The chaps at RedState.com have some advice for President Obama's advisors. Apparently the national security staff were blindsided when the president decided to go to Congress for permission to bomb Syria.
The truth is, of course, that while conservatives have been fulminating about President Obama since the germ of the Tea Party in late 2008, liberals have been getting exactly what they ordered. Only now are they starting to realize that what they ordered is not what they wanted. Or something.
President Obama is getting into a foreign policy morass because of liberalism. For liberals, the only point to foreign policy is to help the downtrodden and make devastating moral statements. Because liberals are the American ruling class this means that even President Bush, making a power play with the Iraq invasion -- as great powers do -- had to justify it with a spurious argument about weapons of mass destruction.
Bombing someone because they use WMD is an empty moral gesture. Foreign policy is not about things like that. Foreign policy is about the contest of power between great powers and not-so-great powers.
Now, if you are a national-security conservative you justify your foreign policy strategy and its power plays on moral foundations, that our way of life is superior to the thug dictatorships of left and right, and that we have a right to crack the heads of thug dictators that think otherwise. For sure.
But liberals don't think like that. They think that the Palestinians have been oppressed by the Israelis and so we need a peace process. They think that the Iranians were oppressed by the Shah's regime that was installed by the CIA back in 1953 and so we need to ease him out in favor of the mullahs. They want to make moral gestures about apartheid with an economic blockade of South Africa.
In other words, liberals don't think there is ever a justification for war between nations.
Of course, liberals do believe in war. They believe in race war and class war. And so the "enemy" for liberals is not dirty Commies or crazy Arabs. It is the enemy right here at home: "the rich" and businessmen and white males and Christians and people opposed to gay marriage.
Why is this? Why can't liberals just let us all get along? It comes out of my basic mantra, that government is force, and politics is division.
If you are a ruling class and seek to dominate the government then you need a war to fight. You need an issue that divides the country and you need to rile up your supporters into a warlike fervor and lead them to glorious victory in the fight against the enemy.
Without an issue you don't have a war. And without a war you don't have a reason to use force. And without an excuse for force you don't need government. And without government your ruling class would have to do something productive, like creating products and services for other people.
So there has to be a war.
Now, I would say that the conservative approach is better, because at least we are fighting foreigners instead of dividing the nation here at home. But that's just my little prejudice.
Maybe the noblest thing in the world is to set black against white, rich against poor, believers against atheists, straights against gays. Because oppression. Because exploitation.
But I don't think so. I think that the liberal civil war of domestic division and the moral posing in foreign affairs leads to disaster: civil war at home and defeat and humiliation abroad.
Civil war at home? What do you think the Democratic permanent campaign leads to? Why do you think that presidents, excepting only President Obama, usually damp down the partisan posturing once they've got elected? What, after all, is the Alinsky tactics all about unless it is to rile up people against "them," the bosses or the rich that are keeping working stiffs from getting the full value of their labor?
There is one practical problem with fomenting civil war. You might make a mistake about who will end out on top. Most elections, after all, could go either way.
But when you go for civil war you go for all the marbles. And if you lose, you lose everything.
I don't think really that liberals are up for real civil war. They seem to prefer the leisure life in government and universities and not-for-profits. I don't think they are up for life in the camp, or the chaos of battle or the "grief of a wound." What liberals like is ragging on people they don't like from the commanding heights of their government sinecures.
But before liberals choke up like President Obama on Syria, they are going to lead this country into a morass of misery and despair. And that's a shame.
So Obama made a snap decision Friday night to ask for Congressional approval for a strike on Syria. His advisors disagreed and the first thing they did was run to the media to tell them that the president is so much his own man that he disregarded their advice.Hey! Give those guys a break! How would you like working for the worst president ever?
Ladies and gentlemen, in Washington, DC, you don’t become important by boasting you boss ignored you. You become important by being the voice of reason who convinced your boss to to the right thing despite his instincts and the advice of the morons you work with.
The truth is, of course, that while conservatives have been fulminating about President Obama since the germ of the Tea Party in late 2008, liberals have been getting exactly what they ordered. Only now are they starting to realize that what they ordered is not what they wanted. Or something.
President Obama is getting into a foreign policy morass because of liberalism. For liberals, the only point to foreign policy is to help the downtrodden and make devastating moral statements. Because liberals are the American ruling class this means that even President Bush, making a power play with the Iraq invasion -- as great powers do -- had to justify it with a spurious argument about weapons of mass destruction.
Bombing someone because they use WMD is an empty moral gesture. Foreign policy is not about things like that. Foreign policy is about the contest of power between great powers and not-so-great powers.
Now, if you are a national-security conservative you justify your foreign policy strategy and its power plays on moral foundations, that our way of life is superior to the thug dictatorships of left and right, and that we have a right to crack the heads of thug dictators that think otherwise. For sure.
But liberals don't think like that. They think that the Palestinians have been oppressed by the Israelis and so we need a peace process. They think that the Iranians were oppressed by the Shah's regime that was installed by the CIA back in 1953 and so we need to ease him out in favor of the mullahs. They want to make moral gestures about apartheid with an economic blockade of South Africa.
In other words, liberals don't think there is ever a justification for war between nations.
Of course, liberals do believe in war. They believe in race war and class war. And so the "enemy" for liberals is not dirty Commies or crazy Arabs. It is the enemy right here at home: "the rich" and businessmen and white males and Christians and people opposed to gay marriage.
Why is this? Why can't liberals just let us all get along? It comes out of my basic mantra, that government is force, and politics is division.
If you are a ruling class and seek to dominate the government then you need a war to fight. You need an issue that divides the country and you need to rile up your supporters into a warlike fervor and lead them to glorious victory in the fight against the enemy.
Without an issue you don't have a war. And without a war you don't have a reason to use force. And without an excuse for force you don't need government. And without government your ruling class would have to do something productive, like creating products and services for other people.
So there has to be a war.
Now, I would say that the conservative approach is better, because at least we are fighting foreigners instead of dividing the nation here at home. But that's just my little prejudice.
Maybe the noblest thing in the world is to set black against white, rich against poor, believers against atheists, straights against gays. Because oppression. Because exploitation.
But I don't think so. I think that the liberal civil war of domestic division and the moral posing in foreign affairs leads to disaster: civil war at home and defeat and humiliation abroad.
Civil war at home? What do you think the Democratic permanent campaign leads to? Why do you think that presidents, excepting only President Obama, usually damp down the partisan posturing once they've got elected? What, after all, is the Alinsky tactics all about unless it is to rile up people against "them," the bosses or the rich that are keeping working stiffs from getting the full value of their labor?
There is one practical problem with fomenting civil war. You might make a mistake about who will end out on top. Most elections, after all, could go either way.
But when you go for civil war you go for all the marbles. And if you lose, you lose everything.
I don't think really that liberals are up for real civil war. They seem to prefer the leisure life in government and universities and not-for-profits. I don't think they are up for life in the camp, or the chaos of battle or the "grief of a wound." What liberals like is ragging on people they don't like from the commanding heights of their government sinecures.
But before liberals choke up like President Obama on Syria, they are going to lead this country into a morass of misery and despair. And that's a shame.
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