[lit-ideas] Re: Victor Hanson in Iraq
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:07:57 -0800
Eric,
Some like Howard Zinn think they are taking the moral high ground and not
merely advocating the defeat of America. In his dialogue with Dennis Prager
we find:
DP: Well the casualties in Germany were ten times those of the casualties in
Britain. So is Britain and Hitler morally equivalent?
HZ: Well let's not go back to World War II.
DP: No, no but you are making the assessment on the basis... you are making
the assessment of morality on the basis of numbers killed.
HZ: No. I think, no, I think regardless of the numbers, when you kill
innocent people there is immorality. So there is immorality on both sides .
. .
And Irene says the same sort of thing imagining I suppose that she is taking
the moral high ground as well:
". . . the world would in fact be better off today with Saddam in power.
Certainly the poor Iraqis would be better off."
How long will it take Leftists to realize, or if realization is impossible
for Conservatives to adequately expose that position as unprincipled and
immoral. Where are the patriots who once cried "give me liberty or give me
death"? Are there no more like them? The Leftist of a few years ago said,
"better red than dead," did that begin the modern trek toward the
abandonment of principle? Today, they can say with Howard, better under
Hitler than dead, or with Irene, better Saddam than dead. Is their
anything, Eric, these unprincipled Leftists would die for?
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric Yost
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:03 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Victor Hanson in Iraq
>>I'm not sure whether Brian agrees with Zinn or Hitchens. But it
doesn't matter.
Sure it matters. It matters because a nation is not insulated from its
defeat. Defeat is never good. Our post-Vietnam defeatist generation may
think that it's good for a terrible policy to be defeated, for the
troops to come home defeated, and for the population to realize they
were complicit in a defeated terrible policy. (As though in some fantasy
we could all sing peace songs together and realize the errors of our
ways and live happily ever after.)
Defeat is always worse than any terrible policy that engenders it.
Defeat leads to even more terrible policies, and ever more defeatist
sentiment.
What Lawrence refers to as leftism is basically what I referred to as
"suburban nihilism." a belief in nothing that also believes itself
immune from defeat. As though the water will always run and the
electricity will always be on, the government will always be guilty and
wrong, and the "enlightened" people who dispose of what the
"unenlightened" propose will always be secure enough to do so.
Defeat always makes things worse. The inept policies of Carter for
example (who George McGovern called the worst President of his
lifetime) were born of the defeat of Vietnam.
So the real issue is not leftist or suburban nihilist per se, but the
consequences of defeat, our attitude toward defeat. Should we have gone
into Iraq? That question matters less than our attitude toward defeat.
It's a larger question than whether the neo-con agenda was stupid and
cruel. It's a larger question than whether we can pompously and
self-righteously moralize over prosecution of our elected leaders.
When and if China becomes the new global hegemon, I doubt there will be
such masochist scruples in Beijing. By then, of course, we may have
grasped the significance of defeat, and our whiny little voices full of
moral outrage will be our only defense against our failure. Toy dogs
snapping at the ankles of power.
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