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Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

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Saturday, April 24, 2004
22:58 - Dowdifying Reality

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Have you ever seen a testimonial quote on a DVD case that says something like, "This is ... a good movie"?

Makes you wonder exactly what the ellipsis is leaving out, doesn't it? Like, say, the word not?

Anyway, that's how I often feel these days when trying to work out exactly what ails the Left so severely as to completely alienate me from all the Leftist ideals that I once held so dear, not to say from all my Leftist friends who (with a few rare exceptions) want to have nothing to do with me once they've discovered I'm no longer batting for their team.

It has to do, I guess, with being able to formulate complex hypotheses about how the real world works, founded upon completely, provably incorrect basic assumptions. They'll take some concept that they picked up somewhere, like "The Republicans and the KKK are basically the same thing"—and use it as the foundation and the springboard for a whole worldview that assumes that anyone who votes for someone with an R next to their name is a racist, or at least condones racism.

Sigh and trot out unpleasant facts that specifically refute the fundamental assumption, and you get sputtering, hemming, hawing, and furious attempts to reclaim some kind of moral high ground—certainly not anything like an "Oh, I guess I was wrong."

You can see this happening in our media and politics all the time. Just today there was more news of American casualties in Iraq. Of course, there's a knee-jerk reaction among many in the media and all over the country that "This was never supposed to happen! I thought we were all done with Iraq. I mean, didn't Bush tell us that the war in Iraq would be a cake-walk, and that it would all be over quickly?"

A quick perusal of his speeches shows that Bush said no such thing. In fact, he said (and continues to say) the diametric opposite:
This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. (Applause.) The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. (Applause.)

Nor did his "Mission Accomplished" speech from the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln suggest that our job was over:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq. (Applause.)

Nor, for that matter, did Bush ever "promise" that invading Iraq would make us safer, indignant bumper stickers on Volvos and minivans notwithstanding. He's pitching an entirely different approach than "making us safer" in the immediate term. From the 11/6/03 speech:

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. (Applause.)

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)

Furthermore, all over the place people are claiming that Bush said Iraq was an "imminent threat". They'll even point triumphantly to the Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union speech, claiming that Bush specifically used the word "imminent" regarding the threat Iraq posed. However, very few people on the Left seem willing to actually read the speech, preferring to take it as an article of faith that it says what they've been told it says.

In fact, it says:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

In other words, he said, in only slightly more words, "Iraq is not an imminent threat". But the media and the politicians determined to grill Bush are somehow managing to mentally toss that little not right out the window, inserting a mental ellipsis for the testimonial on the DVD case for Bush: Smackdown 2003. "Iraq is ... an imminent threat."

Hey, we're just saving space. How much difference can one little word make?

Only turns the entire premise of the discourse one-hundred-eighty degrees, is all. But hey, that's not important, right?

But that's old news even for the Leftists who have somehow accepted reality enough to shut up about this particular issue. Some have Moved On to carping about the economy, like a member of my social circle who was over at our house last night. We were watching a Deep Space Nine two-parter, in which Our Heroes are space-time-wedgied back to the San Francisco of 2024, where the poor and homeless are processed into barricaded-off "sanctuaries"—derelicted neighborhoods where there is no law and no hope, just the cast-aside refuse of a depressed urban world who have been moved to an out-of-sight, out-of-mind location for the benefit of the champagne-and-caviar set. Plenty of opportunities for Sisko and Bashir to walk slowly about the lawless streets and give long, excruciating, whining soliloquies about how "This is a society that has simply given up... if only people would wake up and realize what they must do to become a truly enlightened culture, none of this ever should have happened!" (This is in the days before the Federation passed laws against poverty, you see, and simply transported poor people into space or somehow "lost the signal due to interference", or however the hell they "abolished" poverty and greed and sickness and money.)

Someone made a comment about how even in 2024, the urban peacekeepers (the National Guard) were still using those old Deuce trucks from WWII. "Well, they're in a depressed economy," someone else pointed out. "When that happens, they'll press old equipment into service."

This friend, from behind the dinner table, harrumphed over his turkey. "Well, we're working on getting to that point ourselves," he growled.

The economy is getting worse, you see. Unemployment at 1996 levels, industry at a 20-year high, tens of thousands of new jobs being created every week—all stuff you can read about in any financial-news source you care to check out. But never mind—it's an article of faith that the economy is still careening down the toilet, dragging ourselves inevitably into 1933, with Hoovervilles for all of us.

I didn't want to break up such a happy scene of Friday-night bonhomie, so I said nothing. Ah well, there was always this cheerful Trek episode to watch.

So now the flavor of the month, brought to us by LGF (of course), is what that bunch of perennial winners over at Democratic Underground are doing: namely, running a poll to try to figure out what can possibly explain Bush being ahead in the polls.
Poll question: Is Bush ahead in the polls because most Americans are racist?

The polls show most Americans support a foreign policy that embraces preemptive strikes outside legal bounds (ie. Iraq).

They are willing to kill foreigners willy-nilly behind a policy that says “all Muslims are a POTENTIAL threat.” Never mind the ramifications of killing innocent people, as long as these attacks hinder terrorists they are justified. After all, in the end us Americans represent the good guys: Christian/Jewish brotherhood, and the Muslims represent the terrorists.
Generalizations like this are what leads to mass genocide. It’s no different than the anti-Jewish propaganda that Hitler promoted as a cover for his brutal imperialism.

As of right now, 67% of the respondents (deep thinkers all, I'm sure) have voted Yes. (And the rest, judging by the followup comments, believe that, no, it's actually because most Americans are ignorant.)

And let's not forget Jermaine Jackson:

Jermaine, also a singer, told Reuters in an interview: "I do not agree with the U.S. government. What they are saying about Muslims and Arabs is all propaganda and brainwashing."

Now: what I want to know is, have any of these people even read a speech by Bush on Islam, Muslims, or terrorism? Have they even heard one?

Or have they heard every last one, and simply discarded them because what they heard didn't match the presumptions about Bush that they'd already stuffed into their brains, whatever cereal box they originally read them on?

I'll freely admit: if our President were going up in front of the microphones every couple of weeks and delivering speeches that called upon Americans to ferret out any and all Muslims or suspected Muslims living in their towns, call their local authorities, and turn them over for internment and questioning because, you know, all Muslims are potential terrorists, y'all—well, sure, I would in fact be all about condemning such hateful and unsupportable incitement. It's uncalled-for, it's un-American, it's Nazi-esque, and it's just plain wrong.

Only problem is, it's not happening.

It's not even close to happening.

Here is a handy summary page of all of George W. Bush's statements on Islam and Muslims over the years. Let's look at a few random examples of what this hateful Nazi racist redneck Republican has said, tarring innocent Muslim Americans with the brush of terrorism and fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment throughout this country:

• "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."

• "Here in the United States our Muslim citizens are making many contributions in business, science and law, medicine and education, and in other fields. Muslim members of our Armed Forces and of my administration are serving their fellow Americans with distinction, upholding our nation's ideals of liberty and justice in a world at peace."

• "The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace."

• "It should be clear to all that Islam -- the faith of one-fifth of humanity -- is consistent with democratic rule. Democratic progress is found in many predominantly Muslim countries -- in Turkey and Indonesia, and Senegal and Albania, Niger and Sierra Leone. Muslim men and women are good citizens of India and South Africa, of the nations of Western Europe, and of the United States of America."

• "This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views. We value life; the terrorists ruthlessly destroy it. We value education; the terrorists do not believe women should be educated or should have health care, or should leave their homes. We value the right to speak our minds; for the terrorists, free expression can be grounds for execution. We respect people of all faiths and welcome the free practice of religion; our enemy wants to dictate how to think and how to worship even to their fellow Muslims."

• "According to Muslim teachings, God first revealed His word in the Holy Qur'an to the prophet, Muhammad, during the month of Ramadan. That word has guided billions of believers across the centuries, and those believers built a culture of learning and literature and science. All the world continues to benefit from this faith and its achievements."

• "We're taking action against evil people. Because this great nation of many religions understands, our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil. This is clearly a case of good versus evil, and make no mistake about it -- good will prevail."

Anti-Muslim? I have a hard time imagining how he could possibly be more pro-Muslim in his speeches, short of converting.

Not only has Bush never said a single word treating Islam as the "enemy" or casting a glowering scowl upon the Muslims within our borders, as he's charged to be constantly doing by the DUers and Leftists everywhere—he's said precisely the opposite. He's rained down these statements of politically-correct peacemongering with such zeal that people like Charles Johnson, who see acts of Islamic terror condoned and cheered by mainstream Muslims on a daily basis, grow increasingly frustrated with Bush's steadfast refusal to even use language that approaches the subject of making war upon even a specific and tiny subset of Islam. Bush is saying all the right things, all the things the Left would demand to hear from a President who's fully on their side. These quotes are not just not racist or anti-Islamic, they're fawning. They're simpering. They're about what you'd expect to hear if Noam Chomsky or Ibrahim Hooper were writing Bush's speeches.

And yet not only are they ignoring all these statements, they're treating Bush as though he's been saying precisely the opposite of all of them, all this time.

Hell, ever since 9/11/2001, he could have been pounding his fist on the table, ranting about nuking Mecca in a brown military dress uniform and a little toothbrush moustache, and the Left could not possibly vilify him any more than they're doing now.

I fail to see how anybody could aspire to want the job of President. If you're the wrong kind of person, you see, you can simply do nothing right, in the eyes of a certain segment of your constituency. No matter how good you are, no matter how many of the right moves you make, you're guaranteed to be loathed with a murderous, fiery rage. Boy oh boy—where do I sign up?!

If DU were a real place, you could walk in with a clipboard, stop people at random, and ask random questions:

• "Do you think that Bush has characterized Iraq as an 'imminent' threat to America?"
• "Would you say that Bush has used anti-Muslim rhetoric in his speeches to the country about terrorism?"
• "Did Bush give the impression in his speeches that the war in Iraq would be easy and quickly accomplished?"
• "Do you think Bush has unfairly fomented anti-Muslim sentiment in America in the wake of 9/11?"
• "Would you say that Bush is a racist?"
• "Would you describe the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as being characterized by widespread, reckless destruction of civilian property and lives?"
• "Would you say that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are fundamentally 'racist'?"
• "Do you think Bush's speeches regarding Islam and Muslims post-9/11 are similar to Hitler's speeches regarding the Jews in the 1930s?"

You know that a depressingly large majority of the respondents would answer "Yes" to every last question.

Reality be damned. They know what's goin' down.

These people wonder why nobody takes them seriously. They know they're right; they know they're educated and sophisticated and intellectual, so they can't be wrong. Obviously. They don't need to read the news. They know it supports their assumptions. Why would they have to confirm what they already know?

So to explain away this bizarre tendency of Americans to view them with dismissal and bemusement rather than the awe they feel is due them as the intellectual superiors of the average Joe, they concoct increasingly freakish theories, theories which make perfect sense to them. Like: Americans support Bush because Americans, by and large, are racists. And Bush is a racist, so obviously they like him. He plays to their hateful, bloodthirsty impulses, just like Hitler.

These are people who grew up thinking they were better than everybody else: the smart kids in high school, picked-on by the jocks. They had to concoct some reason why the jocks kept getting the chicks and not them, and why the idiots in the school weren't simply herded into the gym and gassed so the smart kids could actually learn something. I believe I understand something of their mindset, having once been there myself; they hold a grudge toward humanity already, and naturally they hate the unseen force that unjustly held them down during their formative years. Nowadays the stakes are simply higher, and the conspiracies are commensurately vaster and more evil.

It must be terribly depressing in the DU world, to live in a reality that's so dismal, that deliberately ignores everything that's going right so as to convince themselves that everything is shit. They can shut out the fact that we live in the richest, most tolerant, safest, most culturally/racially diverse country in the history of planet Earth, which ought to be the vindication of every "progressive" ideal they hold close to their hearts; they can convince themselves, somehow, that we're a nation of inbred, white-trash, racist rednecks with single-digit IQs and no interest in anything beyond pro wrestling and shooting beer cans off fences. Theirs is a world with a perpetual soundtrack of morose Goth music and R.E.M. and Jello Biafra and Rage Against the Machine, where Peter Schilling lyrics spark nods of rueful agreement rather than outrage:
How I love the life I lead
Cannot think and cannot read
Watch our values slip away
play the game of U.S.A!

I find myself wondering which is worse: "cannot think and cannot read", or "will not think and will not read"...?



UPDATE: Sigh. Twice today I've had friends approvingly tell me that in this post, I've very effectively made my case: that most Americans are morons who don't read.

That was the exact opposite of the point I was trying to make. (Is there a theme here?)

What I'm trying to say here is that most Americans are not morons; they're way more in-tune with reality than most of "us" (the self-described Enlightened Elite) are willing to believe. Most people are rational, open-minded, and willing to listen to reasoned discussion from both sides of an argument. I mean, think about ten random acquaintances, and think back on twenty random people you met or saw during the course of the day. How many of them would you describe as clinically stupid? By which I mean, how many of them—driving on the highway, walking past you in the mall, serving you your Arby's sandwich, delivering your package—would you call idiots, people on whom you wouldn't feel comfortable conferring the sacred trust of democracy?

How many would you guess are racists? How many would you guess are ignorant?

DU says "most". Are they right? I don't think so.

The problem I'm trying to highlight is that the Leftists, the DUers, the elitists who are positive that Bush is a Muslim-hating racist and that Americans can't be trusted with sharp scissors because they're actually (gasp!) polling in his favor, are singularly and unusually prone to this behavior. I believe they're worse than the statistical average when it comes to being open-minded about alternate viewpoints. I believe they're (perversely) inured to rational, multifaceted discussion because they're convinced of their own superiority, whereas most everyday folks tend to have a humility about them that lets them accept that they might not be aware of the whole story on a given issue.

A contemptuous lack of faith in the decency, intelligence, and social competence of the majority of Americans is a clear sign of the kind of immaturity that you see concentrated, primarily and almost exclusively, on the Left these days.

And I want no part of it.


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© Brian Tiemann