"SELF-FLAGELLATION" -- The Dems & American Self Hate!

Mark Steyn. On the mark per usual.

Self-flagellation seems to be what Americans (particularly those on the left) do. I remember after the King and Bobbie Kennedy assassinations there was endless soul-searching about "what kind of society have we beccome?" As if we were all personally responsible somehow. The left believes in group rights, group politics, and evidently group guilt.

Couldn't agree more.

clearly some sort of psycho-sexual pathology motivate the more extreme elements of the left (and, it must be said, of the black helicopter tinfoil types, too)

"What do the Democrats want? Beats me. I’m not one of those right-wingers who think the left are actively treasonous...

I disagree w/ Steyn on this. The 'Rats ARE treasonous!

Liberals are America's domestic enemies.

You excerpted an excerpt..WTF!

The left believes in group rights, group politics, and evidently group guilt.

You could not be more right

Just look at the lefts incessant preoccupation with apologies and reparations.

Clintoon goes to Africa and apologizes for American slavery.

Slavery is still widely practiced in Africa and the left is more interested in making apologies for the sins of 150 years ago than condemning the evil as it exist today.

For the American left (and European as well) the United States can do no right as long as the Republican Party is in power and the Third World can not be blamed for their multitude of sins against human rights because the wealthy and powerful hegemonic United States some how prevents them from progressing out of their poverty.

Steyn is on fire this week. Prodigious output.

SELF-FLAGELLATION

It’s the crude sado-masochistic elements that bother me. Not in the photos, but in the ensuing ballyhoo. To witness an entire culture – media and political – toss all other business aside for a non-stop ritual self-flagellation session is a remarkable privilege. I use the term “self-flagellation” because, though many Democrats and pundits fancy themselves in the sado-dominant role and clearly enjoy flaying Bush, Rumsfeld and co, it is in the objective sense an act of masocho-submission, at least for America. Take, for example, Senator Edward M Kennedy:

On March 19 2004, President Bush asked, ‘Who would prefer that Saddam’s torture chambers still be open?’ Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.

Sad to say, Senator Kennedy, along with Senator Clinton, is the only US elected official other than the President that the rest of the world has heard of. That’s what I mean by self-flagellation: when the most famous name in US politics slanders his country and its military, around the planet, it’s America that’s diminished. For all the bloviating, for all the Vietnam nostalgia, for all the quagmired speechifying, what does the Senator actually want for Iraq?

I know what I’d like: Iraq, circa 2010, is a functioning confederal state, not a perfect democracy, but a respectable one – not New Hampshire, not Norway, but not Zimbabwe, either. Think Singapore or Belize. It has a growing economy, an enlightened education system, a free press, and an expanding middle-class. Its representative at Arab League meetings votes with the King of Morocco more often than with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Its presence as a free society in the heart of the region changes the dynamic, encouraging reform in some of its neighbors (Jordan) and shriveling the dictatorships in others (Syria).

Here’s my fall-back position: A functioning confederal state proves impossible in Iraq, because Fallujah and Najaf cannot be subdued except by measures we’re unwilling to take. In that case, preserve the ten-year old free state in Kurdistan by giving it independence and letting it flourish as the Slovenia of Iraq. Western and southern Iraq become Shiastan, and we turn a blind eye to some old Shia score-settling and content ourselves with whatever more or less benign Musharraf figure the mullahs can come up with.

What do the Democrats want? Beats me. I’m not one of those right-wingers who think the left are actively treasonous, but on this issue they are – to put it at its mildest – highly non-curious. I attended a ton of Democratic rallies during primary season, and, when it came to question time, the striking feature was not the small number of virulently anti-war types but the much larger number of Democrats who had nothing to say. Pretty boy John Edwards had a stump-speech of masterful condescension designed to hit every Democratic button, including the spare ones in your top left-hand pocket, and yet felt no need to say a word on Iraq, except for a pledge to stop Halliburton war profiteering.

I think it’s reasonable to suggest that Democrats and the media just want Iraq to go away so we can get back to talking about all those Clinton-era feminised micro-politics – the things Dems really get passionate about; “bike path politics” I called it a while back, after Howard Dean revealed that he’d quit the Episcopal Church because of a dispute over one. Dems would much rather be talking about mommy politics - Federally-regulated bicycling helmets, mandatory wheelchair access to bike paths, Federal bike-path networks across the northern border so cycling seniors can get fast-track access to Canadian drugs quicker, etc - than all this daddy politics about re-making the Middle East and de-nuking Iran and North Korea. If it takes tarring him as the kinky madam of the Abu Ghraid bondage dungeon to make Daddy Rumsfeld go away, so be it.

The intelligent discussion on Iraq takes place in-house on the right – neocons vs realists, etc. But the wider debate in America is between those who take the Spiderman view of international relations – “with great power comes great responsibility” – and those who think the most powerful nation in human history can simply climb in the Suburban and go to the mall for its entire period of dominance. That’s what the great Democratic all-purpose cure-all boils down to: “We need to hand power back to the UN. Or the EU. Or the Arab League. Or the Deputy Fisheries Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands.” Or as Thomas Friedman, the hilariously tortured foreign-policy grandee of The New York Times, put it:

Mr. Bush needs to invite to Camp David the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the heads of both NATO and the U.N., and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. There, he needs to eat crow, apologize for his mistakes and make clear that he is turning a new page.

At which point Tony Blair would say, “Have a nice cup of tea, luv, and lie down in a darkened room for ten minutes. You’ll soon feel better.”

Why would it be in America’s interest to inflate the prestige of Boy Assad? This lame-o multilateral outsourcing is the geopolitical equivalent of sub-contracting to “undocumented” immigrants. Here, we don’t mind giving you the money, just take care of it, we don’t want to know the details, we want to go back to the beach.

It’s not an option. To modify Osama, there’s a strong horse and a weak horse, and America is both of them.

National Review, May 24th 2004

Mark Steyn : Self-Flagellation

Stay safe Noumenon !

clearly some sort of psycho-sexual pathology motivate the more extreme elements of the left (and, it must be said, of the black helicopter tinfoil types, too)

They are just about the same group now a days. The distinction started eroding rapidily after 9/11.

From Liberal Democracy to Fascism: Legal and Political Thought in the Weimar Republic, Studies in Central European Histories

Thanks for the article.

BTTT

Indeed they are. Faced off against the CANSWER creeps today at Rummy's house.

I need a shower....