Do Moderates Need an Ideology?
Today, in the capital of our unhappy republic, representatives of the wingnut right and wingnut left are staging dueling circuses. On the right, Glenn Beck and his overheated minions are assembling at the Lincoln Memorial, 47 years to the day after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us about his dream. On the left, the Rev. Al Sharpton, race-card player extraordinaire, will be rallying his own troops. Vintage journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken, merry old cynic that he was, would have relished the spectacle. Me, not so much.
I have a confession to make. Let me announce it right here, on my very own marginal patch of blogosphere turf, in front of my moderate comrades and anyone else who might stumble across these words:
I envy the wingnuts.
That’s right, I’m jealous of the political extremists now proliferating across our polarized land like killer bees: not only the half-cracked Fox News/Tea Party/Birther conservatives but the insufferably sanctimonious HuffPosters, PC police and minority militants… the rampant radicals of left and right (but mostly wrong)… the whole cocksure, self-righteous, self-indulgent lot of them.
Why would I envy a bunch of wrongheaded and frequently obnoxious fanatics, you ask? Sensible question, and I can reel off several sensible answers.
- Because they’re so popular. Fanatics use their fanaticism to manipulate and agitate crowds. After all, crowds always enjoy a rip-roaring show, and they like to have their prejudices confirmed by outspoken members of their tribe. For this reason, fanatics breed followers the way mosquitos breed more mosquitos.
- Because they’re winning. Just try getting elected these days if you’re a moderate Republican or Democrat. You’re more likely to see the Pittsburgh Pirates win their division. The only moderate news network, CNN, is tanking like the Titanic. You’d never know that more Americans today consider themselves moderate than liberal or conservative.
- Because they’re always sure they’re right. The extremists’ most irritating trait is their most damnably enviable: they enjoy perpetual peace of mind because they’re convinced they have all the answers. And why are they convinced they have all the answers? …
- Because they work from a script. That’s right, it’s all written down in unambiguous black and white. If you’re an ideologue, you don’t have to hammer out your own point of view, evaluate pros and cons, or weigh the impact of a policy upon the various segments of the electorate. You’re operating by a neatly codifed set of rules, laid down by an illustrious (and probably humorless) intellectual progenitor. And you’re catering only to the segment of the electorate that elected you in the first place. The others don’t count.
You can see why I turn a bilious shade of green when I think about the successes of our rivals on the fringes. How can we moderates possibly compete? We’re so infernally sensible, balanced, flexible, accommodating, willing to see both sides of the equation. We’re so… moderate!
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But some of my centrist colleagues (and I don’t blame them) are beginning to agitate for a little more definition within our fledgling movement. Are we just a bunch of chronic anti-extremists, shaking our noggins at the excesses of our wingnut adversaries? Or do we actually stand for something? If so, what?
Good question. It’s easy to say what moderates are against: Socialism. Robber-baron capitalism. Government that’s too big and intrusive. Government that fails to offer a basic safety net High taxes. Artificially low taxes. Warmongering. Spineless appeasement. Special entitlements for minorities. Insufficient concern for the well-being of minorities. Bleeding-heart generosity toward illegal immigrants and Islamists. Knee-jerk prejudice against Hispanics and Muslims.
Yes, we can take pride in our commonsense, finely balanced positions between too much and too little. But they’re like a negative-space portrait: the background is deeply colored, but everything inside the outline of the face is strangely blank.
We know what we don’t like, but what do we want? What does our ideal society look like? Are we timid middle-of-the-roaders… namby-pamby compromisers who just want to keep the peace? Do we simply look at the extreme positions and take the average? Or do we moderates need an ideology to help define our core beliefs? Some of my colleagues believe we do.
I’ve always had a personal aversion to ideologies, probably because of the horrendous damage they’ve inflicted on societies over the past few centuries. An ideology is a rule book typically imposed on the masses by a tiny but supremely confident elite. The elite always know what’s best for the masses, of course, and anyone who doesn’t “get with the program” can wind up rotting away in a gulag or a freshly dug grave.
We can do better. I wouldn’t want to see moderates bind the public into an ideological straitjacket — even if we’ve designed the straitjacket ourselves, even if it’s the most comfortable and elegant straitjacket ever devised by the mind of man.
Still, a political movement needs a foundation, and moderates are no exception. Other than our opposition to extremism, what core principles guide those of us in the center of the political landscape?
I’d start with a healthy respect for the will of the people. Of course, “the people” are never going to agree on a single issue. But that’s precisely the point: unlike the ideologues, moderates would shun special interests in favor of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” That means you don’t allow judges to overturn popular votes or punish a state for defending its border at the people’s request… which leads me to the next core moderate principle:
The government must represent the interests of the governed. Let’s face it: our government has been hijacked by special interests. Lobbyists essentially own our elected representatives. Entrenched big-money interests have turned society into a cash-producing machine for their own use: the loot continually flows upward, against gravity, away from the middle class and into the pockets of the plutocrats. (The 100% reimbursement of Goldman Sachs’ bad investments with taxpayer dollars was a prime example.) This has to stop. We need to halt the illicit upward migration of money, just as we need to criminalize any exchange of funds between elected representatives and lobbyists. (Not so namby-pamby now, are we?) It’s also time to tighten the spigots a little on “free” services for people who haven’t paid into the system. Because we all know those services aren’t actually free. You can’t continue to drain the middle class and expect a nation to prosper.
The nation could use a megadose of healthy values. And we’re just the ones to provide it. Common sense. Decency. Civility. Nonpartisanship. Mutual respect. Pragmatism balanced with idealism. We moderates are uniquely positioned to promote solid, sensible beliefs, preferably without self-righteousness or religious fervor.
Finally, we need to help reunite the country. Because the left and right are engaged in a perpetual shouting match, they continually ratchet up the rhetoric and distort their own positions into self-caricatures. Frenzied believers tolerate no dissension within their ranks, and the infidels are cast into outer darkness. Moderate political candidates are pariahs within their own parties. Finally we’re left with Glenn Beck and Al Sharpton fighting for our attention in Washington.
The middle needs to get a voice — now. It’s starting to happen, but it has to happen faster. We moderates can use our unique position in the calm eye of the hurricane to fight the destructive rhetoric swirling around us at the extremes. Not with rigid ideology, but with the kind of decent civic principles we used to learn in school.
We have the potential power to keep America from spinning into the hands of extremists, but there’s another enemy to contend with: the apathy and complacency of our fellow moderates. The center can no longer afford to be silent. The more vocal moderates — the bloggers, the politicians, the pundits, the passionate centrists from all walks of life — have to awaken the sleepers in our midst.
Come on, let’s do it together!
Read a few more opinions on this subject from our comrades in the centrist blogosphere: Nick Goebel’s call for a more coherent centrist ideology at The Pragmatic Center, Solomon Kleinsmith’s argument against ideology at Rise of the Center, and these comments at The Centrist Zealot in response to my column.
The swords are already clanking over a disputed patch of turf two blocks north of Manhattan’s Ground Zero, and the noise grows louder by the day.
“Let them build it!,” demands the HuffPost Left.
“Over our dead bodies!,” answers the Tea Party Right.
“Ignorant bigots!,” shouts the HuffPost Left.
“Self-hating traitors!,” counters the Tea Party Right.
Proposed design for the "Park 51" Islamic center near Ground Zero: outrage or beacon of moderation?
What’s the beef, exactly? The extremists are clashing over “The Islamic Center Formerly Known as Cordoba House,” recently rechristened (if that’s the proper word) “Park 51” in a futile attempt to disguise the project with a nondescript monicker.
Brainchild of self-proclaimed moderate Muslim cleric Feisal Abdul Rauf, the center purportedly aspires to be an open, civil, warmly welcoming multicultural link between the Muslim community and the rest of American society. We desperately need such a link, of course, and we also need to see moderate Muslims grab center stage during the ongoing jihad of fevered Islamists against the West.
The Right is insisting, somewhat vehemently, that Imam Rauf is no moderate — that he’s simply a clever deceiver, a front for ill-intentioned radical Islamists, a skilled practitioner of the age-old Muslim strategy of infiltrating non-Muslim societies to undermine their defenses.
Here’s their evidence:
- Imam Rauf refuses to say whether he supports or condemns Hamas
- The Imam gave a TV interview shortly after 9/11 in which he notoriously implicated U.S. foreign policy as an “accessory” to the terrorist attacks (Osama bin Laden was “made in the U.S.A,” he declared)
- He’s been distressingly vague about whether he wants to make the U.S. “sharia-compliant”
- He’s the founder and CEO of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an activist group similar to the NAACP that represents the interests of the Muslim community
- He’s accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical international society dedicated to the triumph of Islamic fundamentalism and the restoration of the caliphate
Of course, Imam Rauf argues that he’s an anti-extremist and a dedicated bridge builder:
My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists. We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society.
Imam Rauf, the self-proclaimed moderate Muslim cleric
Brave and noble words, most of them — though the “interweave” part flashes across my brain like a little red warning light. Nothing alarming, mind you, but something tells me we need to be vigilant all the same.
Yes, the assimilation of the Muslim community into American society is devoutly to be wished. But “interweaving” isn’t quite the same as “assimilating.” I worry about crescents sharing equal billing with crosses, progressive Americans greeting the inroads of sharia law with open arms, public schools forced to eliminate all references to pigs and Crusades for fear of offending Muslim sensibilities.
But you know what? I’m overriding my instincts for the outside chance that Imam Rauf is serious about building anti-terrorist sentiment within the Muslim community. Short of an Islamic Martin Luther emerging to reform and reconstruct his religion from the ground up, Imam Rauf is currently our last best hope for encouraging moderate Muslim minds to prevail. He might or might not be a moderate himself, but I expect him to help subdue the flames of fanaticism that currently lick at the foundations of Western life.
Besides, America grants the practitioners of every religion the right to practice their faith without interference. To grant that freedom to every group except Muslims would make us less American — and less decent as a nation.
But we can’t be pushovers, either. (This isn’t England, after all.) Freedom of religion should never imply freedom to import alien laws into America. Islamic law can be particularly brutal and regressive, as most of us have learned from the recurring reports of ghastly retributions against Muslim wives and daughters. America must adopt a zero-tolerance attitude toward sharia law in this country, or we’re as doomed as Western Europe.
I say it’s time we made a distinction between Islam as a faith and Islam as a social and legal system. We clearly need to accept the former (hear that, conservatives?) and reject the latter (got that, liberals?). There I stand, and no extremists of any religious or political persuasion will convince me otherwise.
A Birthday Message for President Obama
Dear Mr. President,
I send you greetings on your 49th birthday. I can remember being 49, and it was a very good year. But I was still relatively carefree and unencumbered by anything more urgent than finding the right words for my essays. By contrast, you’re literally carrying the weight of the world on those relatively slim shoulders of yours.
You carry your burden with grace and good humor. We almost never see you whine or grumble or lose your cool — with the exception of the time you ordered the nincompoops in charge of managing the Gulf oil spill to “plug the damn hole!”
But that might be part of the problem. You deserve to get angry now and then. It might be that the American people even need you to get angry. Not out-of-control angry, just assertively angry. As affable as you are (and despite your depressing poll numbers, the majority of Americans still like you personally), there seems to be a growing perception that you’re too aloof, too far removed from the problems and concerns of ordinary folks. So are most politicians, of course. But we elected you because we had faith that you were better and more sensitive than the hacks. We expected you to transcend politics as usual — a tall order, perhaps, but not an impossible one.
Don’t worry about playing into the unjust stereotype of the “angry black man.” As long as you’re angry on behalf of all the suffering Americans out here, we’ll understand.
You need to get angry on behalf of the millions who have lost their livelihoods in this ugly recession. (Getting angry will impel you to take direct action.) During a time of crisis, you can’t depend entirely on corporate America to create jobs, especially since corporate America has been recklessly outsourcing its jobs to developing nations. Corporations have a funny way of focusing on quarterly profits.
Your top priority must be to put Americans to work. If that means following FDR’s lead and establishing job programs like the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps and Federal Writers Project, so be it. Your enemies on the right will call it socialism — but they’ve already branded you a socialist, so just grit your teeth and go with it. (Funny how they flung that barb at you when you rescued America’s bankrupt automakers and collapsing investment banks).
Once Americans are gainfully employed and no longer quaking over the prospect of financial ruin, they’ll spend more freely — and ultimately American business will prosper. We can live with that kind of “socialism” — at least as a temporary remedy.
You also need to get angry on behalf of Americans who see their country threatened by mass incursions of illegal immigrants who break our laws and expect to be showered with social benefits. I know you prefer to think of them as “undocumented,” but soft euphemisms won’t change the hard reality.
I have to warn you that I’m alarmed at the intensity of hatred directed toward you over the immigration issue. Granted, much of the hatred emanates from right-wing extremists whose paranoia has been tweaked and inflamed by clever radio and TV pundits. But don’t believe for a moment that all your opponents on immigration are racist nutjobs who “cling to their guns and religion.”
The majority of Americans are simply asking you to stop making excuses for people who violate our laws. It shouldn’t matter what color the outlaws happen to be: lawbreakers are lawbreakers, and we shouldn’t be be giving them a free pass.
Yes, most of your opposition comes to you from the right: from angry, hardworking white people in a state of panic over wild nightmare scenarios involving big government and the loss of freedom. They’re terrified of losing their jobs, their homes, their status, their doctors, even their country — and yes, their guns and religion, too. I think you need to go out on a limb and assure them that you understand their fears. You need to convince them that you’re their president, too.
Of course, now you also have to worry about opposition from the left. You used to think of all those HuffingtonPost readers and NPR listeners as your base, but something has gone seriously awry on the left flank. You’ve been alienating the faithful lately, believe it or not.
Where to begin? You’ve been surprisingly cozy with Wall Street insiders and lobbyists (it probably doesn’t help that some of your closest advisors are former investment wizards). Then you used taxpayer dollars to help Goldman Sachs recoup 100% of its bad bets. Believe me, they don’t need the money.
You’ve turned hawkish on Afghanistan, too, when history and common sense tell us that nobody can win a conventional war against fanatical guerrilla fighters in that accursed land. We’re hoping you’ll just kick some choice Taliban butt for a year, then pull our troops out of harm’s way and divert the much-needed funds to causes that are closer to home.
I’m wondering how you’re holding up personally in the middle of the crossfire. When you can’t seem to please anyone, when you have to dodge bullets from all directions, when you’re never sure if you’re doing the right thing… then you know the existential and eternal agony of the true moderate. What is a moderate, after all, but a political misfit, a reluctant antagonizer, a conscientious ditherer with a disinclination for action? We’re the Hamlets of the political scene, too often paralyzed by our awareness that every opinion has validity even when it lacks merit.
But you have to believe me, Mr. President, that you can leverage your inner moderate to your advantage. Only someone with the courage to stand in the middle can see the full sweep of the landscape. You can use your centrally located perch to remind your countrymen that we’re not a random patchwork of special interests based on race, gender, politics, religion, language, sexual orientation or Internet browsing habits. We’re Americans, all of us, and we need to see ourselves as a single nation again.
If you can convince us of that solitary fact, you’ll have earned yourself a place in the pantheon of immortals.
Happy birthday, long life to you, and better luck in the coming year!
NEWS FLASH: The New Moderate Is Now on Facebook!
It had to happen sooner or later, especially since the entire known world seems to be migrating to Facebook. I’ve set up a New Moderate group on Facebook.
There you can post random comments, news and opinion links (including yours) and debate the issues with our lively New Moderate crew. Who knows? If we’re lucky, we might even have a chance to fight off hecklers from the left and right. And of course, I’ll be cross-posting my own New Moderate columns there, too.
I think the new Facebook group is a great way to spread and publicize the moderate cause, don’t you? When you go there, be sure to hit your “Like” button so your friends find out about us, too.
And of course, I’ll still be manning the fort here at newmoderate.com. Stay centered!
Oliver Stone: the Mel Gibson of the Left?
Oliver Stone on the left, Mad Mel on the right.
Could Oliver Stone be an anti-Semite? Is he just Mel Gibson in progressive clothing? That was the raging question of the week after the eminent left-wing director and conspiracy buff uttered some choice bon mots regarding Jews, Hitler and the Holocaust.
Speaking to a reporter for London’s Sunday Times while promoting his film South of the Border, Stone ventured out on a brittle limb and ended up tumbling to the ground.
Gibson, Marlon Brando and Helen Thomas could have warned Stone about the dangers of sitting too far out on that particular limb. Those three renegades shot off their mouths about the Jews, a little too sincerely for comfort, and were forced to humble themselves by issuing contrite public apologies.
But what exactly did Stone say that inflamed the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups around the world? How truthful or untruthful were his remarks? And how would a reasonable moderate (like me) interpret those remarks?
First, Stone suggested that people other than the Jews suffered as a result of Hitler’s depredations. Big tactical mistake.
“Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than [to] the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million],” Stone insisted.
Well yes, that’s true if you consider the sheer numbers… not true if you measure by percentage of the population. Hitler destroyed more than half of Europe’s Jews and undoubtedly would have tried to finish the job if he had been given a few extra years. Even a Communist-friendly individual like Stone has to know that Russia’s casualties were the casualties of war, not genocide. Still, premature deaths are premature deaths, and Stone’s point was an effort to put those deaths into perspective. Now if only he’d tally up the deaths caused by Stalin’s purges and forced famines, we might gain even greater perspective.
Stone then uttered the two words that automatically demonize anyone who couples them in the same sentence: “Jewish” and “media.” He asserted that “Jewish domination of the media” was responsible for highlighting the Holocaust at the expense of the millions of Russian deaths during World War II.
Stone stirred up two tempests with that one statement. First he reinforced the widespread suspicion (a demonstrable fact to some, a myth to others) that the mass media in the U.S. are controlled by Jews and Jewish interests.
So… are they or aren’t they?
The answer is far from simple. Yes, Jews are disproportionately represented in the media, as they are in nearly all prestigious professions. This is a fact, not a prejudice — and nobody should be excoriated simply for observing it. (If they start raving about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to control the media, that’s another story.)
I attribute this Jewish media dominance to a combination of drive, intellect and an almost supernatural talent for discerning the desires and tastes of American audiences. Yes, several prominent news organizations (including the New York Times and Washington Post) are owned by Jewish families. Jews are prominent in the major TV networks, though less so than when “the Big Three” dominated the airwaves. Hollywood was essentially built by Jewish entrepreneurs and run by Jewish executives, and a certain amount of nepotism goes with the territory.
Do those Jewish owners and executives influence the content of the media? Undoubtedly. But no reasonable person should assign nefarious motives to this influence. There’s no united Jewish front overseeing the content of books, magazines and radio shows.
But Oliver Stone implied something else, and his words struck deep: that the prominence of Jews in the media has warped our view of World War II. According to Stone, this vast multi-dimensional war has been reduced to a Holocaust drama, with Hitler in the leading role as the embodiment of pure evil.
Stone wasn’t just trying to be offensive here, although I’m sure he was out to ruffle some choice Jewish feathers. He’s absolutely justified in pointing out that Jews weren’t Hitler’s only victims. We continually hear about the six million Jewish Holocaust casualties — innocent people who were yanked from their homes to suffer and die under unspeakable conditions in Nazi concentration camps. All this is true, and it remains a permanent blot on human history.
But how many of us know that there were actually eleven million victims — if you count the Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, handicapped people and “undesirable” religious minorities who were deliberately targeted by Hitler for destruction? Why do we so rarely hear about these five million non-Jewish victims? Were they less important or innocent than the Jews? Must the Holocaust be cast as a uniquely Jewish tragedy, and if so… why? Stone raised a legitimate question, and he shouldn’t be punished for being reckless enough to ask it.
As for Stone’s remarks about Hitler himself, let me quote the maestro directly: “Hitler was a Frankenstein, but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support.”
Well, there he goes again. As a confirmed lefty, Stone will always blame capitalists for the various disasters that have befallen humankind. There’s a certain degree of truth to the notion that the military-industrial complex initially favored Hitler because, of course, Hitler’s raging territorial ambitions benefited the military-industrial complex. But Hitler was a big boy who could presumably think for himself; he was nobody’s puppet.
Stone went on to blame the Jewish interests for their disastrous influence on U.S. foreign policy. “There’s a major lobby in the United States,” Stone said. “They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has [messed] up United States foreign policy for years.”
Yes, the “Jewish lobby” (actually a conglomeration of various Jewish and pro-Israel groups) exerts its influence in Congress and ultimately helps shape U.S. foreign policy — which includes our traditionally ardent (though occasionally flagging) support for the Jewish state. But is it our most powerful lobby? More powerful than oil, guns, insurance, pharmaceuticals or the healthcare establishment? Let’s just call it “influential” and leave it at that.
As soon as Stone’s interview hit the press, the aging director was body-slammed by Jewish groups and individuals for his alleged anti-Semitism. In America, the charge of anti-Semitism can destroy a career. It requires no proof, no trial, no judge or jury. The charge itself is enough evidence for conviction in the minds of the public.
Among cranky celebrities like Oliver Stone, remarks branded as anti-Semitic always demand a prompt (and preferably tearful) public apology. Stone was no exception, though I don’t know if any tears trickled down his cheeks. Here’s what he told the world one day after his interview appeared:
“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact… that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity — and it was an atrocity.”
Excuse me for thinking that Stone’s apology sounds as if it was personally scripted by Abe Foxman of the ADL. “Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry”? Obviously?C’mon, folks! The wholesale diamond trade, anyone? New York’s garment industry, perhaps? Maybe the movie business?
Are we supposed to believe that Oliver Stone changed his views on Jewish media dominance literally overnight? I suppose so. But how can we honestly refute the “myth” of Jewish media control when virtually every rogue celebrity with something to say about the Jews is forced to issue a retraction? Can’t the Jewish establishment see that such tactics only play into the hands of bigots who suspect Jews of controlling public opinion?
If I were Jewish, I’d be proud that my kinsmen had the skill and chutzpah to gain influence in any field despite their minuscule numbers and their history of persecution at the hands of gentiles. I wouldn’t brag about it, but I would glow inwardly with satisfaction.
Apparently Oliver Stone doesn’t glow. In fact, one little-known fact was omitted, whether deliberately or not, from nearly all accounts of the Stone controversy. It turns out that Oliver Stone is half Jewish.
Can a Jew be anti-Semitic? Definitely: Karl Marx and chess wizard Bobby Fischer are just two prime examples of the breed. Do I believe that Oliver Stone is anti-Semitic? No, I don’t. He simply used his admittedly leftist (and conspiracy-loving) world-view to challenge our assumptions about Jews, the Holocaust and the tiny Jewish-American power elite, without an iota of malice toward the Jewish people themselves.
Why Worry About Politics?
Yet another sweltering summer afternoon here in Philadelphia. My son is swimming with some friends, the garden is amply watered to keep it from turning prematurely brown, and I’m hunkered down in the dark comfort of my wood-paneled den.
The blessings of air conditioning are not to be underestimated on days like this. I’ve made myself a mint julep (it’s a mint julep kind of afternoon) and “To Catch a Thief” is playing on the home screen. The incomparable Grace Kelly has just asked Cary Grant whether he’d like a leg or a breast. (They were about to feast on chicken.)
In short, I’m enjoying these midsummer doldrums. They discourage mental and physical exertion, which is fine with me. I even found myself wondering why we trouble ourselves with politics when the world offers such ample opportunities to lose ourselves in the textures, colors, flavors and fragrances of everyday life.
After all, how different would our lives really be if we never thought about politics — other than the fact that we’d never think about politics? We’d still enjoy the same music, foods and drinks, people, scenery and books (or e-readers) that we do now. Sure, we might notice that our retirement portfolios have been crumbling steadily, and that we have less to spend on electronic gadgets or new shoes. We might wonder how Spanish gained status as America’s unofficial second language. But on the whole, our lives wouldn’t seem much different.
I’ve even taken the trouble to list a few of the things we’d never worry about if we distanced ourselves from politics:
- Obama’s presidential mojo (or lack thereof)
- Sarah Palin’s latent presidential ambitions
- Overheated Tea Party activists who want their country back
- Special-interest lobbyists buying our elected representatives
- Obsessive partisanship in Congress (and everywhere else in U.S. politics)
- The Amazing Colossal Federal Deficit
- Islamists on the march
- The New Black Panther spokesman who wants to kill “crackers” and their babies
- Millions of Americans out of work
- Our ever-shrinking middle class
- Obscene Wall Street bonuses
- Inadequate Wall Street reform
- Illegal immigrants streaming across the border
- The federal government taking no action on illegal immigrants
- The controversial Arizona illegal immigrant law
- Obama’s lawsuit against Arizona over its illegal immigrant law
- Leftists boycotting Arizona over its illegal immigrant law
- Having to wonder if our government is still “of the people, by the people, for the people”
I can’t help but conclude that our lives would be a whole lot more pleasant and conducive to good health if we banished politics from our thoughts. But that’s part of the problem, and I think it’s more of a problem for moderates than for the folks on the fringes.
You see, extremist ideologues don’t care if their lives are difficult and unpleasant. They’re driven by the need to see their agendas prevail. The heat of summer doesn’t stop them; neither does the urge to relax and enjoy simple human comforts. That’s where the extremists enjoy a clear advantage over the rest of us. Fanatics never need to kick off their shoes.
I’m not implying that we moderates should renounce our mellow civilized pleasures for the sake of political action. But we need to be aware that while we’re enjoying our comfortable (and comforting) private pursuits, the extremists are out there marching, lobbying, rallying, reading, debating, networking, maneuvering and generally making a nuisance of themselves to promote their partisan causes.
Zealotry is contrary to our natures, and we should be thankful that we’re not walking pamphlets like so many of our competitors on the fringes of political life. But maybe we’re a little too relaxed. After all, it’s the extremists who still make the loudest noise, garner all the press coverage and eventually get what they want.
In a nation where moderates outnumber both conservatives and liberals, that’s just plain wrong.
Burqa Ban Passes Big Hurdle in France
“Ladies, show us your faces!” By an overwhelming vote of 335-1, French lawmakers in the lower house of parliament have voted to ban the burqa and the niqab — the most extreme of the traditional Muslim costumes designed to conceal feminine pulchritude (virtually every square inch of it) from prying eyes. The French senate must still approve the bill before it becomes law, but the numbers garnered in the lower house practically assure a nationwide ban when the issue comes to the senate in September.
Alien? Decidedly. Oppressive? Maybe. Illegal in France? Pretty soon.
Why all the fuss over Muslim women’s fashions? Does it really matter whether their wardrobes were designed by Givenchy or the House of Mohammed?
Most of us Westerners recoil slightly at the sight of a woman clad entirely in black from head to toe, with only a narrow slit over the eyes (or a mesh veil over the face) open to daylight. The burqa looks like a portable prison. So does the niqab.
When I see women walking the streets of Philadelphia encumbered with such preposterous outerwear on a broiling summer day, I want to shout at them, “Free yourself! You’re in America now!” But of course, most of those women were born in America, and probably the majority of them wear their portable prisons voluntarily.
That’s the angle the French may have overlooked in their zeal to ban the burqa (and an astonishing 82 percent of the French people approve of the ban). The world’s fundamentalist Muslim men have earned themselves a mostly-deserved reputation as oppressors of their womenfolk, but I’ve also read that many Muslim women wear their black tents freely and proudly. Why should any government be entitled to tell them how to dress? How can any reasonable government impose fines on Muslims simply for dressing like Muslims?
If Europe wants to stem the tide of Islamicization, it should focus a little less on women’s garments and a little more on the alarming rise of militant Islam in its midst — including death threats against cartoonists and sharia law courts in Great Britain and elsewhere. Remarkably and somewhat ominously, the British don’t seem to be putting up much resistance to these harsh medieval judiciaries popping up in their kingdom. Churchill would be appalled. A nation must operate under one set of laws for all its citizens, or it is no longer one nation.
Where it all began: Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the 4th of July
Yesterday, on the 234th anniversary of America’s liberation from the British Empire, my six-year-old son and I braved a merciless Philadelphia heatwave to watch the proceedings at Independence Hall. We Philadelphians like to think of July 4 as “our” day. After all, it was here that the reckless and revolutionary American Experiment launched itself on that fateful day in 1776.
Though dwarfed by some of its latter-day neighbors, stately old Independence Hall looms large in the Philadelphia cityscape and our national imagination. Its handsome spire-topped belfry still soars stirringly into the heavens — though I regret to inform you that this particular belfry is only a faithful replica of the original, which rotted away more than two centuries ago.
The massive brick structure beneath the belfry is original, though. For a few history-shaking weeks, it housed the likes of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock & Co. — just possibly the finest flock of white males ever assembled in one place, at least until the Constitutional Convention eleven years later. It still gives me chills to commune with the ghosts of those gallant men.
My son and I arrived at Independence Hall in time to watch Mayor Michael Nutter take the podium. (We missed the introductory remarks and song by Miss America, a fetching Mariah Carey lookalike named Caressa Cameron.)
The slave-owning patriarch looks over Mayor Nutter’s shoulder
Mayor Nutter is a bald, genial, amiably wonkish African American man with a trim beard and a penchant for serious budget-cutting. (Given the city’s current financial straits, the mayor has no choice.) Nutter has also raised the hackles of Tea Party types with his outspoken indulgence of immigrants regardless of their legal status. Under his watch, Philadelphia has earned a dubious reputation (at least among conservatives) as a “sanctuary city” for illegals.
True to form on this 4th of July, Mayor Nutter extolled our nation’s immigrant heritage and extended a welcoming hand to all newcomers, legal or otherwise. He echoed the prevailing progressive pieties by urging us to let “undocumented workers” earn their legal status and eventually graduate to full citizenship. That much was predictable enough.
Then, waving toward the President’s House Memorial under construction just a block away from Independence Hall, the mayor made a pointed reference to George Washington’s “human property” — the nine slaves who lived and toiled on that site more than two centuries ago. Oh no, I thought. Not again.
Right-thinking Philadelphians still haven’t recovered from the shock of discovering that a Virginia planter owned slaves… right under their noses. No matter that good Quaker Philadelphia had been a lucrative center of the slave trade for the better part of a century… no matter that Washington took the almost unprecedented step of freeing his slaves in his will and providing for their care and education. For the rest of recorded time, I suspect, the honorable white-headed Father of Our Country will bear the stigma of slavedriver and racist… just as Christopher Columbus underwent a posthumous rebranding as the diabolical scourge of pristine Native American life and culture.
At that moment in the shadow of Independence Hall, on the Fourth of July, 2010, I felt that the old order had officially given way to the new… that I was literally standing on the Great Divide of American history. From now on, the waters would be flowing toward post-white, post-Anglo America.
I wondered about the nature of the two Americas I’ve inhabited in my lifetime: the traditional white Protestant America of George Washington, Davy Crockett, Norman Rockwell, Jimmy Stewart and Leave It to Beaver, now in full-scale retreat… and the funky, multi-hued, omnitolerant (there’s a new word for you) America represented by the progressive-minded Mayor Nutter — along with Lady Gaga, Perez Hilton, Twitter, dreadlocks, Oprah Winfrey, home-grown terrorists, reality shows, universal hip-hop, profusely tattooed limbs and all those resolutely Spanish-speaking immigrants, legal and otherwise.
The old America was upright but too often restrictive; the new America is open but too often sloppy and degenerate. When Lady Gaga garners more Facebook fans than any other living person (over 10 million and counting), you know we’re riding the Decadence Express.
Why are we so enthralled, as a nation, by a woman imitating a man imitating a woman? Why do we still feel compelled to atone for our past and besmirch its heroes? Can we really be comfortable with a future of open borders, bilingual signs and a permanent class of uneducated, unassimilating emigres who essentially function as serfs? Will those newcomers make America more American in the immigrant tradition of yore… or is it time for a wised-up Lady Liberty to stop lifting her lamp beside the golden door?
Historians have drawn so many parallels between our world-dominating republic and the Roman Empire that we’ve grown almost immune to the warning lights flashing overhead. Rome was undone by many things, including toxic lead drinking vessels, a low birthrate among the elites and the long slide into decadence after the Age of Augustus.
Ruins of a divided empire: could it happen to us?
But the single most disastrous trend was the eventual refusal of new immigrants (and Rome was the ultimate multicultural society) to adopt classical Roman traditions and loyalties. Simply stated, too many Romans no longer thought of themselves as Roman. The center fell apart, and the empire finally crumbled under assault from the more vigorous and motivated barbarians to the North.
Yesterday, on the Fourth of July here in Philadelphia, I wondered how we Americans could reconcile what was best about our past with what’s inevitable about our future. It’s a daunting task — a delicate balancing act — but not an impossible one.
We need to regain respect for the nobler virtues while welcoming diverse (truly diverse, not merely “enlightened progressive”) people and points of view. Above all, we need to reject the splintered and splintering special-interest mindset that seems to have overtaken our politics. Tea Partiers, Left Coast liberals and activists of all stripes must be able to fight their gut instincts and break bread together.
If we can’t identify collectively as Americans, then the great experiment that began here back in 1776 will probably fail. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Lincoln warned his countrymen as we rolled toward Civil War. Take heed, America. Take heed.
Obama, McChrystal and the Unpalatable Truth
McChrystal is out, Petraeus is in, and the long war in Afghanistan rumbles on.
An uncharacteristically tight-lipped Gen. McChrystal
President Obama, whose hellacious year in the White House should discourage any bright young idealist from aspiring to the Presidency for at least a generation, made the best of a lose-lose situation. If Obama had kept Gen. Stanley McChrystal at the helm of the Great Afghan War after the latter’s Rolling Stone scandal, he would have looked less than commanding as commander-in-chief. By replacing McChrystal, he risks shaking up the U.S. military and causing Taliban hearts to flutter with glee at our public family squabble.
So Obama made his decision. (There’s nothing like an inflammatory article in Rolling Stone to fire up this president’s “decider” impulses.) And he decided well. McChrystal deserved to go — not because what he said to Rolling Stone was so inflammatory (the juiciest comments were invariably attributed to “unnamed aides”), but because he and Obama clearly had different visions for conducting the war. And McChrystal apparently couldn’t defer to his boss without gritting his teeth.
McChrystal's successor: an upbeat Gen. Petraeus
His replacement, Gen. David Petraeus, is a formidable figure: hero of the Iraq Insurgency, ranked right up there with Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell in the tiny pantheon of outstanding post-WWII U.S. generals. Even his name carries a whiff of ancient Roman grandeur. (He’s actually of Dutch descent.) Petraeus was the president’s best possible choice for the job.
But what exactly is his job? Is the U.S. actually fighting to win the war against Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas in the fortresslike mountains of Afghanistan? The ghosts of thousands of British and Soviet fighting men would tell us to turn back: that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, a nightmare battleground that no conventional army can conquer.
Afghanistan was supposed to be the “good” post-9/11 war. Unlike our bogus invasion of Iraq, our push into Afghanistan was a righteous campaign to expel the militant Islamists who controlled the land, ruthlessly subjugated its people (especially the women) and actively promoted worldwide terrorism.
Afghanistan: how much longer?
But good intentions won’t get you into heaven or win a war. The Taliban shows no evidence that it ever plans to capitulate; we’d have to kill every last one of them. By that time, twice as many militants would have risen up to take their place. This is the most unpalatable truth about Afghanistan — infinitely more unpalatable than the flippant remarks of McChrystal and his unnamed aides. I can almost sympathize with the frustrated American private who told Rolling Stone that we should just nuke the place.
We can’t fight in Afghanistan until Doomsday. All we can do is mount an offensive, try to break the backbone of the Islamist forces (for a few years at least), wish the “legitimate” government good luck, and get the hell out. That’s essentially Obama’s plan. But I have to wonder if Petraeus will be satisfied with anything less than total victory. He’s not a cynic like McChrystal; he’s all grit and determination, the right man to win a conventional war.
Too bad the enemy doesn’t fight conventional wars.
THE NEW MODERATE 