"Rara" comments, thoughtfully:
Tim, as much as I really like and admire you and love your blog (I think you are incredibly intelligent), I am waiting for you to say one positive thing about the left/negative thing about the right.
Though "rara" (he? she?) later admits having found something positive I've written about the left (and I could also certainly point out negative things about people you'd say were "on the right"), I think this is a valid perception -- one which needs to be addressed.
First, just before reading this, I'd been looking over the content of the blog, and realizing that I'd been more driven by reaction to absurdity (the news offers so much of it these days!), and hadn't offered enough positive-sounding content to balance it (though I try to bury positive alternatives in the critical articles) -- which I will try to work on more. So sincere thanks on that point.
But secondly, I want to "rara" (and others, who would reasonably get the same impression, given our culture) to understand that my critique here is not generally directed towards leftists, personally. To use an old tired line (though it is in fact true), many of my closest friends (and loved ones) are leftists -- and they have many wonderful qualities. Personally.
And I can understand why a reader might easily think if I bash "left-ism" (which I hate because I believe it harms and even kills human beings) that I must also hate or think badly of "left-ists" -- or imagine those of us on the right have no flaws! But it's not so.
Sins, and Sin-isms, versus Sin-ers
As a Christian (though a rather poor one, admittedly) I am taught to love the sinner, but hate the sin. If I rail against prostitution, does it mean that I hate prostitutes? Certainly, it's possible, but I might instead hate it because it harms prostitutes themselves -- as well as others. Thus I *hate* the sin, the system, the philosophy, the mode of operation -- if I am at my best -- precisely because I love humans and don't want to see them harmed. Including even those who participate in that system, philosophy, or behavior. If you love someone, you must also dislike the things which truly harm them, and wish to prevent that, or your love is no love at all.
Allow me to give a political example: I have a close friend who's a long-time Democrat. She's worked in the inner city for years, in a "Head Start"-like program, helping impoverished families educate their children. When I accompanied her on a visit, one single mom told me that my friend had changed her life. Laudable personal qualities -- wouldn't you agree? I sure would.
Yet every election, this same friend of mine goes to the polls and supports policies which we know, with zero doubt, increase poverty and hurt minorities. Without fail. And she actually refuses to discuss whether these policies actually help or harm the poor and minorities.
So what have we here? A great, kind, and generous person. A nice person. Most "progressive" voters are indeed such people, I expect. But one who has bought into a philosophy which is utterly harmful to the people she apparently wants to help. I can easily tell you a half-dozen such stories.
Do you think I imagined the teachers in the lego story were bad people, personally? Not at all: I think they were caring-feeling and compassionate toward children, and clearly seemed to be intelligent and well-educated. I completely expect they were doing what they felt was in the best interest for the children and society as a whole.
But, sadly, I feel the actual result was to make society worse, and to instill in the children a philosophy which would also make them more unhappy, as it made them more attuned and fixated upon every possible materialistic inequality -- a philosophy which unhealthfully equates human value with one's power and wealth.
So my critique, in that story, is focused on their philosophy and results -- the only point at which I criticize the teachers personally is because they didn't take steps to ensure little kids would have their own collection of Lego, since they shouldn't be expected to compete/work with older kids who aren't on the same level, and won't be interested in kids play.
Plenty of Blame to Go Around
I believe that human beings, right and left, Whig and Tory, Muslim, Christian and Atheist, are all attracted to, and sadly predisposed to, evil. So yes, I blame politicians for being corrupt or pandering -- including right-leaning ones. (I often accuse Bush of overspending, for example.)
But, as I explain here, I don't believe "the right" is really anything but the group of us who are left out of leftism. (Some of us were even lifelong Democrats until very recently.) There's nothing special about us -- we're just ordinary folks with our ordinary troubles and flaws. So when I talk about these kinds of common problems, I don't talk in terms of right versus left -- we're all afflicted by them.
So yes, there are many wonderful, kind, and seemingly well-meaning people on the left. For example, just within the last several weeks, I praised the Democrat who runs Durham Wonderland, and Democratic Senator and VP candidate Thomas Eagleton -- in glowing terms, no less. And there are people like Dennis Kuncinch who I believe are nice, "true believers" -- kind and sincere, but misled.
And, yes, there are corrupt politicians on the right (Duke Cunningham is a recent example) and people on the right who do bad things (me, for example, with a list of sins too long to mention). And there are a number of cases where I refrain from commenting either because I suspect the accused is innocent (Tom Delay) or because we don't have enough evidence yet either way. And there are well-meaning but harmful right-wing polticians too, like Jim Baker, George HW Bush who pushed the awful philosophy of "realpolitik."
So there are indeed "good" people on the political left, and "bad" people on the right. All of that is entirely true: I don't deny it for a moment, and anyone who gets the opposite impression has misunderstood me, or been misled by something I've written poorly. And perhaps I need to look at adjusting that balance.
And yet, there's more to the picture than that.
Pink Trenchcoats
Imagine you have a group of kids in high school who start wearing pink trenchcoats. They also gain a small group of ardently devoted fans. They have secret handshakes, emotional meetings, and introduce a set of demands as how they want the school significantly changed.
So what's weird about all the kids not in the pink-trenchcoat club? Why don't you criticize them?
True, there's something about them which didn't make them attracted to the pink-trenchcoat crowd -- but remove the trenchcoats from the picture, and you'd say: "Well, these are just ordinary high school kids." Precisely. They're not primarily "anti-trenchcoaters"; they're just kids who are trying to get on with their studies and friendships. As they were before.
Us right-wingers are often reactionaries. Mostly, we react to the progressives, who run around making new demands. What's weird about our not wanting gay marriage? I dunno -- go ask anyone who was around in the eighties or nineties -- Democrat or Republican -- why they were so unusual that they didn't want gay marriage? What hatred did they harbor against gays? Or was it just that they favored the model of one mom and one dad?
If I demand a new policy ("I want everyone to walk backwards!") the burden is on me to explain why it's a good move. If I fail to explain it, or accuse everyone who isn't convinced that I've offered a good reason of having bad personal motives, then it's reasonable to ask what I'm doing, and what motivates me. There's no reason to particularly criticize everyone who hasn't acceeded to my new demands.
So what I'm saying is that there's a particular set of things which draws some people to the left, and a collection of historically and culturally unusual set of policies they offer/demand. If so, it follows that there's nothing that unusual about those outside the group -- those who think trading sandwiches at lunch is normal and good ("capitalism!"), those who think the sexual union which produces children should generally be encouraged to be the same one which raises them, etc.
There's no particular reason to look at that "out" group and wonder what's up with them. It's only the kids who are trying to stop others from trading their sandwiches, of which we might ask: "What peculiar thing is happening here?"
I realize, from the point of view of our culture, this isn't a very satisfying answer. I'm supposed to say things like "Oh, we're all the same." And, regarding run-of-the-mill supporters of leftism, that seems to be true: they're "good" people, like everyone else.
But there's also something odd about the people wearing the pink trenchcoats, or the people who are working very hard to redefine "marriage" for the first time in history, or the people who are trying to get all the other kids to stop trading their sandwiches at lunch or at least dictate the terms of those trades. And it's reasonable to look at that phenomenon and ask: What's up with that?
And help people to see the harm in those particular demands and philosophy, and even sometimes attempt to delve into why people are attracted to radical movements and demands. Yes, it's true: I honestly feel that left-ism is uniquely harmful in a way that non-leftism isn't. I write to change minds, to minimize the damage which might be done by that philosophy -- and ultimately to help people both individually and collectively.
That is part of my ultimate goal here: I admit it entirely.
Given my convictions and conclusions, would you have me do otherwise?
Rara!
Sorry, in advance, for my lengthy answers here.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Shucks! Another fascinating and nearly fact-free conspiracy theory goes down the tubes!
I'm not exactly thrilled with the present crop of Republicans...
Heaven knows: neither am I.
Again, I have never perceived any of your posts as being hateful - far from it...
Good to know: I don't want that to be the perception, but you can never be too sure of how you're being read.
As much as I think the war is WRONG and think Bush is quite a disaster, when someone calls Bush a terrorist, I usually lose all respect for their point of view...
Although I disagree with you about the war (I was for it back then, feel my support was vindicated, and think we need to continue) even back when we were starting, I could *totally* respect a number of arguments as to why we shouldn't go in.
Yet the left failed to offer any of those reasonable objections, and pretty much boiled down to "Bush lied" and, as you said: "Bush is a terrorist." Democrats could probably have won the White House in the last election if they'd come up with a consistent, coherant criticism. (I could have written one for them -- even one I disagreed with.)
Instead, we had John Kerry insisting it was the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" -- and also that if he were in charge, everyone else in the world would have joined us in that wrong war.
That's not a test of voter policy preferences, that's a test of voter IQ and integrity. ;-)
Regarding talk radio: I must admit, they are way more interesting than the few left-leaning shows I've listened to...
I had the same impression. I think it's because most of us tend to allow (and even welcome) intelligent disagreement. I didn't hear a lot of that when I was listening to Air America on a regular basis. (NPR is probably the most interesting left-leaning radio network -- they provide a much more entertaining package.)
You say that people on the right are just those who are left out of the left.
I mean that what we currently call "the right" includes people who were life-long Democrats. Quite a lot of them these days -- Evan Sayett, Dennis Prager, Zell Miller, Dennis Miller, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Guiliani, Tammy Bruce, Michael Savage (eeew), Thomas Sowell (well, not lifelong, but he started as a Marxist), David Horowitz (dittos), etc. Christopher Hitches is still a lefty with a deep hatred of religion.
Some of these -- like the last Democratic VP candidate (amazing that he's now on "the right" in many people's minds!) haven't changed their views at all. There's quite a lot of differences among them -- when you get off the basic points of fighting terrorists and a few others.
But there's no market for Hitchens' views on religion (for example). Militant atheists want to hear Sam Harris tell them Christians are totalitarians -- not hear Hitchens assert that though he hates Bush's religion, that Bush has been a good enemy of theocracies around the world. And conservative Christians (like me) think Hitchens will eventually come around on religion, and no longer take his puffery in that area seriously, or demand it as a commodity. We can debate Harris or Dawkins, if we're in the mood.
... there is a distinct right that doesn't just exist because they don't fit anywhere else.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
If you're saying there is a core set of "conservative" beliefs, then, well yes, of course. There's also a big tent around that group, with many others joining them/us. Our views are somewhat old-fashioned (less popular today), but so it is. Those others are mostly those who have "left the left."
The left, on the other hand, aren't mostly composed of people who were once principled conservatives. (A few, but they're the vast exceptions.) Most lefties, in my experience, don't even understand convervative views, much less have fantastic reasons they're wrong.
On the other hand, if you're saying is there are some prominent right-wingers whose personalities aren't "just like the rest of us". Yes, that's true. (Some of the talkers are this way.) But again there's nothing historically unusual about their views.
The "pink trenchcoats", in my analogy above, are the leaders -- not the talkers. The leaders among the left are generally some very strange people -- the further left you go, the stranger. Ralph Nader is hardly a normal guy. George Soros has delusions of grandeur the left only imagines onto George Bush. Clinton -- do I have to say it? (Some of his harshest critics were his closest intimates.) And Ted Kennedy? No, nothing strange there. Not to mention the leaders overseas who are coddled by the left. (I remember Ted Turner depicting North Korea's leader as an average guy, insisting Kim John Il "didn't look too different" from most other people!)
In contrast, Republican "bad guys" (leaders) tend to be actually rather typical. (Nixon and Kissinger were probably the strangest.) Reagan was certainly well-loved by those who knew him. Newt could be cold and narcissistic, but nothing beyond what I see in everyday society. (He's since shown contrition.) Even noted enemies of Bush (either one) who have met him/them say they're actually quite nice people. And Dick Cheney (who the left loves to hate) comes across, when you actually look into his life (he was a lineman (that's a hard job) and a union boss in Wyoming), as a rather normal guy with generally-conservative values and a talent for business, who deeply loves his family -- including his lesbian daughter (annoyingly, for his opponents).
My point is mostly that their lives and views, aren't that unusual now or historically.
The "talkers" on the right are often as strange as those on the left. Dennis Miller is entertaining -- but he's hardly a typical guy. Michael Savage is deeply weird, and I find Rush endlessly off-putting and annoying.
On the other side, Randi Rhodes is quite normal (annoying, but normal). Al Franken, without the anger, would probably come across that way too. (Janeane Garofalo, in my experience, is a quivering bundle of hatred, though.)
But the policies they support (often in a very subtle way -- Rhodes and Kos are actually quite conservative in their actual statements) are quite radical.
Our country is founded on a sham: our forefathers were slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So when I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're insulting me.' That you can have a gay parade on Christopher Street in New York, with naked men and women on a float cheering, 'We're here, we're queer!' -- that's what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride. (Janeane Garofalo)
Though she's got a half a point near the start, overall, that's pretty non-mainstream. Find me an equivalently-strange quote from a conservative, please. (Other than Ann Coulter.) It's like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel to produce such quotes from the left.
One of my beefs is that the Republican party seems to have taken over the church...
We see things differently: I tend to believe that Christians have no-where else to go. Should we simply stop voting or get uninvolved in politics?
Conservative Christians, it appears to me, have to choose between a party that often doesn't support their beliefs and values (Republicans) and one which actively opposes them (Democrats).
I'd love to know more about what you think about this, since this topic interests me quite a lot. (And I have strong views about it.) But I'll look at the blog and see what's being said.
My two cents at the moment:
I think a Christian can be of any political party. We all have to do the best we can, for conscience's sake, with the light we have at the moment. For example, if we're convinced socialism is helpful and godly, then for conscience's sake, we must support it until we can see counter-evidence.
But, as I age, I become increasingly convinced that while Republicans are often corrupt, venal, secular, and hypocritical -- liberal policies are even more inconsistent with Christian belief, when all is said and done and considered.
Yes, that's an offensive view to many. The "me" I was a decade ago would be shocked to hear me say it now. But I'd be more than glad to defend the proposition -- I'm still looking for counter-evidence, which good debate brings.
This isn't to say the Republican party is "God's party", etc. (Now, much less in the future.) Just that I can't see how a Christian could work to support the other option, unless they were morally or bibically confused, or factually uninformed.
Frankly, though I've honestly tried (when I was young, I earnestly wanted to be a centrist) I can't find even one issue where I feel, as a Christian, I can, in good conscience, support the Democratic stance.
(Note: In a local election for mayor, I'd choose an honest Democrat any day over a corrupt Republican. But that's because mayors have little power over huge policy issues.)
Am I hopelessly ignorant? Or am I actually onto something? This blog is part of that experiment. So far I haven't found much counter-evidence -- if anything, my suspicion of that is stronger now than when I started this little test over four years ago.
(FYI, here are three blog entries I've written on this topics, to let you know where my head is at, if you're interested.)
One of my beefs is that the Republican party seems to have taken over the church, and, as Tucker Carlson (no left-winger) said, "When religion and politics meet, it poisons religion."
My problem in responding here is that I have no idea what this statement means.
If he/you mean that (for example) if the Pope were to control the government, that would be bad, then I'd agree completely.
On the other hand, if the view is that we can't let our religious views influence our politics, then I deeply disagree: That's either profoundly confused morally, or (they way a few people mean it) almost fascisitic -- in the sense that we have to get into people's heads and stop them from voting or governing if their conscience has been informed by Christian convictions.
We never would have banned slavery in this country if that kind of thinking had prevailed, to give one example.
I am irritated by what I see as group think on the right - criticizing all Democrats (except Lieberman and Zel Miller) and defending everything the president does (except his immigration policy, of course, or when he isn't aggressive enough with Dems)...
That's an inconsistent criticism, Rara. You're saying they don't criticize him except when they criticize him. (If they were "yes-men", why wouldn't he get a pass on immigration?) Perhaps they actually agree with him on those other topics? Perhaps if you were specific...
I often hear that Karl Rove tells me what to write. But it isn't so: both the left and right frequently respond the same way because both groups share the same principles.
There are exceptions, of course. I'm not a huge fan of Sean Hannity: I something think he's a bit too blindly loyal. But I don't know too many other examples of this.
For example, how can so many Republicans be supportive of Guliani when he is so pro-choice, has been married 3 times (like his current wife)...
I'm a huge fan of Rudy, savior-of-NY. I'm also a huge opponent of Rudy, candidate-for-Prez. (I've blogged about him as much as any other candidate -- which is to say, none. Even my recent post on Obama actually has nothing to do with Obama himself as a person. I'll explain more about RG in the future, but not yet. It's just too early to get into all that nonsense, yet.)
Laura Ingraham is opposed to Guiliani, and very disappointed in his mush-mouth mumblings about funding abortion. Hugh Hewitt is in favor of Romney, not RG. Prager has been divorced, himself, three times (he says he wishes it weren't so, but he's in favor of divorce in some instances -- so you might not agree, but it's not hypocrisy) and I don't know his take. I doubt Bill Bennett especially supports Guiliani.
Who are these conservatives you're talking about? Rush? He's not even a Christian. (And doesn't claim to be.) Hannity? Though I think he's an enromously decent fellow personally, I don't even listen to him -- I'm not a huge fan. Who else?
I'm opposed to divorce, but I'd vote for a divorced man in a moment if the opposition was worse, or if it was a long time ago and he was contrite. (Neither applies to Guiliani.)
For example, I'd vote for Gza-Gza Gabor (divorced eight times) long before I'd vote for Stalin (never divorced). You might thinking I'm making a joke here, but I'm not: there are no perfect candidates, and we all must be a bit "hypocritical" if we're going to be voting for human beings.
I guess I am kind of disappointed that it seems to me you don't write much about the shortcomings of today's Republicans...
If you look at the blog closely, you'll noticed I don't write much about the personal shortcomings of Democrats either, these days. It's mostly abstract. Actual Democrats are, for me, generally just decoration, handy examples for making points about larger issues.
Al Gore, for example: I might make fun of his lifestyle (but didn't much, I don't think) as a way of proving the larger point that even GW activists don't actually believe what they're saying. That's utterly different than a "hypocrite" like a Republican (fiscally) who doesn't live up to an actual good value they pay lip service to.
I could be savaging Pelosi right now for a host of issues: for usurping the rightful role of the execute branch, for sucking up to a dictator who we should be estranging, for having thought of appointing some of the most corrupt politicians we have in office today (including one of three judges convincted of bribery this century) to the most sensitive, powerful roles in Congress. For promoting pork when he candidates just ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility.
If I'm actively passing up fat, juicy targets like that, why do you think I'd should be ragging on the Republicans, who have almost no power at the moment, and haven't done much of anything yet this session, good or bad? Any sense of proportion tells us that's the "lesser of two weevils", to quote the old joke.
(Perhaps I'm missing something here. Accuse me of some specific hypocrisy (be very specific -- I mean this seriously) and perhaps we can have a more meaningful, less general discourse.)
Rara, I have have this focus partially because I want to teach people conservativism. The last thing we need is more (sorry!) "Ra-Rah! Go Team!" I want people to support bona-fide conservative ideas, from a sound intellectual (and in your case, Christian) basis -- not just vote for anything with an "R" on it's forehead. If they understand conservativism, criticism of Republicans (or support for them) will happen naturally.
But as it is, most people, even "conservatives" don't get it. My party is half-filled with people who are, in my view, "liberals". And there are bigger issues and smaller ones.
Overspending, for example, is probably what I'd think of as the Republicans' biggest sin. How important is that? Less important to me than messing up in Iraq. If we leave too soon and too drasticly, Rara, I fear we'll see bloodshed, and more and more in the future. Not on the scale we're seeing now, but on one we can't imagine. We have our finger in a very big wall.
Vietnam, and Cambodia (2 million killed) come to mind. And Ted Kennedy was there back then, insisting we pull out, and that he thought it'd be good if Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rogue.
Sure, I'd love to see Bush cut the National Endowment for the Arts. But it's just money, not lives.
And pro-life? Sure, I'm pro-life. And I wouldn't support Rudy because I think he wouldn't appoint the right kind of judges. But politics is a messy business, and sometimes you have to choose between a thrice-divorced guy, and one who, you believe, has been faithful to his wife, but is has insane views which will harm a lot of people.
To give only examples from the left, I'd choose Bill Clinton (gross philanderer and serial adulterer) over Jimmy Carter (whose policies resulted in untold death and suffering) or Dennis Kucinich (who thinks by creating a "peace department" peace will break out all over the world). (Even though both of the latter have much better sexual morals than Bill Clinton.)
Would I be a hypocrite? If you looked only at one microscopic point, yes. But again, that's life, Rara. I'm not trying to be rude, just sanguine and realistic.
At least, it would probably make people (like me) think that you don't just have it out for those on the left, but that you address all issues that run counter to your worldview, no matter what camp they stem from.
Well, what do you think my most pressing views are? I hate systematic lies and deception, for one. (So I attack the media endlessly.) I loathe large political movements which kill millions of people (environmentalism, global warming, Communism). I want people to understand how they and their children are being indoctrinated with harmful views. I'm pro-life, but there's no point in talking about it, since the Supreme Court has frozen the matter, and no politician, except the next president (and it's not time to talk about that yet) will be able to influence that (by appointing judges). I love science (so I write about that, sometimes). I love rational thought. (So I enjoy dissecting that.) I loathe the current attempt to re-brand Christianity into something hostile to traditional faith -- so I write about that. I love liberty, so I hate trends that take that away (like so many in society today). And I love God dearly, so I try to explain my faith from time to time.
Rara, there are people's lives and freedom on the line: I don't have time to get into gossiping about someone's personal life -- left OR right -- when it doesn't make a difference, at that moment, to the ultimate fate of the nation or the world.
And yes, moments like that will come, but we're not there at the moment, as far as I can see.
I guess there's one more trend I can see: I tend to focus on stories which I think haven't gotten enough attention.
Republican shortcomings, in this media environment, will seldom strike me as such a story.
Let me give you an example: Jefferson Clinton (D) and "Duke" Cunningham (R) both took bribes. The media provided huge coverage of Cunningham, who resigned in shame, crying. Clinton, on the other hand, is still in office, and has had almost no story.
Forgetting my own views, which story needs more coverage? I wrote about neither, but if I did write, I'd either cover the Clinton story (because it has received very little press, and nothing was done about it), or I'd cover the press's bias itself. I wouldn't write about Cunningham -- not because he's conservative, but because neither of my two big triggers (media dishonesty, or undercovered stories) are being tripped by that case.
Yes, I'm sad he took bribes, but I'd no more write a story condemning him personally than condemning Clinton personally. And since I wrote neither, I certainly wouldn't focus on the one the media has already paid plenty of attention to.
Anyway, thanks for reading my long, rambling post.
I wrote an even longer one just to make you feel better. ;-)
And thanks for clarifying that part of your goal is to counter leftism.
Part of it. The blog title is honest: I wander from topic to topic (sometimes, it's just good to have fun!), but there's a general urgency, behind most of it -- to try to counter some of the "big trends" I see capturing people's minds in society today. And that's coming from all directions.
Thanks for your encouragment, dear sister.
Wow! Excellent post!
I think it's also good to elaborate on the fact that one should justify demanding change from a group of people. The left does try and do this, but if you look at what they use, it's typically lies and lie filled rhetoric. The part that amazes me about it is that for the past 5000 or so years, at least, we've had some basic precepts that have keep humans in, at least, a steady state condition. Then with the advancements in science and technology we got to a point where we are doing really well. However, if we look at the points in history where people tried to implement liberal ideas, they were usually the bloodiest and lead to the most misery. (Yet, somehow, apparently they get reframed as "rightists" in a nice attempt to rewrite history)
Given that, one should *really* have to justify their case beyond a few flimsy "studies" to implement social change on the scale that they talk about (*especially* at a Federal level), but, through the state eduacation system, we have a populous that is not trained in rational thought, much less the political ideas that go on top of them. Yet the progressives seem to do a good job of swaying them by simple rhetoric. This reminds me of what happened in Greece with the sophists. Their policies and ideas lead to a rather bad period in history under Dracos, simply because the system had collapsed under the weight the masses had placed on it.
Posted by: The Zapman on March 30, 2007 01:48 PM