever so slowly take hold. The longer the U.S. stays -- further destroying the Iraqi infrastructure and destabilizing neighboring regimes (like Syria and Iran) -- the more likely it is that horrific civil wars and other forms of brutality will indeed occur.

Okay. It doesn't get any better. You'll have to read the rest yourself. But rest assured: although there can be good arguments against war in Iraq, those on the left are not capable of making them.

The Left's New Majority

The problem is, the left doesn't have a majority, and isn't likely to get one if they keep thinking in those terms.

"Something vital, exciting, and underreported is happening across the United States," reports Colin Greeg, in The Left's New Majority. "Marginalised groups in the poorest communities are joing forces to improve their condition and win local electoral victories."

Sigh. So much about what's wrong with the perspective, and the performance, of the left and the Democrats is embodied in just the first sentence. Who are the all about? The poor, the marginalized, the victims of the world. From their perspective, those are the only people that deserve a voice, and everybody else is just the evil non-poor, non-victims, who need to be taxed and regulated to make things better for the poor. And that's not a winning, vote-getting strategy with anybody but, as Ann Coulter so accurately describes the American left, "the extremely rich and the extremely poor, neither of whom have much of a stake in society".

And plenty of people in the middle vote. And even some of the super poor and super rich don't see the point in voting for the finger-pointing, blame-finding, victim-making, entitlement-creating politics of the Democrats.

More perncious is the iea that people "improve their condition" by who gets elected in their community, and beyond. The problem with their condition is not, fundamentally, who is in office (although that can help or hurt, in ways big and small, and I would disagree with that author about which political side does more damage), but the problem with their condition is what they are doing. They are responsible for their condition, and they are responsible for changing it, and if the only thing they can be bothered to do to imrpove their condition is elect one more self-serving local politician from a different party to office, then their condition will not improve appreciably. Thus, after forty years, the War on Poverty still has not been won--because it's not a fight the government can win through bureaucracy and largesse.

The next line is also telling:

This is the America of Latinos, African-Americans, religious progressives, union members, young people, and single women.

Assuming that religious progressive means far-left Unitarians, Wiccans and Satan Worshippers and dogmatic atheists--which it almost certainly does--who is it not the America of? Why, it's not the America of white people (still the majority of the population, duh!), mature adults, religious conservatives (i.e., traditional Christians), people who work and aren't in unions (the majority of working Americans, and even many union members don't like the unions these days)and married women, families, and parents! Holy crap! They've got the angry disenfranchised Latino and incense-burning Wiccan vote locked up, though, so screw the white guys and married adults with kids.

Which is pure fantasy, like this:
Combined, these mostly progressive groups of the left constitute an actual and significant national majority.

Come on! While polls, on average, show people split down the middle on most partisan issues, the test of "a signficiant national majority" in a democratic society is whether they are winning, and Democrats (and liberals) don't even enjoy a majority in terms of those willing to self-identify as Democrats or liberal. And this shows up in the polls, as Democrats continue to lose ground in the house, the senate, and governerships.

Since the 2004 presidential election, the fashion on the American left has been to look at what the right did and try to do the same, as though the right have won a major victory in American consciousness. Even the second wave of progressive critics, who complain we obsess too much over Republican strategy, end up using the right's supposed victory over hearts and minds as an axis from which to build their arguments. But George W Bush never won a public mandate.

As it relates to the author's argument, the relationship of the above isn't clear, but I will note that the fasion of the American left has been to mischaracterize what the right did, and certainly almost nobody on the left is advocating they do the same . . . and completely, as always, ignores the policies generally advocated on the right as being a potential election advantage! Oh my gosh, could a lot of people actually think tax cuts were good for the overall economy? The possibility doesn't even seem to enter their thinking.

And as far as having a national mandate--if you win, you had a mandate. The mandate comes from being in charge. While there is both accountability and the rule of law, the mandate of the presidency is inherent in victory, no matter how slim. But I think the author is arguing that it means that people really don't agree with the Republican agenda, or that they keep electing Republicans by accident, so the the fact that strong Republicans running on a strong conservative agenda (ala, Contract With America) almost always win has nothing to do with the repeated Republican victories that the Republicans have, so far, enjoyed. Hmmm.

Interestingly, the author attributes Bush's four millionvote victory in 2004 to "the withdrawal of Democratic campaigns from most states, in a flawed strategy to focus on 'swing states'." Given that the Republicans did much the same thing, except on the grass roots where both the Democrats and the Republicans had workers doing the hard, door-to-door work of getting people to the polls, how would that have singularly failed the Democrats?

Poll after poll has found American citizens largely in support of progressive solutions to public problems, even as Democratic Party support for these ideas has dwindled.

I note, despite all these polls, that the author mysteriously fails to cite a single one. And I expect that might have something to do with the fact an indepth analysis of any such poll would reveal a more complicated picture. But I think there is a lot of truth to this particular assertion: lots of people do believe big government is the solution to intractable social ills, and they certainly don't see any harm in another social program designed to help women, children, or the disenfranchised. And most people like the idea of receiving some new "free" entitlement. But the Democrats rarely find a moderate, fence-straddling, entitlement-dolling position to take. IN fact, what the author fails to note is that what was replaced Democratic Party support for expanding the welfare state (what "progressive solutions" basically means) is hating Bush, and Republicans. They've taken the Republicans failed impeachment/Lewinski strategy and multiplied it times 10. Sure, they hated Clinton, but we _really_ hate Bush! Really, really bad. So vote for us.

After talking about the interesting statiscal fact that ever city with a population over 500,000 went for John Kerry in 2004 (hmmm . . . and what does that tell us?) and that more than half with populations for 50,000 went for John Kerry, and noting Arnold Schwarznegger's crushing defeat of his right-wing special election issues by (contain the laughter, please) "community-based grass roots organizations", he says this:

True, the right itself has effectively organised base constituencies of fundamentalist evangelicals, and disaffected and frightened working Americans. But the progressive work on the local frontline has not been about trying to "do something the right does", but rather about drawing effectively on old progressive organising traditions.

See, that's who votes for conservatives! Fundamentalists evangelicals (read: Bible Thumpers) and frightened and disaffected working Americans. Any plain decent folks in there? I wonder, who else votes for Republicans in large numbers? Rural communities? Farm communities? Small towns? Church-goers? Married women with kids? Our American military men and women? Policemen? Firemen? Come on now, I think some details are being left out.

But the last sentence is the kicker, just more evidence that they don't get it: "drawing effecitvely on old progressive organising traditions". It's still the thirties! It's the Great Depression! It's the Sixties! Iraq is Vietnam! Just follow that template, and we'll win, win, win.

And now, the sort of curdled pabulum that makes me want to barf:

Today's Republican call to black and Hispanic voters is very different from their calls for segregation and immigration quotas in the past. It is to the credit of social-justice activists that Condoleezza Rice, a black woman, is secretary of state; and that a Hispanic man, Alberto R. Gonzales is attorney-general.

The first part (calls for segregation) is simply false: the Democrats were the "white man's party", and most notorious souther segregationists were ALL Democrats! But, more to the point, it's a credit to social justice activists that Condoleeza Rice (a black woman, in case you didn't know) is secretary of state? Who was it who appointed Condoleeza Rice secretary of state? Your progressive friends? No, sorry, it was progressive cartoonists drawing her as Aunt Jemima and as Butterfly McQueen from 'Gone With The Wind'. Do the progressives take credit for Clarence Thomas, who they lined up against (and they weren't exactly friendly to Alberto Gonzales, either, or Bush's judicial appointment of Miguel Estrada). To take credit for things they either opposed or had no hand in is pure sophistry. It points to the tendency on the left to confuse amrophous good intentions with concrete, measurable action, and to dismiss the concrete, negative actions of their own historical progeny (Bull Conner, hmm?) by the amorphous good intentions, held at the time they are sure, by good progressives and northern Democrats with no practical power at the time.

And there's a lot more to the article, more than I have time to get into. But it's more complete and utter cluelessness on the part of the political left as to what wins elections. And, for bonus points, it you go read the article, read the comments from the good leftists who patronize AlterNet. Some of them are very englightnening.

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

It's the same old theme: conservatives are foolish, thoughtless, selfish, evil. All good things that have ever happened come from the left. If you've been exposed to the original, and would like a solid refutation, I provide you with both right here.

Here's the original, as recently posted to a mailing list I'm on. You may have seen it, too.

Joe gets up at 6:00 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some cry baby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside, and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean, because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays, and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check, because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home or go hungry because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noontime, and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan, because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world, because some American-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration, because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension, because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Now, here's my revision, to make it just a little more accurate:

Joe gets up at 6:00 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean, in part because of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, both sponsored and signed by Evil Republican Richard Nixon. It's also possible, Joe allows, that work done by the Environmental Protection Agency over the past thirty years has also possibly helped. Turns out, the EPA was created by Evil Republican Richard Nixon, as well. It also turns out that sewage treatment and water processing that keeps the water clean, healthy, and fluoridated (good for his teeth!) is that way because of work done on the local level by Democrat and Republican politicians and even some people who consider themselves politically independent, and that local standards were in fact increased over the national level because of work done by conservation group that is largely peopled with churchgoing conservatives.

It turns out that the water for his coffee does cost three times more than it needs to, because some well-meaning liberals discovered that concentrations of arsenic of levels nearly a million times what was actually present in the water supply made some snail darters pale and sluggish, and were immediately sure that, despite the fact 3-parts-per-trillion arsenic had not caused any discernible health problems in the whole of human history, legislation needed to be immediately passed to filter out any dangerous-sounding trace mineral at any level, cost be damned, because, "how can we put a price on our children's lives?"

Well, with his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications don't work as well as the one's he used to take, because a well-meaning consumer-advocacy group fought to take the more effective drug off the market, because 1-in-100,000 people had a fatal allergic reaction to it. Fortunately, this drug is safe and he can rely on it's contents, in part because of the Food and Drug Administration, a government bureau that started with the Bureau of Chemistry, started by the first Evil Republican, Abraham Lincoln, and was altered, supported, and strengthened over the years by Democrats, Republicans (And a Bull Moose ), conservatives and liberals. Since liberals believe, for some reason that apparently cannot withstand the withering scrutiny of applied logic, that they are the only people that like safe medicine or clean air and water, they tend to forget most of that history. In addition to expanding the powers of the FDA, establishing the procedure of reviewing Over-The-Counter drugs, establishing the National Center of Toxicological Research, and moving the regulation of biologics (including serums, vaccines, and blood products) to the FDA, Evil Republican Richard Nixon called for the reviews of the FDA's GRAS list, which led to the lifting of the ban on saccharine.

Oh, and let's not forget the tamper-resistant packaging regulations, the Orphan Drug Act (for the FDA to promote research and marketing of drugs for rare diseases), the heavy increase of fines and penalties for all federal offenses (which includes violations of FDA regulations), the approval of the AIDS blood test, the Childhood Vaccine Act, the Food and Drug Administration Act, and the Prescription Drug Marketing Act, all authored by Democrats and Republicans and signed by the Evilest Republican of them All, Ronald Reagan (when he wasn't busy stealing food from poor people and dancing on the backs of AIDS victims). So, Joe's helped out there, too.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan, because his employer was finding it difficult to attract qualified applicants without providing a comprehensive health plan and so, in order to compete for quality employees, his employer started offering a a very good health plan, from a private insurer. However, the truth is, since the health plan is part of the cost of employing Joe, nobody but Joe is really paying for his health plan--he just doesn't ever see the money. While his employer his eligible for better overall benefits because the employer employs many workers, if Joe had the money his employer spent on his membership in the healthplan in his pocket, Joe could still afford more than adequate health care (but not such a good dental plan), but he probably wouldn't because he'd spend the money at the dog track, because Joe has some issues with gambling (that, unfortunately, aren't qualified for treatment under his healthplan).

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat, aside from the cholesterol and fat and salt content, which is bad for his health, and a consortium of liberals and trial lawyers is busy, even as he stuff his face, working to allow Joe to sue Jimmy Dean and Oscar Myer for selling him fatty foods without warning him that eating bacon is not as healthy as eating broccoli. Still, to the degree the bacon is safe (although bacon has always been pretty safe, because the heavy salt content acts as a preservative and kills most molds and bacterias), it is safe because people of all political stripes fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. As time passed, liberals began to believe that only they liked safe meat, and that for some reasons conservatives enjoyed eating tainted pork that could make them sick and die. However, Joe, and most conservatives, don't actually like tainted meat. They like fresh, safe meat. Although some well-meaning liberals did douse Joe with red paint the last time he went to the butcher shop.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because various Democrats and Republicans (and perhaps even a few apolitical folk) fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Though, for some reason, as time went on, liberals convinced themselves that they were the only people who wanted to know what was actually in the products they consumed.

Joe dresses, walks outside, and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean, in part because he's a rich Republican and moved out past the suburbs to a almost rural area, leaving the poor and disenfranchised to choke in the dying cities. However, the air is also clean because many state and local governments, made up of liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, had passed legislation dealing with air pollution because of the needs of their citizens in their localities. Then, both Democrats and Republicans in congress Passed the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955, the first federal legislation regarding air pollution, and it was signed by less-Evil-But-Still-Slow-and-Stupid Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eight years later, Democrats and Republicans in congress passed the Air Act of 1963, which began imposing regulations on factories, but not automobiles. The Act was strengthened through amendments, authored by both Democrats and Republicans, in 1965,1966,1967, and 1969, under both Johnson and Nixon.

Then there was the Clean Air Act of 1970, authored by Democrats and Republicans, with the blessing of Prime-Evil, Richard Nixon. Thankfully (for conservatives everywhere) all this crazy air cleaning stuff stopped, and Ronald Reagan pinned pollution problems squarely where they belonged: on the trees.

Alas, Better-Than-His-Son-But-Still-Evil-Republican George H.W. Bush signed off on the Clean Air Act of 1990, which has demonstrably improved air quality. So, Joe is glad he voted for Bush I.

To do his part, Joe doesn't drive the Hummer to work today. Instead, he walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. While some liberals say that it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees, Joe knows that the government doesn't get it's money from the money-fairy, they get their money from his back pocket, and quite a lot. Since he's a rich Republican, and earns a good income, they take enough out of his paycheck each year to pay his house note. So Joe knows that "government-subsidized" actually means "Joe-subsidized", because there ain't no free lunch.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays, and vacation because Joe is a talented guy who worked hard for his skills, and right now his abilities are in demand, and if his employer wasn't offering such an attractive package, he'd have taken that job offer from the firm in Syracuse, which was otherwise similar but didn't offer as much vacation in the first year.

Joe's employer offers these benefits because Joe's employer doesn't want Joe to quit for a better job. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check, because both liberals and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't think he should lose his home or go hungry because of his temporary misfortune, especially as the overall economy grew, thanks to the free market, and allowed such safety nets to be constructed. Such things benefit everybody, which is why most people support such things, within reason, and on-budget. As time goes on, liberals decided that only they wanted people to be able to keep their homes or eat a square meal or see a doctor or have a decent job, somehow becoming convinced that conservatives and Republicans didn't like good jobs, medical treatment, safe food, clean water, and breathable air. From that point forward, liberals made all their arguments, and ran most political campaigns, against easy-to-defeat straw men that didn't really represent what most Republicans and conservatives advocated and supported. This makes Joe smile as he does his work, because he knows it's going to keep conservatives and Republicans in office for a long time to come.

It's noontime, and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. While Joe's deposit hasn't actually been federally insured by the FSLIC since 1989, when it was replaced by the SAIF, under the FDIC, it is federally insured, by legislation in which both Democrats and Republicans have had a hand in over the years, because both Democrats and Republicans wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers(and problems created by well-intentioned banking regulations that not only allowed, but in some ways encouraged, bankers to do foolish things with the money in their banks) that ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

If Joe weren't a rich Republican, he might have to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage (which means, largely underwritten by the tax-payers, like Rich Republican Joe and his ilk) and his below-market federal student loan (and also state financial aid) because many Republicans and Democrats decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. For some reason, many liberals later decided that only they thought education and earning money was a good thing, and that conservatives wanted people to be ignorant, uneducated, and poor.

Now, Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his Hummer for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world, because it was originally designed for the U.S. Army, to help them more effectively kill people and break things, and also meets or exceeds car safety standards established, largely with bi-partisan support, by the U.S. government. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration, because bankers didn't want to make rural loans, because of the outrageously high default rate that would have eventually put the banks under, and cost the savings of all their other investors. The house didn't have electricity until George Norris, Republican from Nebraska, and Sam Rayburn, Democrat from Texas, authored the Rural Electrification Act. A majority of Republicans voted for the act, but, over time, liberals forgot and gave themselves and the Democrats 100% credit for Rural Electrificaiton.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security, which he paid into most of his life and Joe pays into now, and there was a union pension he used to get, because some leg-breaking, scab-shooting union organizer helped make it happen, but modern union management looted the pension for political activism, and bankrupted it, so now all Joe's dad has is Social Security, and Joe, but since Joe is a rich Republican, it's not a problem..

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are wrong on most of their contemporary policy efforts and that conservatives are right about theirs, and he also mentioned he is a proud conservative and Republican, unlike the news magazines Joe has on his coffee table and the cable news network Joe watches when he gets home, which tell him that conservatives are bad and liberals are good, and then insist they are proud, non-partisan journalists. So, Joe turns on the talk radio show host again. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day, because it's both logically absurd on the face of it, without even delving into the empiric evidence, and, when actual facts and history is reviewed, and real names, ideologies, and party affiliations are reported in regards to the acts, efforts, and processes which have afforded Joe the infrastructure of his rich Republican lifestyle, it turns out that trying to give one group credit for everything good that ever happened, and one group blame for everything bad, is not just logically silly, but demonstrably wrong.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals agitating for ever-increasing government control and involvement in every aspect of our lives, without any accountability for results! After all, I'm a self-aware man who believes everyone should take a look at the practical results and consequences of what they do and how they do it, instead of just the 'good intentions'. And I think, when deciding where we're going to go in the future, we should actually look at where we've actually been in the past--not where some people imagine we've been, in a way that makes them the hero, photographed in a noble pose, filmed in soft-focus with symphonic music swelling in the background. I say we look at what actually works, what the actual costs are, and what our priorities are versus our resources, how we're going to hold new programs and bureaucracies accountable for real results, and go from there. And I am a proud conservative!"

There ya go! Feel free to pass it around, if you see the mistaken liberal version. And have a great day!

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Update: Francis Drouillard pointed out the following:

You forgot to mention MTBE, which was thrust upon us by well-intentioned liberals During the Clinton years in collusion with refineries that needed a better way to get rid of one of their byproducts their nasty byproducts. They "forced" the refineries to make regional oxygentated gasoline formulations that used the former byproduct, which not only required more gasoline to drive the same distance, but polluted our water wells as well.