Larison defends Dreher

Daniel Larison defends Rod Dreher's latest column, in which Dreher (rightly) states:

Today, the greatest threats to conservative interests come not from the Soviet Union or high taxes, but from too much individual freedom. Look around you: Americans have been poor stewards of our economic liberty, owing to cultural values that celebrate unfettered materialism. Our families and communities have fragmented, in part because we have embraced an ethic of extreme individualism. Climate change and a peak in oil production threaten our future because we have been irresponsible caretakers of the natural world and its resources. At best, the religious right stood ineffectively against these trends. At worst, we preached them, mistaking consumerism for conservatism.

Larison agrees, and chastises several of Dreher's critics.

We have been living in a culture that encourages the deferral of responsibility, and to one degree or another most of us have participated in it, and this is inconsistent with sustaining ordered liberty. Those who have not participated in this culture, or have done so only a little, should be the least offended by what Rod is saying, because his words are not directed at them. To the extent that we are all paying the price for an era of profligacy, what he says is relevant for all of us.

I have most certainly taken part in this culture of excess. We are so constantly battered by materialism, consumerism, the conservatism of "greed is good" rather than "save your damn money" that it is almost impossible not to succumb, occasionally, to this irresponsible way of life.

We are promised the moon--it's as easy as swiping your Master Card. And where have the conservatives been in all of this? Keep spending! Don't let those mean old terrorists get you down, just go to Target and buy whatever you want.

That's the American Dream, isn't it? You get whatever you want, no matter what. Right?

Iraq

Totten has a piece in Commentary about the dismal state of affairs in Iraq:

For the past two weeks I’ve been embedded with the United States Army in Baghdad, and I find myself unable to figure out what to make of this place. Baghdad, despite the remarkable success of the surge, is as mind-bogglingly run-down and dysfunctional as ever, even compared with other Arabic countries. Iraq is a dark place. At times it feels like a doomed country that has only been temporarily spared the reckoning that is coming. Other times it is possible to look past the grimness and see progress beyond the mere slackening off of violence and war. Is Iraq truly on the mend, or has a total breakdown been merely postponed? Opinions here among Americans and Iraqis are mixed, but nearly everyone seems to agree about one thing at least: terrorists and insurgents will respond with a surge of their own in the wake of the upcoming withdrawal of American forces.

This has been my concern for some time now. So much of the success in Iraq is built upon factors like the Anbar Awakenings, population shifts, etc. It could all crumble in an instant once we leave. Perhaps there's nothing for it but to collapse. Perhaps our mission was accomplished those many years ago when Bush stood cockily beneath that banner: Saddam was deposed. Iraq had been freed. End of story. Perhaps this has merely been an exercise in futility these past five years.

Prop 8: The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

H/T Althouse

The Daily Show isn't going anywhere anytime soon...

No, it's not what it used to be, but John Oliver is still spot-on.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

A Christian Left?

Tony Jones wonders if there is a Christian Left in America.

This is a question that interests me, in part because I'm now commonly placed in the "liberal" camp, not only by self-proclaimed conservatives, but also by emergent movement leaders who wish that the theological provocations of McLaren, Pagitt, and Jones would just go away. I've been invited to a summit of leftward theologians in March who have a Ford Foundation grant to "rekindle theological education" among progressives.

Tony goes on to say,

I tend to think that the bipolarities of "liberal v. conservative" are a holdover from Enlightenment epistemology and, as such, are less and less helpful. I thought of this again as I heard Pat Buchanan proclaim on Morning Joe this morning that Obama's cabinet picks thus far are "center-right."

Good question, and good point.

I would probably fit more into the Jones brand of liberal Christianity than into Dreher's more conservative vision (though I love the earthy aspects of Dreher's philosophy, and the simplicity of it all). For one, I think conservative Christians and evangelicals focus far too much on dogma and far too little on the point, and yet still fall far short of the radicalism preached by Jesus. As Freddie notes,

One of the greater tragedies of the Christian evolution in America, concurrent with the terrible policy positions it has led to, is the gradual watering down of the teachings of a genuine radical into bland pablum. Jesus does not merely advocate charity. He advocates charity at almost any cost. Some people say give 'til it hurts, Jesus says that hurting is no excuse to stop giving. Turning the other cheek does not just mean don't fight back. It means present your other cheek for your attacker to hit you again, to extend the bonds of charity to such an extent that it involves helping someone who wants to hurt you to hurt you.

I would say that the Christian community, right and left, fall far short of this standard, which is okay. To live in the mold Jesus put forth is nearly impossible. And that's the point. You have to cut and paste to some degree in matters of faith, any faith. This is why fundamentalism is so absurd.

I find myself on the left on social issues, and yet I think I could justifiably call myself a social conservative in that I believe in the importance of faith, family, and other old institutions in building and maintaining a strong culture. I'm in favor of limited government, and lately classify my foreign policy in the owl/realist/occasional hawk mold, though I'm against nation building.

We're all a little more complicated than our ideologies would allow. Quite frankly, I can't come to a personal consensus on the bailout. Economics appears too complicated for even the economists these days. I don't think there's much evidence for the efficacy of supply-side economics. I think there is evidence that low taxes can help the economy, but they have to be accompanied by low spending, and that ain't happening any time soon...

So I say out with this question of Right and Left altogether. Aren't we all becoming a little tired of being boxed in? Conservatism, after all, isn't so much an ideology as a disposition, correct? Is Liberalism any different? Pragmatism? Realism?

Is Obama a bigot?

Much has been made recently of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, nullifying the recent court decision to permit same-sex marriage. Now, I am a supporter of gay marriage for many reasons, not the least of which is my belief in the family unit and the societal importance in bringing the homosexual community into the mainstream. We should afford our fellow citizens basic equal rights. It will make for a stronger culture and a stronger nation. It is cruel to deny the foundation of marriage to adults who love one another. That's what I think. Others disagree, and they are welcome to disagree.

There are those, like the Westboro Baptist Church who are most certainly comprised of bigots. They protest at the funerals of soldiers and say that America has brought about the deaths of our brave young men and women through our lax moral code, our acceptance of gays, etc. They hoist signs that say "God Hates Fags." Just check out their website. It is a crash course in hatred and bigotry.

I doubt I'll find much argument on that point.

But a much larger swath of America disagrees with me about same-sex marriage. Many moderates, religious or otherwise, think that marriage is sacred and that it is defined by the union of one man and one woman. (I take issue with both points, citing divorce rates as one major flaw in the argument, but that is neither here nor there...)

One such opponent of gay marriage is our own President-elect, Barack Obama, often described as "the most liberal Senator in the United States Senate" or "in the history of mankind" or something to that effect. Not liberal enough, apparently, Barack Obama has made it very clear that he does not support gay marriage, but does support gay rights.

Is this like saying, "I support civil rights for black people, but not black marriage"? Or should I not touch that with a ten-foot pole?

In any case, the hue and cry out of the gay activist scene now is that bigotry brought about the passage of Proposition 8. Only bigots voted for it. This begs the obvious question: If bigots are the only ones opposing gay marriage (and no argument of tradition or religion has any merit) than does our new President-elect qualify as a bigot?

You tell me. Is Barack Obama a bigot for not supporting gay marriage? Or is it a more complicated issue? Once we start using such black and white language, the obvious flaws in this reasoning become apparent. After all, if Obama is a bigot, then how do we describe the members of Westboro Baptist Church? Do we begin to water down our words when we start to use them overmuch? Or do we hold all accountable equally?

Like I said...

Andrew is right:

I'm as struck as Mark McKinnon by the sudden, if tempered, swooning of the center-right for Obama. even Fred Barnes has had an epiphany of sorts. They are responding to his obviously sensible and accomplished picks for the economy and foreign affairs as if they have realized for the first time who "that one" actually is. He is not now and never has been a leftist ideologue. That was a paranoid fantasy that helped kill the GOP this year. He is a pragmatic, sane, reasoned centrist liberal. He doesn't want to surrender to terror or abolish capitalism - he wants to hone our fight against the Islamists to better effect and to save capitalism from itself. And the core meaning of his candidacy - an end to the polarizing culture war battles of the post-Vietnam era - is not just hype.

Of course, the more Obama seemed to say sensible things, the less he sounded like the crazed lefty so many on the Right believed him to be (or wanted him to be?) the louder the cry of anti-American, "palling around with terrorists" etc. became. Now there is a two-part reaction to his picks. On the one hand we have the so-called center-right, which is, as Sullivan points out, fairly well-pleased with the Obama cabinet choices.

On the other we have a strange union between the far Left and the far Right, the former critical of Obama for what they perceive to be a betrayal, and the latter simply irreconcilably unhappy with any Liberal, no matter how centrist, sitting in the White House. Make no mistake, this crowd would have been almost as unhappy with McCain. In fact, I'd say the reactions would have been similar under a McCain Presidency, from all parties...

Linklove

I pondered whipping up an "around the web" suggested reading list, but Bob from Brockley has one that is quite good, and so I defer...

On story-telling...

Peter Suderman can't decide:

Part of me thinks this is a problem; action movies train us not to react with horror to these sorts of events. But I also wonder if it isn’t natural, a release of some sort, a way to indulge violent urges without resorting to real violence, or a way for human beings to understand the daily, life-and-death struggle for existence — long before movies, human stories revolved around death and violence, and often involved heroes who slayed all those in their way. For whatever reason, we, as a species, seem to be drawn in by narratives of calamity, destruction, and bloodshed.

It is difficult, isn't it? Add to violent movies the violence (and easy re-birth) we find in video games. There we can kill and be killed with ever more gruesome detail and reality, and still only ever pay that easy price of beginning at the last save-point. Is this merely the natural continuation of these "narratives of calamity" or have we moved beyond even that, into a society so numbed-down to violence that tragedies occur around us without giving us any pause at all?

Change the channel: no more Mumbai. Or watch the drama unravel, distant and detached. We die yet we still have eight more lives and the possibility of parole...We can always change the channel and watch something funny to revive us, wipe this dark knowledge from us.

I'm not about to advocate any actual action we can take as a State to curb this, but I do think it's important for individuals within this society to teach our children to be compassionate, empathetic beings. This cuts to the heart of the question of community in my mind.

Yes, since we could speak and dance we have had narratives of death to accompany us. Legends of heroes and gods and devils told in songs or whispers around the campfire. But perhaps therein lies the rub. Perhaps the way these stories are told changes the way they are heard, or the way we learn to listen changes the way we act, speak, pass the stories on. Perhaps the campfire shines a different light on these tales than the glow of an LCD screen.

Have we lost some sense of reverence for the dead? As an avid reader of fantasy as a child, I used to ponder the difference, the moral and physical difference, of killing someone with a gun, at a distance, and killing someone with a sword or a spear, up close. That seemed like it would be much harder, much more personal. You would need to touch your enemy, feel his skin. All your senses would participate.

Then, too, the difference of shooting someone dead and dropping a bomb on them from the sky, and now from an office somewhere in Colorado. It's the same death, but more remote. It's the same death, but not necessarily the same kill. The same story, but not necessarily the same story.

We are telling our stories now in theatres and on television screens, where nothing is sacred. Perhaps that is the real tragedy modernity has placed upon our backs. We have forgotten what it means to tell a story, but not the means to tell it.

Reading List update

I have added "The Politics of Scrabble" to the reading list. I don't have a blogroll because I prefer the Blogger reading-list feature. There is an ever-changing order to it; a sample of the writing. It is a useful tool for me as well, allowing me to glance at many of my favorite blogs quickly, directly from my own...

Scott Payne is interested in the notion of community, as well, which I have been dissecting lately, and will continue to do in my new-urbanism posts.

Islam, as such...

Freddie deBoer takes umbrage with Rod Dreher's broad strokes in labeling the Mumbai terrorists "Muslim terrorists." Such a complicated issue, for so many reasons...Freddie writes,

So there's about 1 billion Muslims in the world. A billion. A billion is a lot. What would a billion man plot look like, exactly? How would they communicate? Coordinate? I mean if you could really get a billion people together to attack Mumbai, you might as well try to take over a whole country. Ah, but maybe by "are behind" he means "support". That kind of contention is thrown out there all the time, of course, and it has the virtue of requiring no form of proof whatsoever. Just like the contention "The average Palestinian would murder every Jew if he could," this kind of statement has no referent, invites no verification, requires nothing but the author's say-so and the guts to think you can leave it out there, orphaned and unsupported. This in non-falsifiable nonsense. I'm sure, say, the thousands of impoverished Thai Muslims living along the coast with no television or newspapers would be surprised to learn that they support a terrorist attack they've never heard of. Dreher has left himself an out, here, but he's done it in about the weakest form possible: possibly most Muslims weren't behind these attacks. Mmmm.

I think both Dreher and deBoer are missing the point. First of all, Dreher is too quick to jump on the Muslim-bashing bandwagon and leave it at that. No, this is not really a struggle between Christians and Muslims, or Hindis and Muslims, or any of that. This really isn't about a religious clash at all. A more relevant discussion would focus on the Pakistani effort to destabalize Afghanistan and India, a strategy of nationalism rather than religious ideology.

Then again, the nationalists in Pakistan, Palestine, elsewhere do indeed use Islam both as a tool for recruitment and a rallying cry behind much of what they do. It is far easier to convince young, typically poor and uneducated men, to blow themselves up if they then become martyrs, go straight to Heaven. Serving Allah is a far better thing than simply serving Pakistan's regional ambitions. Religion will always trump geopolitics when it comes to fervor. It's simply a sexier alternative.

Freddie worries that people are blaming all Muslims for being behind these attacks--and indeed, many people suffer from great bouts of ignorance and intolerance and are quick to blame the "other" especially if that other happens to be a religion with a long history of clashes with the Western world. No better Bogey-man.

Still, there is blame to lay at the feat of the Islamic culture at large. Unlike post-Reformation Christianity, Islam is very much a religion of homogeneity--less so with Sunni than with Shiite, but culturally both still basically follow orders from on high, with some exception. Essentially, Islam is more like Catholicism than Protestantism. So, like the Catholic Church, Islam should be open for systemic critiques. The abuse of boys at the hands of Catholic Priests is a problem inherent in the Catholic Church--not necessarily in the dogma, nor in the average adherent, but in the Church itself. Terrorism, and specifically suicide terrorism in the mid-east and neighboring regions, is a problem that has been born out of that deadly coupling of post-colonial nationalism and massive religious resurgence. The problem is fueled by both continuing economic disparity funded largely by oil, and widespread fundamentalist teachings of a religion that was born during more violent times--the Koran, after all, is rife with violence and justification for violence.

The trouble with fundamentalism is that it makes it so easy for any religion to pick and choose those pieces, give them greater weight than they deserve, and create out of them something utterly missing the fundamental point.

Freddie goes on to ask,

So what should we do, guys? There's this resilient movement within our national discourse, since 9/11, of people who are fighting mad that more of us aren't fighting mad. Islam is the enemy! This is an existential threat! You're not taking the threat seriously enough! If these statements are more than self-aggrandizement, if they are made with some goal in mind beyond letting the world know what a brave opponent of terrorism the person making them is, then there has to be some action advocated by these people.

I would say that as mere bloggers there is little we can do. And yes, over-all the world has taken this threat seriously. There is better collaboration, better investigation, a more pervasive understanding of the threat. Then again, as witnessed in Mumbai, we are still vulnerable. We may always be. We may not be able to do much more ourselves. However, I don't think we should take the apologist approach, either. Freddie notes that he knows "very few people who argue that Islam doesn't need reform." Fair enough, but at the same time, we have these wings of the debate that argue either "Islam is the enemy" or "Islam is not to blame, just a few bad apples." I would argue that the truth lies somewhere in between. Islam is not to blame, nor is it the enemy, but there are systemic issues within the religion that need to be addressed by those members of the faith that have the most authority. And we as a society, as a government, as an international body, need to pressure these people to act. The clerics need to denounce terror, violence, oppression against women. The clerics ought to be a counter-balance to the nationalists, not play a supporting role. So rather than take the extreme argument from either side, perhaps it is time to say that yes, this brand of terror is an Islamic problem that Islam needs to address. No excuses. No matter that most of the 1 billion Muslims in the world aren't terrorists. Most of the 1.5 billion Catholics in the world aren't child molestors, either.

To do anything at all to address the problems within the Catholic Church, they first had to have their feet held to the flames. What makes us think that any less is required when addressing the Islamic Church?

Update: Thomas Friedman makes a similar point in yesterday's New York Times:

“I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal,” a Muslim woman friend wrote me. “Those Catholics that left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile. Nor were they apologizing for Catholics, or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world. They spoke out because they wanted to influence the church. They wanted to fix a terrible problem” in their own religious community.

We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here.

Words to the wise

Jac hits the proverbial nail on the head:

If we're going to be skeptical of the mainstream media's analysis, we should be even more skeptical of bloggers' critiques of the mainstream media's analysis.

This was in regards to the media coverage of the Mumbai catastrophe, but I think it's good advice to anyone getting their information from the blogosphere. Blogs are wonderful places to find information or analysis or opinion. A good blog will link out to all sorts of relevant information, and will boil all that information down into something somewhat more approachable. There is a frenetic quality to blogging and to reading blogs, a sort of disjointedness that appeals to those hungry for lots of news, clips, tidbits, little morsels of wisdom, the occasional brilliant analysis or prediction.

But I think many people place too much faith in the hands of the bloggers they admire.

Certainly if you want real news, go read the New York Times or CNN. Don't come to my blog for original stories--just my own, often-flawed opinions. I love blogs for what they are, and they provide a new way for us to gather knowledge. I love Wikipedia for similar reasons, but I certainly don't trust it to do anything more than get me started down a path of revelation.

Perhaps the old cautionary wisdom holds true: Trust, but verify.

The new face of Islamic terror

Sometimes the images of horrible events are too much to bear. Sometimes our brains simply transcend the horrors, allow us to cope. Seeing the burning buildings in Mumbai, the Indian commandos, the ambulances...it's all almost too much, and so we filter it out. This was the case for me during 9/11. I thought perhaps it was because I was simply too young, too immature, too desensitized--that day felt like a movie in so many ways, one we've all seen played out time and again--but then again, during the Mumbai massacre and hostage crisis, I felt numb again. Part of it was my being on vacation. I turned off the news for a few days. I'm American and have the luxury to do this most of the time, though most of the time I choose not to.

This picture of 2 year old Moshe, whose parents were murdered in front of him, who was found weeping at their bodies, and is pictured weeping at their funeral--this finally drove it home for me. Perhaps this is the face we should think of when we consider the "new face" of Islamic terror.

Thanksgiving

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I am headed to Utah to visit family. So posting will be light, if I post at all. So Happy Turkey Day! I hope we can all take a minute to actually be thankful for something (I know, times are tough, but they could always be tougher, right?) and enjoy our family and their company as much as the feast itself...



A few interesting things to read over this Holiday:

Thanking the Puritans on Thanksgiving

Is Thanksgiving Catholic?

A New American Pilgrim

Infrastructure pt. 2

This is what I like about the Crunchy Con movement and the New Urbanist movement, and how I see them becoming entangled. They both evoke the spirit of neotraditionalism. I just think change should emerge in a grassroots, community-first way, and that some of the most basic ways I believe we can change this culture of consumption is through an investment in our infrastructure, building cities that are once again friendly to the pedestrian and the neighborhood, rather than commuter islands built for the benefit of the oil and auto and construction industries. Let's create communities we can once again be a part of. That's real America--and it's an idea, not a geographic location, or the arbitrary colors red or blue on a map.

From my article on Consumerism and the Crunchy Cons...

Gobsmacked? Flabberdygasted? Hibbettyschnabbered?

James doesn't understand Max's surprise over the Obama cabinet thus far. I think what we need to understand is the conservative press, blogosphere, etc--with the exception of Culture11, The American Conservative, and a few other beacons of reason and sensibility--were all raving poetic about the danger of "radical leftist" Obama, the "most liberal Senator" in the history of all mankind.

Certainly, had one remained in the insulated right-wing bubble during the course of the election (which many conservatives, alas, did) than one would suspect that Obama's choices would have consisted of terrorists, radical preachers, and Dennis Kucinich.

So Max is just a victim of a trend--intellectual isolationism--that is plaguing so many on the Right these days...

What a mess

The Republican Party is in tatters. The coalition scrapped together by Reagan is dissolving, and many fingers are pointing. Some secularists blame the social conservatives for the ills of conservative movement, while social conservatives are themselves splintered. The Palin wing of the Party has attracted some social cons, but certainly not all of them. A new, more moderate social conservative movement is growing in America--perhaps we could call it the Party of Sam's Club, as Tim Pawlenty did years ago, and Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam echoed in the Weakly Standard.

In any case, fingers are pointing. They will continue to do so. Both Douthat and Dreher think that placing the blame on the social conservatives is foolish.

Douthat does have some criticism though:

No, social conservatives aren't the problem for the GOP. But they haven't been the solution, either: Too often, on matters ranging from the Iraq War to domestic policy, they've served as enablers of Republican folly, rather than as constructive critics. And calling Catholics who voted for Obama "mindless" and "stupid" is a poor substitute for building the sort of Republican Party that can attract the votes of those millions of Americans, Catholic and otherwise, who voted for the Democrats because they thought, not without reason, that George W. Bush was a disastrous president whose party should not be rewarded with a third term in the White House.

Good point. I'd say, exactly the point.

I would also like to add that there needs to be some self-examination infused into the populist wing of the GOP. I think the notion of Sam's Club Republicans does a good job to address this. I've read recently some pieces on Huckabee vs Palin, and how they're really not so different. People seem to think that basically because their politics are similar that the candidates themselves are somehow similar--or equal.

I would have to vehemently disagree. First of all, Huckabee was more experienced, certainly smarter or at least better spoken, but most importantly he was very, very likeable. He was the sort of person who, I believe, could have lead this nation as a whole despite political differences. He has some of Obama's charisma that can transcend political boundaries.

Palin does not, nor will she ever. Her tone from the beginning was acerbic and divisive--exactly what this country does not need. She did not come across as very wise, but rather very ambitious. Bobby Jindal, who vocally said he would not consider a VP slot and wanted to finish the job he started in Louisiana, exhibited wisdom. Palin...well, not so much.

So who will Social Conservatives support next time? As a group, will they exhibit wisdom? We shall see...

October Surprise

Philip Giraldi writes:

Robert Parry of Consortium News is reporting that in 1992 the Russians turned over to the White House a secret report confirming that senior US officials and Reagan campaign staff met with Iranian officials in Europe during the summer of 1980. The meetings, since known as the October Surprise, were designed to delay the release of the American Embassy hostages in Iran until after the US elections, depriving President Jimmy Carter of a success that might have kept him in office.

Parry is now reporting that current US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was also involved, according to the intelligence allegedly provided by the Russians. Gates was, at the time, a senior official in Carter’s National Security Council. If Gates was truly part of the meetings and was not reporting his activity to the White House, one might suggest that he was part of a conspiracy engaged in regime change, to use the currently popular expression. Parry suggests that Gates was rewarded after the election and that his career took off, eventually resulting in his being named Director of Central Intelligence.

I am more concerned that Obama is appointing only hawks to his cabinet than I am by any allegations about Gates, though the tale told by Parry is disturbing to say the least. Meeting clandestinely with the officials of a foreign country to come to an arrangement intended to influence the results of an election in the United States goes well beyond ordinary political shenanigans and makes Richard Nixon’s sins seem almost trivial.

So it seems that Mr. Gates has weathered other storms, and transitioned more than once between Republican and Democratic administrations. Unbelievable.

Winter Reading List

Samuel Goldman defends the elite academy, and provides us with a handy winter reading list (especially if you're thinking of applying to Harvard's Government program...)

Here, for example, are some texts that every Government concentrator at Harvard is required to study: The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, Locke’s Second Treatise, The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Tocqueville’s Ancien Regime, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Mill’s On Liberty, Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War.

Happy reading!

"sic semper tyrannis"

Althouse discusses Judge Sanders and his cries of "tyrant" shortly before Attorney General Mukasey collapsed the other night

An unknown person in a large crowd shouts "tyrant" at a political leader. If he knows history, it should strike fear into his heart. It would feel like the prelude to assassination. And yet, you would keep speaking. Nothing has happened yet, so of course, you go on, terror gnawing at your consciousness...

... men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth....

I don't know. I'm sure someone, somewhere, has shouted tyrant at the man before this. If someone shouted tyrant at me I'd probably be a little flattered....

Roland Responds

Roland disagrees with my skepticism of Obama's hawkishness, and he could be right. I am not so sure, but we shall see:

I do think that his commitment to not only continue our mission in Afghanistan, but deepen and broaden it, is a hawkish position...

Obama initially positioned himself on the left of his party on this issue, but I would have a hard time believing anyone deduces that he continues to hold those foolish positions after looking at his appointments.

Indeed, expanding efforts in Afghanistan is certainly not dovish, though perhaps owl is a better term than hawk when it comes to Afghanistan. After all, Afghanistan has long been the "good war" while Iraq has been its more sinister twin. Certainly walking away from either would be disastrous, as Roland points out, but being smart and practical about these things is not the same as being a hawk.

Now if Obama decides to either A) invade Pakistan, or B) take a hard line with Iran or C) flex our military muscle with some other future threat, I may be willing to concede. But as it stands, I see Obama more as the practical politician (thank God!) who knows when quitting is simply the wrong, and inhumane action.

Tribulationalism

I like Joe Carter and Andrew Sullivan, so when Sullivan starts talking about Christianists, I think he's referring more to the variety of folk that Carter seems to speak critically of in his "Deadly Trappings" series...

Money-quote:

I’m sure that somewhere in the three dozen novels that comprise the Left Behind series the Gospel message is presented. But there is something horribly wrong when the greatest story ever told is buried beneath a third-rate tale of the apocalypse.

Couldn't have said it any better myself...it's kind of how I felt about The Passion when it came out. Then again, I've personally boycotted that film, so I admit to never having seen it. Still....

...I think Christianist is a harsh term. So is "theocon." There are some radical Christians out there, but simply lumping a group together based on their religious beliefs is unfair--it's our actions that define us, and our intent. Thus we come by the term Islamist, as they have a specific goal to actually bring about a global Islamic caliphate. Their intent is to dispose of all other religions and forms of government. Their actions are often violent.

Those Sullivan deems Christianist, however, are typically not looking to establish a theocratic state, but rather have some of their cultural beliefs infused in government--can we honestly say that pro-life legislation would usher in a Christian Theocracy? Does a ban on gay marriage truly constitute the sort of radicalism associated with a term like "theocon"? I'm all for gay marriage, but I won't stoop to calling its opponents bigots or theocons. At times they are. Usually, they're not.

Infrastructure

Conor writes:

I’m much less averse than some conservatives to big infrastructure projects, and I’d particularly like to see high speed rail spring up between various American cities, although I must admit that I’ll always love the drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco...

I'm with him on this one, for a number of reasons. First of all, infrastructure is one area that the government should have some hand in, especially big infrastructure--which is necessary in this big country of ours. Of course it's best when private industry is involved, and when has this not been the case? But to form a really cohesive inter-state infrastructure you need Federal involvement.

I'm also completely in favor of the high-speed rail idea. This country could benefit greatly from rail between cities, coasts...but we simply don't have enough actual rail on the ground to make passenger trains feasible. We need dedicated passenger rails, and to do this, quite frankly, we need government to light the spark. Eventually, I think the rails could not only be environmentally a boon to this country, but economically profitable. I love taking the train when I have the chance. If I could easily and quickly get to say LA or San Antonio or Chicago by hopping a train, I'd do it in a flash. No car repairs. No $4.00 gas.

Obama the Hawk? Probably not...

Roland Dodds wonders if Obama will be more the hawk than the dove he seemed at first. It seems likely to me that rather than pursuing Hawkish policies, Obama is instead ensuring that his Cabinet is made up of people who can effectively transition our way out of Iraq, which would include keeping Bob Gates in Defense. Clinton in State is also savvy, but not necessarily indicitave of Hawkishness.

Obama does seem committed in Afghanistan, though finishing a war is hardly the mark of a hawk. At this point, any other course of action would be dangerous. We need to at least stabilize the situation there before making our exit. With Pakistan's fingers so deep in the mess, I'm not sure how this can be done. So in my mind, it is likely that Obama will please no one but the pragmatists.

Perhaps Douthat is right:

Among right-wing hawks, there will be strange-new-respectful talk about Obama's centrist instincts, his Scoop Jackson-ish tendencies, his Reaganesque blend of idealism, pragmatism and strength. Meanwhile, the rest of the right-wing coalition will be getting steamrolled.

I would disagree, however. Obama will do his best to disentangle us from foreign actions, and will also quite likely begin scaling back defense spending. That conservatives will be steamrolled is open to debate. Right now, we are all in this crazy economy together, and I think partisanship ought to be at the end of a long, long line...

This is why...

...I would read Larison all day long and leave the Hot Air conservatives to wilt in the sun of their own self-absorption.

In another fine moment at Eunomia, Larison sums up exactly my thoughts those long years ago as I was derided as unpatriotic for not supporting the Iraq war. (I have since been derided as a Bush-loving fascist for not wanting to withdraw immediately, so I suppose all good things come to those who wait!)

This adoption, or rather perversion, of the language of morality by supporters of aggressive policies abroad lends them an initial advantage in framing the debate and setting the terms. I cannot count the number of times that advocates for invading Iraq derided opponents for supposedly being unable to distinguish between good and evil or even for not recognizing the validity of such categories. On the contrary, I think opponents of the war were paying more attention to the line between the two, but what we objected to even more was the ready identification of a bad policy as an expression of Goodness and the idea that opposition to it was somehow morally corrupt.