Charles C. W. Cooke wrote an excellent piece for National Review about ISIS, barbarism, and the inadequate wishful response to evil that pervades our society. He touches on a subject I've thought about often: the philosophical drive behind modern liberal thinking.
His best words, in my opinion, are: "Elsewhere, others are seeking explanations as to what might have pushed Foley’s killers to such extraordinary lengths. Perhaps, they ask, IS’s behavior is the fault of something else. The United States’ invasion of Iraq, maybe? Or the legacy of colonialism, or of global inequality? Do these men just need running water? This instinct is folly, the product of the mistaken conviction that man is perfectible and his nature pliant, and that there is something intrinsically different about our age."
That mistaken conviction is the cancerous principle behind most, if not all, liberal policies and talking points. Foreign policy is a great example. The United States has been pouring money into Afghanistan since the 1940s in the hopes that improved conditions will beget improved culture. This, of course, has been an utter disaster. If anything, it has only given evil men more tools to use toward preying on the innocent. There's a reason the Taliban uses AK-47s and Russian tanks; they simply absorbed modern tools into their medieval culture of tribal warfare.
So too does ISIS commit unthinkable acts and use the internet to make its aims clear. They are carrying out jihad, just like they have for thousands of years, only now they have Twitter accounts (no, seriously, I've seen them). They know what technology is, they know what Western culture is, and they know what democracy, wealth, and prosperity look like. They don't care, because they are not driven by such material concerns. They believe in an evil god who tells them to do evil things.
Westerners like to think men are driven by circumstance above all. Men only commit evil out of deception driven by desperation, we tell ourselves. Every man is the equivalent of a street urchin stealing an apple because he's hungry and knows no better. If someone would just take that urchin in, give him a hot meal, tell him about social justice, and tell him he can do whatever he sets his mind to, he'll become an enlightened, valuable, inoffensive member of a happy society.
We see this line of thought in domestic policy as well. Government spending programs are based on the idea that throwing money at a problem will improve the situation and therefore people's lives. School spending is a profound example of this. As schools churn out students who, if they're lucky, can barely read, solutions are sought. Surely, if the teachers just had iPads, they'd be better able to make positive impacts on their students. And so, more and more money is spent, while education sinks deeper. The problem is, no one wants to face the real problem: what are students taught? What character are they developing? Down what kind of path are they led?
Down to its core, the difference between liberals and conservatives is this: liberals think people are basically good, and conditions can drive them to be bad. Conservatives think people are basically evil, and conditions can drive them to be worse. To be sure, both recognize the possibility of good in humanity. No one would donate to charity otherwise. But liberals think that things like altruism, forgiveness, tolerance (to the extreme degree) are the norm. Conservatives see them as the exception. A good exception, and one to be encouraged wherever possible, but the exception nonetheless, and one that cannot be coerced out of people.
That leads me to the point I really want to make. Liberals want their norm, a perfect society, to be real at any cost. Imperfections have to be changed, sometimes weeded out. That includes people who don't share their vision: conservatives (Christians in particular). You can't expect other people to be evil in a society free of all human evil; such thoughts cannot belong. Thomas More wrote excellently on this in Utopia. The Utopian people have no locks, no way of shutting people out, no privacy, because of course, no one would take advantage of such vulnerability. For this to work, everyone has to think exactly the same way, believe exactly the same things, live exactly the same way, by the same rules, in every aspect of their lives.
And thus we reach the interminable contradiction of liberal philosophy. To be fully tolerant, to include all of humanity, they must be intolerant to the point of eradicating all dissent. This is, while perhaps not the most blatant form of evil (the Islamists beheading journalists have something to say about that), it may be the most dangerous: evil that has total faith that it is, in fact, unequivocally good. For all its claims of nuance and understanding, it is ultimately yet another fundamentalist movement, to use our pet modern lingo. There is a ruthless simplicity behind it: humanity is good, we will make it good, and you better be good, or else.
For ISIS, that "or else" is public beheading. For American liberals... well, I think we have yet to see how far they will go.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Let me clear up your confusion, DWS.
Oh dear. Representative and chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz, from my own state of Florida, is trying to scold House Republicans. CNN Opinion published a piece written by her entitled "Republicans, we're confused." It's ok, Debbie. Thinking is hard.
She takes issue with the GOP-controlled House's vote to sue President Obama for his various unlawful executive actions. Well, actually, the vote was to authorize House Speaker John Boehner to sue, not bring the suit themselves, but I'll let the utter lack of nuance slide. She claims that this, coupled with the House GOP leadership's statement that "There are numerous steps the President can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action," makes for a contradictory and obstructionist position by those rambunctious, rascally Representatives. As she puts it, "Sue the President for doing his job one day; ask him to do their job for them the next. The hypocrisy is difficult to fathom."
Allow me to illuminate.
She says the House's initial failure to vote on an immigration bill and subsequent passing of a bill she doesn't approve of is indicative of this "do-nothing Congress." So the bill geared toward enforcing the law and deporting illegal immigrants apparently amounts to doing nothing. Never mind that the President immediately promised to veto it and the Democrat-controlled Senate will kill it before it can even reach Obama's desk.
This leads me to my main point. The House passed this bill as an example of what enforcing the law should look like. As in, Obama's job. He's the executive, he enforces legislation. The fact that Congress even needs to pass a bill represents a failure of the President to uphold his oath of office, which is what the House GOP observed in its supposedly contradictory statement. Schultz also claims that voters "are fed up with the more than 50 votes to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act." Oh, really? Is that why polls show about 56% disapproval and only about 40% approval for the ACA? I'd say the House of Representatives, you know, the people elected to represent the people, are doing their job fine on that front.
Speaking of jobs, look at Schultz's opening statement again: "House Republicans took the unprecedented action of voting to sue the President for doing his job and taking action to stand up for the American people." The President's job, despite his being a popularly elected official, is not to "stand up for the American people." It is to govern, to enforce and uphold law, to defend the people as commander and chief. Congress's job is to "stand up for the American people." That's why they're elected. They have constituents. They also have limits, like the President.
Maybe that's where Schultz is so confused. She seems to think the President's job is to be all three branches of government. He is supposed to make law, interpret law, and enforce law as he sees fit. Congress is supposed to write nice things for him to sign and otherwise sit there and look pretty while the expert fixes everything. Hate to burst your bubble, but that's not how things are supposed to work. Powers are separated in this government of ours to prevent solely one man, or solely an oligarchy, or solely majority rule from deciding what happens.
Schultz calls "alarmingly apparent" the Republican House's "insistence on adhering to rigid ideology." Yeah, it's called law. It's called the Constitution. It's called America.
Still confused?
She takes issue with the GOP-controlled House's vote to sue President Obama for his various unlawful executive actions. Well, actually, the vote was to authorize House Speaker John Boehner to sue, not bring the suit themselves, but I'll let the utter lack of nuance slide. She claims that this, coupled with the House GOP leadership's statement that "There are numerous steps the President can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action," makes for a contradictory and obstructionist position by those rambunctious, rascally Representatives. As she puts it, "Sue the President for doing his job one day; ask him to do their job for them the next. The hypocrisy is difficult to fathom."
Allow me to illuminate.
She says the House's initial failure to vote on an immigration bill and subsequent passing of a bill she doesn't approve of is indicative of this "do-nothing Congress." So the bill geared toward enforcing the law and deporting illegal immigrants apparently amounts to doing nothing. Never mind that the President immediately promised to veto it and the Democrat-controlled Senate will kill it before it can even reach Obama's desk.
This leads me to my main point. The House passed this bill as an example of what enforcing the law should look like. As in, Obama's job. He's the executive, he enforces legislation. The fact that Congress even needs to pass a bill represents a failure of the President to uphold his oath of office, which is what the House GOP observed in its supposedly contradictory statement. Schultz also claims that voters "are fed up with the more than 50 votes to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act." Oh, really? Is that why polls show about 56% disapproval and only about 40% approval for the ACA? I'd say the House of Representatives, you know, the people elected to represent the people, are doing their job fine on that front.
Speaking of jobs, look at Schultz's opening statement again: "House Republicans took the unprecedented action of voting to sue the President for doing his job and taking action to stand up for the American people." The President's job, despite his being a popularly elected official, is not to "stand up for the American people." It is to govern, to enforce and uphold law, to defend the people as commander and chief. Congress's job is to "stand up for the American people." That's why they're elected. They have constituents. They also have limits, like the President.
Maybe that's where Schultz is so confused. She seems to think the President's job is to be all three branches of government. He is supposed to make law, interpret law, and enforce law as he sees fit. Congress is supposed to write nice things for him to sign and otherwise sit there and look pretty while the expert fixes everything. Hate to burst your bubble, but that's not how things are supposed to work. Powers are separated in this government of ours to prevent solely one man, or solely an oligarchy, or solely majority rule from deciding what happens.
Schultz calls "alarmingly apparent" the Republican House's "insistence on adhering to rigid ideology." Yeah, it's called law. It's called the Constitution. It's called America.
Still confused?
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