Ideology Paralyzes Politics
Ideology Paralyzes Politics
By Daniel G. Jennings
The major contradiction of modern American politics is this: politics and politicians seem to be almost totally driven by ideology at time when average people seem to be almost completely disinterested in ideology. So why has ideology become the dominant force in American politics, when most Americans don't care about ideology or are hostile to ideology?
Part of the answer to our question lies in the liberal arts departments of our universities where most of our politicos and their retainers receive their educations. Taking their cue from mostly Marxist European intellectuals, modern liberal arts faculties base all their judgements upon ideology. Everything is analyzed for its ideological content including philosophy, education, history, law, art and literature. Art is not valued for its artistic content, history is evaluated or reinterpreted along ideological lines, education, literature and entertainment are reduced to methods of ideological indoctrination.
Since most American politicians are lawyers, teachers, journalists or clergy who received most of their education from such liberal arts faculties they too view the world through an ideological lens. That is they base every judgement on ideology and evaluate every occurrence for its ideological meaning. Even the basic thinking of many politicians is grounded in ideology rather than practical experience, which leads to a world view based upon ideology and little else.
Another part of the answer lies in the media which is also ideologically driven. Since most journalists are the products of the same liberal arts schools as the politicians they tend to the view the world through an ideological lens. That is the journalists evaluate the politicians and their actions through ideology. Politicians actions are judged by ideology and nothing else. The practical effects and actions of political agendas are never considered, only the ideological charged campaign slogans are reported upon.
Worse, the ideologically conscious journalists tend to have a good guys bad view of the world. Those politicians whose ideology they like are the good guys capable of doing no wrong, while those politicians whose ideology they dislike are the villains capable of doing no good. When a politician whose ideology is unpopular does something good or constructive it is ignored, when a politician who passes the ideological litness test does something bad, it is ignored.
Ideology is also entertaining, moderate hard working politicians who get things done and work for the common good are often boring. Extremists and ideologues are almost always colorful and interesting. They are also combative and put on a good show for the TV audience so they are invited back to the television interview shows time and time again. That is why cable TV can't get enough of Al Sharpton, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Jackson, James Carville, Anne Coulter and countless others. Their ideologically charged squabbling is entertaining even if it is essentially meaningless.
Beyond the media and the new breed of university educated politician, the corn belt intellectuals whose major expertise is raising money, who have replaced the old time politicos who were often practical self made men there is the new American intelligentsia. The gigantic new universities created by the GI Bill have given rise to a highly educated class of pseudo intellectuals, mostly professional people like lawyers and doctors, these intellectuals take their cue from college professors and European intellectuals who have taught them to view everything through the tinted glasses of ideology.
This new class of intellectuals is very interested in politics and demands that politicians pander to their crackpot notions. These people are more likely to vote, make campaign donations and work on political campaigns so politicians listen to them. The Internet and other modern tools of communications allow the new intellectuals to network and coordinate their activities on a nationwide basis. Even though they are only a small segment of society, the intellectuals can shape political dialog and set the political agenda. Naturally, this agenda must reflect their ideology or they will ignore politics.
This discussion gives rise to a more important question: how can Americans rescue our politics from the narrow straight jacket of ideology and create a political culture based upon practicality and concern for the common good?

Bush Kerry and History

Bush, Kerry and History
By Daniel G. Jennings
Since I am a student of history, I have to wonder whose side is history on in this year's Presidential election: George W. Bush or John Kerry? That's a difficult one to answer because history appears to be against both the incumbent President and his opponent.
History is against Bush because no president who got the United States involved in an avoidable major war has been reelected since William McKinley in 1900. McKinley got America into the Spanish American War in 1898 but that was a short conflict with few casualties and little effect on the home front, there was no draft and casualties were minimal. Since then every President who got America involved in an avoidable major foreign conflict lost reelection or was driven from office.
Woodrow Wilson didn't run in 1920 after World War I, and the candidate from his party the Democrats lost. Harry Truman decided not to run in 1952 after the Korean War's unpopularity became apparent, Lyndon Johnson decided not to run in 1968 after seeing the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and George Bush I, lost reelection in 1992 after getting America involved in the Gulf War. The public forgave FDR for World War II largely because the enemy started the conflict and he tried to avoid it, or more precisely claimed he was trying to avoid it.
Of course the current conflict is very different from Vietnam, Korea and World War I, the really unpopular twentieth century wars; there is no draft and no mass casualties, only 600 hundred casualties compared to 60,000 in Vietnam. This current war bears an uncanny similarity to the Spanish American War and the Philippine Insurrection that followed it. The war was a limited one fought by an all volunteer military force and it didn't impact the lives of average Americans. Like the Spanish American War, the Iraq War was followed by a lengthy and vicious guerrilla war and nation building effort the Philippine Insurrection. A war that was unpopular with the intellectual elite but supported or ignored by average Americans.
After that war, William McKinley was able to win reelection easily in 1900. McKinley won largely on domestic issues, he was able to easily best William Jennings Bryan the Howard Dean of his day as he had already done in 1898.
Of course, there was one difference, women who are less tolerant of war than men, didn't have the vote in 1900, they have the vote in 2004. Whether this will make a difference I don't know but it could tip the scales against Bush.
History has three major strikes against John Kerry: he is an incumbent US Senator, he's running against an incumbent president and he's from Massachusetts, a Northeastern state. No incumbent US Senator has been elected President since John F. Kennedy in 1960 and he barely won that election. Voters don't like Congress very much, only two Senators were elected President in the 20th Century Harding and Kennedy and no member of the House of Representatives has won the White House since John Garfield in 1880. Voters refer incumbent Presidents, governors, vice presidents and war heros to legislators. Ex legislators like Truman, Nixon and George Bush get a pass but only after they've served in other offices.
Nor has any Northeastern candidate been elected since Kennedy in 1960, and JFK won that battle with Richard Nixon by a hare. Since 1964, every elected President has been from a Southern, or Western Sunbelt State. Lyndon Johnson and the Bushes were from Texas, Nixon and Reagan were from California, Carter was from Georgia and Clinton was from Arkansas. Every candidate from a Northern or Midwestern state has lost, Humphrey, McGovern, Ford, Mondale, Dukakis, and Dole.
An incumbent President is also a tough obstacle to overcome. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson only beat Taft because a popular third party candidate Theodore Roosevelt (a popular ex president) split the vote, FDR only beat Herbert Hoover because of the Great Depression, Carter defeated Ford because of Watergate, Reagan beat Carter because of a bad economy and Carter's perceived weakness in the face of the Soviet threat only Bill Clinton beat an incumbent President without unforseen circumstances. Since nothing has turned the public against Bush the way the depression turned the public against Hoover and Watergate soured the public on Ford Kerry will have a tough battle.
The question is which candidate will be able to overcome history; Bush or Kerry. I'm betting on Bush because seems to favor him.

The SHIELD
Mood:  energetic
Capsule TV Review: The SHIELD

By Daniel G. Jennings

Forget "The Sopranos," the best drama on American TV is "The SHIELD" a brilliant hour long drama that appears on the FX cable channel every Tuesday night.

The SHIELD is the best and most brilliant thing on American TV today because it is utterly relevant to the modern American experience in a way that the Sopranos is not. Basically the SHIELD is a drama about the police officers who work out of a decrepit Los Angeles precinct house but it is far more than that. On it's most basic level the SHIELD is a brilliant and provocative examination of the present day American experience.

The centerpiece of the show is veteran actor Michael Chiklis (who won an Emmy for best actor in a dramatic series a couple of years back shocking the entertainment industry), Chiklis plays Vic Mackey, a corrupt white police detective who leads an elite police squad in present LA. Mackey is a brutal, greedy and corrupt cop with a heart of gold who wants to do the right thing for the people he is pledged to protect and cash in at the same time.

The SHIELD is effective and entertaining because it is relevant to the present day American experience in a way that the Sopranos is not. The Sopranos are a whiff of nostalgia, an old time mob family from the old neighborhood transferred to the suburbs, the SHIELD is so starkly contemporary that it is frightening.

The cops on the SHIELD are all ruthless middle class professionals who are more interested in advancing their personal positions than anything else. The corrupt white working class cops simply want to steal enough money to leave town and forget about their jobs. The smarmy educated Hispanic police Captain is more interested in running for city council and becoming a rich and influential politician than doing his job. The arrogant intellectual detective is more interested in clearing lots of cases than the people whom he is supposed to protect. The white female cop is more interested in protecting her job which she worked hard to get than enforcing the law. The sexually ambiguous tough guy black cop is more interested in protecting his he man reputation than following orders.

The show centers around Vic Mackey, Mackey is the highly corrupt leader of a vicious squad of ruthless LA police detectives. Mackey, a good cop who wants to protect the people of Los Angles is also corrupt and self serving. Mackey is trying to enrich himself through involvement in the drug trade and other crimes. Yet we quickly learn that Mackey is not evil, his corruption is motivated by concern for his family and his retarded son who can't be helped by the public school system. The only way Mackey's kid can learn is in expensive private schools. Mackey pays for these by killing gangsters and stealing their loot. Mackey's violent and ruthless methods are tolerated by his superiors because he takes lots of bad guys off the streets. He often goes after criminals that other cops are afraid or unwilling to do anything about. Mackey isn't a villain, he is a decent man whose corruption and violence may actually be justifiable.

Unlike the Sopranos the SHIELD is set in a cotemporary Western American city where race and other traditional American distinctions of life mean little or nothing. The greedy black gang banger and the corrupt white cop do business together because they want the money the drug trade can bring in. The sleazy Hispanic police Captain is more interested in getting into political office and winning the power and money that comes with it than the people in the barrio. A race riot in the ghetto is sparked by a crooked Irish American police official who diverts cops away from a crime ridden apartment house in order to drive down property values so he can buy up real estate at a low price. The only things the characters on the SHIELD care about are money, power and personal honor.

The SHIELD is a frightening view of the dog eat dog existence in the modern American urban jungle. A place where none of the traditional values or stereotypes seem to apply.

The show is made all the more frightening by the presence of vicious foreign gangsters, Armenians who have far more money than any of the Americans. The third world Armenians have a far easier time adapting and thriving in this post modern American urban landscape than the native born Americans. The only way Mackey and his boys can make real money is to rob the Armenians then live with the fear that their utterly sadistic and psychotic boss will return in search of his cash.

The SHIELD is the best show on present day American TV, the only problem is that it is too provocative a work to become the kind of pop culture phenomenon that the Sopranos is.

Movies The Passion
Movie Analysis: "The Passion of the Christ"
By Daniel G. Jennings
Okay, I did it I went and saw the controversial movie of the moment, Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ. " And yes I enjoyed it, this is a great and in its own way very interesting and entertaining movie.
Even though I enjoyed the movie, I didn't run out buy a Bible, get born again and start going to church nor did I put on a Brownshirt and start beating up Jews in the streets. Yes, this is a great movie that presents a theologically accurate version of the last day of Christ's life that's very faithful to the Biblical account but it's not powerful enough to profoundly change people's lives.
The reports of the Passion being full of vicious ethnic stereotypes are also true the movie is full of nasty Jewish priests and seedy Jewish figures who condemn Jesus, yet its portrayal of Italians is just as bad. The most vicious and ugly characters in the movie are the brutal Roman soldiers who are visibly and blatantly Italian in both manner and actions. If anything this movie is more anti-Italian than it is Anti-Semitic, these sadistic Roman soldiers who spend all their time whipping and beating Jesus make the mob crew on the Sopranos seem like wonderful human beings in comparison.
There are also some nasty stereotypes of gays both of King Herod and his court and of Satan who looks and acts gay. Satan's appearances in this film are a very effective but decidedly unbiblical touch Satan doesn't appear in any of the Gospel accounts of Jesus's last days. Interestingly enough neither the Italian or Gay stereotypes have made headlines.
It might also be noted that Jesus and the Apostles as presented in this film are completely and totally Jewish in manner and appearance. Jesus is even called Rabbi and the potentially most despicable Jewish character in the film, Judas; is shown in a decidedly sympathetic light.
Okay onto the movie itself Mel Gibson is a great film maker combining both traditional Hollywood storytelling and modern cinematic style. Gibson, like Quenton Tarantino and Ridley Scott, is a master of the modern art of visual storytelling as learned from Spaghetti Westerns, Samurai epics and Hong Kong action flicks. Instead of copying the traditional boring big budget Bible epic with its Sunday school theology and sanitized history Gibson takes his story from the real Gospels and uses avant garde film making technique to tell the story.
Just as he did in Braveheart, Gibson uses modern Asian cinematic techniques to recast a story taken form Western Civilization. By doing so, Gibson gives us a glimpse of one of the underpinnings of our civilization in a totally new and frightening way.
By emphasizing the violence of Jesus's death in a gory and bloody way, Mel is reminding us that Christianity; like its sister faiths of Islam and Judaism, is an inherently violent religion. Historically Christianity has not been the gentle faith of United Methodist Sunday Schools it has been a violent religion of holy wars, inquisitions, crusades and witch hunts. Most, if not a majority of American Christians prefer the historic Christianity of the bloody cross to the boring platitudes that many of our college educated clergy pump out. The success of this movie and of fundamentalist Christian churches proves that.
Gibson has made a great movie that lives up to the spirit of Christianity, (in the Bible Jesus said he came to divide not unite) the question is whether America is ready for this film or not. My guess it is, there won't be anti-Semitic violence in America because of the Passion (most modern Anti-Semites base their hatred on elaborate conspiracy theories about rich Jews manipulating government and the economy not tales of Jesus's death). However, I bet there will be some nasty incidents after this film plays before less sophisticated audiences in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.
My guess is that the Passion will become a classic but it's influence on popular culture will be far less than people imagine. It's effect on audiences is interesting, when I saw it the audience was quiet like that in a church. Which means they were could have been caught up in the movie, frozen in thought and action because they were horrified by it or thinking about what they were watching. The film is having a profound effect on thought and behavior what effect that is I don't know.
The major change is whether this movie will change the way Hollywood looks at Christianity? I don't know that answer to that one.

Who is the Conservative??
Who is the Conservative: Bush or Kerry?
By Daniel G. Jennings
There is one interesting question we must ask about this year's presidential election: who is the conservative and who is the liberal?
A quick analysis of the candidates' behavior shows us that this is not a silly question because Republican George W. Bush is behaving like a liberal and Democrat John Kerry is acting like a conservative. That is if we consider a liberal someone who takes bold and radical steps for change and a conservative somebody who defends and upholds the status quo at all costs.
Since his election Bush has taken one radical step after another: he proposed giving government funds to religious charities (faith based initiative), greatly increased federal aid to education, put the federal government in the business of evaluating and regulating public schools (No Child Left Behind), invaded Afghanistan after Sept. 11, adopted a new policy of seizing foreign terror suspects and imprisoning them in US military facilities, greatly expanded the federal government's police powers, launched a preemptive war in Iraq, adopted a new policy of nation rebuilding, ran up a vast deficit, proposed the construction of a moon base and a manned mission to Mars, and announced his support for the most radical constitutional amendment since Prohibition. Even Bush's seemingly conservative actions are radical in nature the faith based initiative would be a complete break with American traditions while the 28th Amendment which would ban gay marriage would take the unprecedented step of using constitutional law to set social policy (something nor president has done since prohibition in the 1920s).
Kerry at the same time has acted like a conservative defending the status quo of affirmative action and public education, demanding a return to traditional foreign trade practices, demanding a return to traditional democracy, attacked Bush's expansion of federal police powers, attacking Bush's policy in Iraq but demanding the use of American troops to shore up an existing foreign government in Haiti, he's even attacked Bush's out of control spending. In terms of social policy Kerry has opposed both the radical step of gay marriage and the radical policy of using the constitution to ban gay marriage. Kerry hasn't proposed an expansion of environmental law and protection simply a continuation of existing policies. The only radical measure Kerry has backed has been national healthcare, something that has been Democratic policy since Harry Truman's day fifty-five years ago.
The old rules and definitions no longer seem to apply to American politics. The world is turned upside down, the Left-wing Democrat John Kerry is mindlessly defending the status quo, while the Right-wing Republican George W. Bush is trying his best to tear it down.
What sort of nation will these new politics create? I don't know but it'll be a very different nation from the one we're living in today.

Dateline Hollywood
Dateline Hollywood,
Nerd of the Wings Director and Best Picture Winner Peter Jackson was astounded to learn from the other individuals at the Academy Awards that there is something called a razor and people called hair stylists and barbers who will actually cut people's hair. He said he wished somebody had told him this before the Oscar ceremony. In other news movie goers are advised to avoid the vast number of very boring fantasy epics full of bad special effects that will soon be hitting theaters.
Also in Hollywood, Mel Gibson apologized to the public in advance for the dozens of very boring, very long and very bad mind numbing Bible epics that will soon be flooding into theaters.

Iraq War Justified
One of the greatest pleasures of being a pundit is seeing yourself proven right. Recent events seem to be proving me right. In a commentary awhile back I noted that the main reason we should be fighting in Iraq is to fight and kill the Islamic extremist terrorists on their own soil. The anti-war crowd has long claimed there is no connection between Iraq and the War on Terror. Now, the Denver Post reported that a force of terrorists shouting Allah Akbar (God is Great) a traditional Islamic battle cry attacked a police station in Fallujah Iraq. Four of the attackers were killed by Iraqi police. Documents on the attackers indicated that two of them were Iranians and one was a Lebanese. At the same time, US forces have launched a massive manhunt for a top Al Queada leader believed to be in Iraq. Recent bombings in Iraq fit the Al Quaeda pattern. Yes America, Al Queada is in Iraq, attacking our forces there and our allies. What this means is that Al Queada isn't here in America attacking our cities and murdering our civilians. It also means that our military will be in a position to wipe out the Al Qaeda animals once and for all. No this isn't a very nice or moral situation but it's a hell of a lot better than seeing a dozen more Sept. 11 style tragedies on our soil and the 30,000 or 40,000 casualties they'd produce.

media
Mood:  incredulous
Media Hype Could Make Presidential Election a Joke
By Daniel G. Jennings
Media types covering the presidential election are acting more like the commentators and promoters at a professional wrestling match than objective journalists. That is they are spending most of their time hyping up candidates in order to get the public to pay more attention to the election rather than actually covering the election.
Remember Howard Dean? The media crowned him the front runner and gave unlimited attention to his brash style, and large band of idealistic young followers. They all but said Dean would be the Democratic nominee. Then the real primaries and caucuses were held and Dean came in a distant third or fourth well behind lackluster candidates like Wesley Clark and John Kerry.
The whole "Dean Phenomenon" turned out to be nothing but media hype. Dean's popularity and his legion of followers was shown to exist only in the pages of newspapers and on TV reports. Real voters had no little or no interest in the man from Vermont and actually seemed to be turned off by Dean's personality?
Why did the media go to such lengths to hype and promote Dean? Obviously a lot of media types liked Dean and sympathized with his left wing politics but that wasn't the main reason Dean was hyped. Dean was given a "push" as they would say in the wrestling business because he was the most interesting and entertaining of the candidates.
This is nothing new, in the 2000 presidential primaries the media paid vast amounts of attention to John McCain and tried to convince the public that he was a serious rival to George W. Bush when he was nothing of the sort. McCain was a much more interesting and entertaining candidate than Bush and one the media liked better.
Now the media hype machine is trying to convince the public that John Kerry can beat George W. Bush. Political commentators are saying that high voter turn in the Democratic primaries means enough Democrats could come out to help Kerry beat Bush. Newsweek magazine is asking what sort of President Kerry would make on its cover?
This of course is nonsense, Kerry is a bland and lackluster candidate who will probably suffer a defeat on the order of Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale. Most of the political journalists know that Kerry's chances of beating Bush rival Quenton Tarantino's prospects of winning an Academy Award for Best Director they're zilch.
So why is the media deliberately slanting stories to make the presidential race seem like a real contest? Because a close presidential race makes for better television, bigger headlines and increased ratings.
Like wrestling promoters and reality TV producers the journalists covering the presidential race have to compete for attention. They have to compete with the war coverage, the Laci Peterson case, the Michael Jackson trial, all manner of sporting events, the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl, Janet Jackson, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq, Martha Stewart, Wall Street and a thousand other things. A routine presidential election with a second rate challenger being quashed by a popular incumbent just can't compete for attention with all that.
Like everybody else in our modern economy journalists have to justify their existence that is they have to convince their bosses that their stories bring in ratings or sell newspapers or magazines. If they can't they could loose their jobs or see their departments' budgets cut. If the presidential race is dull, it could threaten the political journalists' jobs. Since the race isn't sexy enough to attract attention they make it that way.
The ethical problem with this stance is obvious the political journalists have abandoned their objectivity and become active participants in the political process. The journalists are actively working on behalf of candidates rather than seriously examining them and giving the public an accurate picture of what is really going on. In some cases they actually seem to be distorting the truth for selfish ends.
There is no way the public can learn much about the candidates or their positions from such coverage. Worse while such media hype attracts momentary attention, sooner or later the public (which is far smarter than journalists believe) will see through it and start ignoring the media coverage of the campaigns. Or start relying upon campaign commercials, talk radio and what the candidates themselves say for their election news.
Political journalists had better learn their real role in the political drama and start performing it. For if they don't America; will have one of the most dangerous political situations around, a completely uninformed electorate.

Dumb Democrats
Mood:  accident prone
Democrats Do It Again
By Daniel G. Jennings
The Democrats have done it again, in Iowa they got together and came up with a worse Presidential candidate than Howard Dean. That is they ignored the exciting and charismatic young John Edwards or the feisty moderate Joseph Leiberman and bestowed the crown of front runner upon a tired old fossil called John Kerry.
John Kerry is the Republicans' dream candidate he's left wing, Ivy League, wishy washy, sort of wimpy and just plain boring. The Senator from Massachusetts has no national following and is largely unknown outside the Northeast. At least Dean has national name recognition and a lot of passionate followers. Kerry has nothing to offer except a sorry impersonation of John F. Kennedy.
Yes, John Kerry is a veteran and supposedly a hero of the Vietnam War. Kerry's Vietnam experiences will hurt his chances of election in a big way. After coming back from Vietnam Kerry became the leader of the radical left wing anti-war protest group called "Vietnam Veterans Against the War." He marched in protests and in at least incident threw his medals away.
In recent years, Kerry has acted as if he is ashamed of his military service. When stories alleging that Kerry had been involved in atrocities against Vietnamese civilians surfaced, Kerry did nothing to debunk the rumors. Instead it was left up to Republicans to point out the fact that the allegations were coming from Vietnamese Communists and were quite suspect.
Now, Kerry's anti-war protesting might make him a hero on Martha's Vineyard or in Santa Monica but out here in the real America it'll hurt him. The vast majority of American veterans are proud of their service and get this John Kerry the vast majority of Americans think our nation did nothing wrong in Vietnam. Most Vietnam Veterans are actually proud of what they did over there and disgusted by wishy washy leftists who are ashamed of wearing their country's uniform.
I'm sure that Bush's political strategist Karl Rove and his staff are salivating at the prospect of nominee John Kerry. As soon as Kerry is nominated Talk Radio and attack ads will start telling the public the story of John Kerry's anti-war protests. He'll be portrayed as a hippy, a Communist and worse. Kerry will end up spending all of his time trying to justify his anti-war activities instead of campaigning.
Kerry's candidacy shows everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party today. It is concentrated in the Northeast and its support seems to be confined to a narrow collection of intellectuals and special interests.
Of the seven men seeking the Democratic nomination right now four are from the Northeast Al Sharpton, Kerry, Dean and Leiberman and three, Kerry, Dean and Leiberman, are from New England. Edwards is from North Carolina and Wesley Clark is from Arkansas. Dennis Kuchinich is from Ohio the old rust belt. There is not a single candidate from west of the Mississippi. There is nobody from California or the Northwest or the Rocky Mountains, or Texas.
Have the Democrats written off the rest of America? Have they become so focused on the Northeast that they are ignoring the rest of the country. America's fastest growing cities are in the Sunbelt, not the Northeast.
If the Democrats want to start winning again they'll have to figure out how to start attracting voters in the Sun Belt and figure out what's going on on Main Street America. That'll mean they'll have to get out of Martha's Vineyard and leave New York for a few days.
History bears me out here, no Northeasterner has been elected President since John F. Kennedy in 1960 and then he barely defeated Californian Richard Nixon. Every elected President since Kennedy has been from the Sunbelt. Lyndon Johnson was from Texas, Nixon from California, Carter from Georgia, Reagan from California, George Bush from Texas, Clinton from Arkansas and George W. Bush from Texas.
The Democrats it seem don't have a clue of how to win a Presidential election these days. And unfortunately they won't learn what they're doing wrong until November when George W. Bush wins the biggest electoral victory since Ronald Reagan.

Imperialists
Opponents of Imperialism Have No Clue
By Daniel G. Jennings
Lately it has become fashionable for intellectuals of the left such as Gary Hart and Molly Ivins and of the right, such as Pat Buchanan, to denounce the idea of an American Empire. That is they are opposed to any American attempt to impose order upon the world, or any use of our military forces to make positive change in other countries.
Yes these critics have some valid points but their argument falls flat because they offer no alternative to American Imperialism. Neither set of opponents of imperialism offers any constructive or realistic alternative to the imperialistic agenda of the Bush administration.
The answer offered by the leftist critics of the war, who are the most visible and vociferous critics of Bush, is an extremely vague and dangerous one. The leftists believe that we must place our faith in diplomacy, the United Nations and the international community. This solution would work if every other country in the world were a civilized place and every government and group in the world willing to play by the rules and obey the laws.
It won?t work in a world full of people like Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mohamar Khadafi and Mr. Kim of North Korea. The only thing that these people understand is brute force we can?t communicate with them unless we speak their language. These criminals are not going to obey the rules and follow the law unless a large policeman is going to come and force to them to do so.
The right wingers? answer is an even worse one, they want America to start behaving as if it were the year 1903 or 1923 when the US could retreat into Fortress America and quietly ignore the rest of the world. This strategy worked fine before the advent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and jet airliners. No matter what America does it can?t hide from the bad guys and there is no defense we can build that they won?t be able to penetrate. The only way to keep our country safe is to fight the evil at its source and prevent the conditions that lead to the rise of terrorism.
The anti-imperialists then are not realistic critics of Mr. Bush?s policies they are wishful thinkers who refuse to accept the ugly realities of today?s world. The leftists are arrogant Eurocentric elitists who like to think that the rest of the world is Europe or Canada. The people who believe that Fidel Castro is a good social democrat and that third world thugs and terrorists can be trusted to play by the rules. The right wingers want to return to an earlier simpler time that only existed in books and movies. A pristine pure America uncorrupted by the evil world around it.
To the silliness and stupidity of the anti-imperialist arguments we can add a rather nasty note of hypocrisy. Howard Dean, the anti-imperialist standard bearer in the elections, believes it was wrong for America to conquer Afghanistan and Iraq but thinks those countries are now our responsibilities in his own campaign literature. In other words, Dean is saying that the wars of conquest were wrong but it is right to keep what we conquered. (This assertion is made in the standard Dean campaign flyer now circulating around the country)
Gary Hart, who demands that Democrats defend the ideal of an American republic against an Empire, wrote that America should form a constabulary in an editorial the Jan. 18, Denver Post. A constabulary would be a militarized police force specifically formed and trained to police the empire. In the same commentary Hart advocated reforming the military to make it more mobile and flexible. In other words a leaner meaner fighting force that would make it easier for America to use its military to impose its will on other nations. Hart, the critic of Empire, is advocating the creation of the institutions necessary to conquer and police an empire.
Hart and Dean seem to be accepting the necessity and inevitability of American imperialism, they just don?t want to admit it. Or more likely they don?t want to say because they don?t want to loose the anti-war vote.
Given the shallowness of their arguments and the note of hypocrisy in their rhetoric, it is safe to dismiss the ant-imperialists as moral cowards who are trying to hide their cause?s lack of substance with high-sounding rhetoric.