One night, I was sitting in a nightclub ' maybe the first or second time I'd ever done so. I was just a puppy ' eighteen, I think, for we could drink in those days. Anyway, it was a strange room: mostly concentric circles of dark tables arranged around a center, but the center wasn't a dance floor ' that was off to the side. The middle of the room was just much better lit ' almost like an auto showroom.
And right there in the center, in a small pool of light, sat a woman in a white dress, all alone. Calling her 'beautiful' is like calling Yosemite 'scenic.' She was stunning. Grace Kelly beautiful. Catherine Deneuve beautiful. Plato wrote about how a chair was really just a dim shadow on the cave wall cast by the ideal of a chair. Well, this woman was the Real Deal. And there she sat, all alone, lighting up that room, maybe ten feet away from where my three buddies and I burrowed behind a dark table, nothing showing but our little red eyes darting back and forth like the terrified little weasels I thought we all were at the time.
I was about to learn a very powerful lesson. Wait, I want to rephrase that: I was about to be given a very powerful lesson. I didn't actually learn it for another ten or fifteen years. But the next ten minutes were nothing if not an education'
As I sat there, nursing my watery Screwdriver, I watched an absolutely endless progression of guys make that walk across that little patch of open space, sidle up next to her, and start talking. They never got past the first sentence. They didn't get shot down. They got nuked. Vaporized. One second they were there, the next there was nothing but a greasy stain on the floor where they had been.
And these guys were real smooth, too. Real Rico Suave. They had the wide lapels and the platform shoes and the qiana shirts (and may 1977 Miami burn in hell forever). These were not bumpkins like myself. These were operators.
Now most of you are old and wise enough to remember how the adolescent mind works, because the more she turned these guys down the more beautiful she became to me. It was like that old Twilight Zone shot where the corridor expands away from you as you run towards the door at the end. Remote. Unattainable. Ahhhhhhhh.
I could just barely hear her, too.
Would you like to Dance?
No, I wouldn't. Please go away, you're bothering me.
Sorry'
'often followed by a mumbled what a bitch as they slinked back in shame to face their friends. I thought, she's just here to break hearts is all. She's not here to dance, or to have fun. She's just here to crush people.
At that moment, I can say with confidence that I would rather have gone over the top at Gallipoli then walk across that ten foot expanse of lighted floor.
But I had a friend who was watching too, and he wasn't getting intimidated. He was getting angry. He was, like me, young, kinda dorky, and dressed, shall we say, more conventionally than the rest of the peacocks in the room. But as my eyes were glazing over in teenage awe, his were narrowing to slits as the Endless Parade of the Doomed walked into the meat grinder.
Finally, he had had enough. How did I divine this? Well, he shot to his feet, and muttered 'That's enough!' through clenched teeth. That was my clue.
He threw down his napkin, took a belt of his drink, and worked his way around our table heading straight for the fluffy wittle bunny wabbit with the Sharp. Pointy. Teeth. I remember I damn near grabbed at his legs, like a wounded Confederate begging a comrade not to advance on the withering fire coming down from Cemetery Ridge. No Jim, don't do it! I was thinking. No one can take that hill. It's death to try!
He walked up behind her, and so help me, he tapped her on the shoulder. I covered my face with my hand. She took a good long moment to turn around, too. She stared at him, the white wine in her hand just about the same color as her hair, and those cold blue eyes slowly looking up from his crappy shoes, past the rumpled pants to the okay shirt and finally right into Jim's eyes. She didn't say a word.
'Would you like to dance?'
Instantly: 'No, I would not like to dance. I would like for you to go away.' She turned back around without another word and took a sip of her wine. I heard a few people chuckle behind me.
Jim started walking, but instead of coming back to the Loser's Circle, he went around to the front of her small cocktail table. No, Jim! Nooooooo! And then he leaned forward, so he was a few inches from her face. And then he said something that burned itself so deep into my addled brain that I never forgot it, and never will. And he said it loud enough so that everyone could hear him, too. He said:
'Listen Princess, I just got off the phone. Turns out Prince Charming's horse just threw a shoe, so he's gonna be a little late tonight. Now why don't you stop showing everyone how miserable you are, put down that drink and come dance with me?'
She stared at him for a moment. And then she smiled. And then that's exactly what she did.
The three of us left about an hour later. Jim and The Vision had strolled out together after about ten minutes on the dance floor. Nothing much to stay for after a show like that.
Next time you look at the moon, challenge yourself to think of something: there are footprints up there. Footprints, and tire tracks. Also three used cars, and one golf ball.
Why are they there? Because we decided to go to the moon, that's why. What a typically arrogant, unilateral, American conceit! But you know what? That footprint ' you know the picture ' will still be there, unchanged, a million years from now. In ten million years, it might begin to soften a little around the edges. But in a billion years ' a thousand million summers from this one ' it will still be there, next to glistening pyramids of gold and aluminum junk decaying under the steady cosmic drizzle of micrometeorite hits.
Eventually, in about five billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen and start burning helium. When it does, it will begin to swell, consuming Mercury, then Venus as it enters its Red Giant phase. The forests will burn to ash, the oceans boil into steam and then be blown into deep space along with the rest of the atmosphere. Life will have been long gone.
But on the moon, there will remain six scraps of colored cloth. Red and white stripes peeking out from the dull grey lunar soil; perhaps a star or two on a faded blue field as the sun reaches out to reclaim her children. Very likely they will be the last, best preserved monuments to our presence as a species on the face of the third planet now burning to a cinder below.
But eventually, they will burn too. The sun will contract to a white dwarf, the inner solar system nothing but black cinders, the outer planets shrunken and frozen corpses. Perhaps fifteen billion years from now, a time as far in the future as time goes into the past, there will be nothing here except a burnt-out and cold white dwarf.
But somewhere out there, somewhere, there will be four battered, unrecognizable hunks of aluminum and titanium and gold, spinning through deep space, their names recalling the spirit in which they were hurled into the abyss: Pioneer, and Voyager. And the day before the Universe dies, you'll still be able to dimly make out the stripes and star-spangled square, and read the words in the ancient language, from a dead race in the far distant past, when the stars were young and alive: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
There are at least five nations on the earth that had the technical skill, not to mention the money, to do something as grand and noble ' as immortal -- as this. Yet only one has done so. Why us? Why not them?
Confidence. That's why.
We are a strong nation. We'd damn well better be, because we carry the genes and mythologies of the most confident individuals on the planet, people unwilling to endure repression, persecution and enslavement by taking a chance on a place unknown to them, except perhaps in their dreams. We have come from every country in the world, from the free and prosperous to the hellish and horrific. Each individual immigration, from the native Indians crossing the Bering Strait, through Plymouth Rock, Ellis Island and LAX ' each one an act of optimism and hope for something better.
And we are a confident nation. Indeed, the quality that is admired by friend and foe alike, more than any other, is our optimism, our sense of hope for the future. We may be condemned overseas for our many flaws, but it's hard to argue with an optimist who is willing to roll up his sleeves. And when we, as a nation, decide to do something'it gets done. We sometimes fail. We pay the price, fix the failures, and go on.
Footsteps on the moon.
Optimism and confidence colors everything we touch, from our movies and music to our skyscrapers and Space Telescopes. How else to explain the universal appeal of The American Dream, for that dream is indeed universal: freedom, safety, prosperity ' and scores of other adjectives that can be summed up in that jaunty phrase, unheard of in a political document: the Pursuit of Happiness.
It is difficult for we Americans to fully grasp the effect we have on the world's psyche, to understand the depth to which American culture has permeated the globe. We dominate the political, economic, military, scientific and cultural spheres as no nation has done before us. This influence is quite invisible to the average American, because it is simply an extension of the institutions we are familiar with at home. We think nothing of seeing McDonald's or posters for The Matrix in Singapore, or Kiev, or Rio de Janeiro.
But imagine a landscape where, let us say, France had the same cultural impact on our shores: La Baguette restaurants on every corner, long lines around the multiplex to see Jules et Jim 2000, French troop transports idling down Interstate 10 in long convoys, French fighters flying to and from French air bases set out in the middle of former farmland, television filled with dubbed French sitcoms named Mon Dieu! and Les Amis, and everywhere on the news nothing but reports of what the French government was doing and how it was going to affect us.
Okay, stop imagining ' this is like huffing paint; you can feel the brain cells dying. But this is the effect we have, and there are forces at work in the world, forces besides Islamic Terrorism who would like to see nothing so much as a confident, determined United States taken down a peg. Or two. Or twenty.
These are hard times, psychologically, to be a person who loves America. Hard because we do, indeed, wish to be liked by the rest of the world. Hard because we know in our hearts that we are good people, decent people who do not leap for joy at the chance to spill the blood of our own children and spend untold treasure just to have the hateful, pornographic thrill of seeing brown people blown to bits.
Yet we are accused of exactly this, and worse. We hear of polls saying that upwards of 75% of countries like England and France see the United States as the greatest danger to the world, and it knocks the wind out of us. No, that can't be right. Can it? Can they really believe that?
Some do. Many do.
Some of this emotion is genuine, real fear and panic brought on by our unparalleled success, and our past miscalculations and blunders. Some of it is envy, pure and simple. Some is driven by pain, the pain of lost greatness and glory. Some is projection, a sense of how tempting it might be to hold such power, from countries with histories of real empires, real governors, and real subjugation.
And some of it ' much of it ' is intentionally aimed at our decency, our sense of restraint and isolation, our desire to get back to our own happy and safe lives and turn our back on the world lost in the delusion that we long to possess it.
The protestors we have seen recently know this very well. They accuse us of being Nazis. We hear people from Berkeley and Santa Monica railing that they live in a Police State, no better than the one in Iraq. They claim we want nothing but oil, filthy lucre ' and ascribe to our determined action the most base motives they can devise: sheer profit. Diversion from economic woes. Racism. Paternal guilt. Bloodlust. The list goes on and on.
Like the terrorists we also face in these quietly desperate times, these people seek to attack us where we are the most vulnerable, and for the anti-American multitudes that means our confidence. They know as well as we do that if we were the cruel, bloodthirsty and vicious killers they claim us to be that they would all be dead in unmarked graves. Gandhi, after all, succeeded in freeing India because his non-violent strategy was aimed at the British ' another fundamentally decent and humane people. Had he tried this against Hitler or Stalin we would never have heard of him, for he would be yet another of the nameless, faceless millions taken away in the night, never to be seen again.
Knowing we are a moral people, knowing that we want above all else to do the right thing, knowing that the idea of invasion and war is a hateful and desperate last resort for us, they target their message to our conscience and confidence, little decency-seeking missiles like BUSH = HITLER, NO BLOOD FOR OIL and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. These people know that the only thing capable of stopping a determined America is America herself. That is why our confidence is under attack in so many ways, and from so many sides.
Is it working?
It is.
There are many principled, patriotic Americans who are opposed to the Battle of Iraq. At least, I assume there are, for they are hard to pick out among some of the craven lunatics we have seen in the streets of the world these past few weeks and months.
I really shouldn't be so hard on these people, because many of them clearly mean well. They seem unable ' or perhaps unwilling -- to face the fact that history has passed them by. For today they are on the side of tyrants, rapists, torturers and mass murderers. Apparently, they'd rather be there than change their minds.
But there is a different class of protestor that we have seen recently, and these are not well-meaning people who only seek to avoid bloodshed. They are people like International ANSWER, supported by the Workers World Party, backed by North Korea, and these people are, to use a somewhat overused, even nostalgic phrase, nothing but lousy, stinking Commies.
You'd think I would be ashamed to use such a jingoistic, hackneyed clich' as 'lousy, stinking Commies.' I am not. Here is a philosophy that has killed no less than sixty million people outright, through executions, forced starvation, Gulags and Great Leaps Forward. They have drawn us into the most filthy fights in Asia, Africa and South America, led us to sully and permanently stain our national honor fighting nasty, brutal wars in God knows how many places, and driven us to back local thugs and dictators whose only redeeming value was their promise to stop this disease from spreading.
Like Islamic Fundamentalists, they are deeply deluded people in love with a fantasy ideology that promises them revenge and the spoils of revolution, rewards that they are unwilling to work for and incapable of generating. Claiming the moral cloak of Robin Hood, these people want to rob from the rich ' and keep it.
Those decent Americans who are doing a patriotic duty by protesting what they believe to be an unjust war do themselves and their cause incalculable harm by marching alongside these unreconstructed liars, nitwits and frauds. They are correct when they say that not all of them are anti-American, or Marxists, or both. But perhaps they can forgive us for getting this impression, as any look at these protests will reveal.
Look at the protest signs shreiking WELLSTONE WAS ASSASSINATED! and ONLY SOCIALIST REVOLUTION CAN END IMERIALIST WAR! These people are not protesting the war in Iraq. What they are interested in is crippling the US. They know they cannot confront us directly. They have no military assets now that the Soviet arsenal is rusting back into the ground. They certainly don't seem to have jobs, so they're not exactly an economic force. And everywhere their political views have been put into practice, the result has been spectacular: collapse and ruin in the best of cases, and repression, torture and mass murder in the worst.
These people are political, economic and cultural failures. They are losers. But they have a secret weapon. If they cannot attack us head on, in open daylight, then perhaps they can erode, decay, and rot our moral foundations slowly, imperceptibly. And they are doing this. And it is succeeding.
If large numbers of our own people can equate The President of the United States with Adolf Hitler, if we actually believe the US is the source of all the misery in the world, if we despise ourselves and our history and expect to be praised for it, if strength and morality and sureness of purpose can be openly mocked as ridiculous anachronisms, if our institutions can be spat upon, our flag burned and our ethics slandered ' if all of this can happen, in public, and we simply accept it, then something is indeed very wrong with our foundation and we had better start paying attention to it right quick while we can still save the building.
I'll tell you something. I'm glad they are marching. I'm delighted they are out in the open, on the street, waving signs like 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB. Like the horrible attacks of September 11th, they have opened our eyes to a threat we have chosen to ignore for thirty years.
These people have launched a coordinated, full-frontal assault on our confidence, which is the reactor that powers all of our greatness, strength and success.
We must fight them. Our survival as a nation, as an idea of a nation, turns on this one battle. Because many of these people marching in the streets are simply shocked into silence when confronted with the evidence ' that we did not put Saddam Hussein into power, that liberal college kids like me had bumper stickers saying BUY IRAQI WAR BONDS supporting Saddam in his fight against the Mad Mullahs of Iran, that we do not have a design on Iraqi oil, that we will not enter Baghdad as conquerors, but rather as liberators, and that all of the Chomskyite lies and deceptions and half-truths that they try to string into a paper-Mache worldview do not hold up to fact and history.
We can argue these points until we are blue in the face. But the easiest way to convince these people is to simply have them ask an Iraqi, or a Cuban, or a Pole what it is like living in this vile pit of corruption called America. They may want to ask these questions behind safety glass, for the reaction to this kind of question from people who have known true misery and oppression is usually quite explosive, an outburst of rage and fury at the insult being leveled at them.
Because it is an insult. These people have lost their freedom, their property and their family members to real tyranny, real murderers, and real repression. They have lived in actual Police States. There is nothing rhetorical about the beatings they have endured. And to have a smug, clueless, morally blinded suburban American college student tell them that we live the same way is a mortal insult to their loss and suffering.
I used to wish that these gullible, pampered, anti-American Americans would go and live in a place like Iraq or Cuba or pre-liberation Poland -- and not as visiting American celebrities to be paraded around as Dictatorial propaganda pieces, but as common, nameless citizens. But that would be cruel of me, because likely we'd never see many of these people again. So I have modified my wish. I now only want them to spend a one-on-one evening with people who have risked their lives to escape such brutality, to see the depths of emotion and anger such bland and thoughtless lies engenders in them.
So for you people still against the Liberation of Iraq, you who claim that the People Spoke during the demonstrations, I have a single question for you:
During those protest marches, where were the Iraqis? There are many tens of thousands of these people living here and abroad. Seemingly to a person, they are passionately for intervention to free their countrymen and their relatives. If your theory is correct, they would be the loudest voices calling for peace and American withdrawal.
So I ask you again: Where are the Iraqis?
A year or two after I learned about confidence that night in the bar, I found myself on the stage of the Gainesville Little Theatre. I went to the audition to baby-sit a girlfriend who wanted a part. There were not enough men auditioning, so they asked me to just come up and read opposite the women. Just read from the book.
I got the lead role, she didn't get anything, and that little affair ended a remarkably short time later.
Anyway, there I was, in my one-and-only appearance acting on a stage, playing Tony Kirby in You Can't Take It With You, which, coincidentally, was the first live stage play I ever saw and which is one of the great American comedies of all time.
It was an early evening in November, 1980, during my sophomore year at the University of Florida. As we were getting into costume and make-up, we were making the usual plans to head out for beers after the show, and maybe watch some of the early Presidential election returns.
Just before we went on, a woman burst into the dressing room, sobbing hysterically. I wish I were making this up.
'Reagan's won! He won! My God, we're all going to die! "
'Wait, hold on, that can't be right. The polls just closed a few minutes ago. And that's just the east coast--.'
'He won, I tell you! Carter conceded! Oh my God, there's going to be a nuclear war!'
Even then, even at the height ' sorry ' the depth of my liberal thinking, I thought this was laying it on pretty thick. I didn't like Reagan, though. In fact, I couldn't stand him. I just thought he was old, wrinkled, feeble-minded and way, way out of touch with his retro patriotism and his idiotic smiling all the time.
See, I was twenty. I had it all sussed. We were a whole new generation, baby. The laws of physics do not apply to twenty year olds, let alone the lessons of history.
I knew nothing. What I learned about life under the Soviets I learned from Sociology Professors who had grown up in the same bland comfort and freedom I had. I was an idiot. They were idiots too. But! They should have known better! That's what we were paying them for.
Then, not long after, I met a friend who more than anyone, got me serious about writing. He was a Bulgarian poet and refugee, a man who risked his life sneaking across borders, hiding out in fields, eluding guards with orders to shoot him on sight. And this man was an intellectual, one of their best and brightest. He was a privileged victim, given access to good apartments, better shopping, even allowed access to western books and magazines. And that was their fatal mistake, you see? He knew what life was like in the west. And he risked that life ' the only life he had ' to come here.
That is where I unlearned the doubts and suspicions I had about my country, thoughts placed in my head by my own egotistical sense of rebellion against my parents and by professors with agendas of personal failure and eyes blinded by bitterness and rejection. That is where I learned, second hand, what life in real Police States was like from someone who bore the fear and anger and frustration and contempt on his face every time he talked of home; home being a laboratory of misery where even the smallest human deeds ' traveling, buying food ' were turned into thousands of little lessons in brutality and humiliation.
We fought against that philosophy. Did we win?
Well, the Soviets have gone. And as we learned not long ago, the memories of the nations freed from their shackles have not faded as fast as those of some of our so-called 'allies.' These recently liberated Eastern European nations respect and admire America for standing up to tyranny ' having the memory of tyranny fresh in your mind will do that to you.
On the other hand, those anti-American ideas, and their progenitors, have not gone away. They have prospered and multiplied in our colleges and universities, unbalanced by any effort to even the scales and let these competing ideas duke it out in the marketplace of free and vigorous debate. The tide of self-hatred, lies and slander has risen many, many times higher than I ever experienced in the early 1980s. That battle is still being fought. And we are not winning. In fact, we are in big trouble.
I have also noted that as these radical factions have gained traction in our universities, we have found our vision more and more hobbled, our ambitions more petty, and our hopes less noble and worthy of our effort. Back in the early '60s, during the run-up to the moon landing, NASA scientists were whispering the phrase Saturn by '70! Well, why not? Vision and confidence were the coin of the realm in those days. I remember watching 2001: A Space Odyssey when it came out in 1968, and thinking, Damn! Thirty years and that's all we can do? A 200 man revolving space station, regular Pan Am orbital service, and a single ship to Jupiter?
As an Apollo kid caught up in the head rush of visions coming true, and the most outrageous dreams unfolding on television in living color, I actually thought 2001: A Space Odyssey was way too conservative. Now here we are, a few years after that iconic date. It's been more than thirty years since we set foot on the moon. We have three men in a series of big boilers orbiting the earth. That's pretty much it.
But, we do have acid-washed jeans and reality TV.
What happened to the big dreams? In his famous Moon Message, President Kennedy said, 'We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things; not because they are easy, but because they are hard.'
Because they are hard. What happened to that loud, muscular, confident voice? What happened to that vision, that ability to see at our feet something invisible to others, far beyond the horizon? Where is our faith that a nation unlike any other can do great deeds, weld and rivet together the most daring and audacious dreams, and boldly go where no man has gone before?
Who else will do these things? If we take ourselves out of the vision business, when will we see the likes of the Moon Landing again, and by whom? The Chinese in 2016? Brazilians in 2054? Who? When?
Time sweeps all things back into the onrushing past. And we as a people have a decision to make: do we go forward, write new pages, and continue to swim upstream, or do we stop and dig in to our PlayStations and tailgate parties and 215 channels and let someone else do it? Maybe no one will do it. Maybe no one is confident enough to even try, let alone succeed. Maybe the peak of human ingenuity and vision was reached on July 20th, 1969, and everything after that was the long, slow decline back into tribalism and superstition.
I, for one, refuse to believe it. I am confident that this will not happen. I know in my heart, as you do too, that our native genius is the ability to recreate and renew ourselves. These dangerous times will pass, and then, perhaps, we can afford to beat a few swords into spinning centrifuges and fuel tanks and plasma drives. Saturn by '70 is a lost opportunity. Saturn by '17 is not. And there are many, many other difficult, bold, audacious and magnificent things we can do when our confidence and vision are in full flower.
We can do them all. We can.
The bloom of American flags after September 11th shocked and horrified many of those who fervently wished such sentiments had gone the way of the Apollo program. We learned much on that awful day. I learned that our pride was waiting, just beneath the surface. It had been there the whole time.
Some people reading this were too young to remember what America was like in the late seventies. Moon landing? Been there, done that. We had just come off of a bitter, endless, pointless war. We had seen riots, assassinations, inflation, stagnation, and international impotence. The Office of the President had been tainted by scandal and treachery, lies and cover-ups, and frankly seemed never to recover. We were weak, we were scared, we were worried and we were timid. We were, in fact, much like I had been in that nightclub, immobilized by fear of failure. The idea that we could succeed at something great and noble had the saccharine taste of nostalgia. Our vision had left us. Our confidence was shot to pieces, lying in a rice paddy, below a Book Depository, in the kitchen of an LA hotel, and inside a DC condominium.
Then along came this man, this former lifeguard, and right off the bat, he had the brazen confidence to say something like this:
'The Democrats say that the United States has had its days in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems, that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.'
And it was all uphill from there.
'Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process.'
What does that mean? It means that a planning commission in Paris or Washington may think they know more about how to run a gas station than the man who runs the gas station.
But they don't. And this:
'How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.'
Brilliant. I honestly used to think this man was an idiot. If all I wrote in my entire life was a single line that pithy and on-target, I'd be deliriously happy. And this:
'Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'
I don't know about you, but I'm speechless.
Shelby Foote, writing in his immortal trilogy, The Civil War, describes Lincoln's power to write and communicate as music, as in, 'And then the Lincoln music began to sound.'
Ronald Reagan had that music. We hear in it again and again, that one pure note of confidence, the belief that what we are doing is right.
'Putting people first has always been America's secret weapon. It's the way we've kept the spirit of our revolution alive '- a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good.'
I'll fight for that. I'll fight for that idea of humanity. I will, so help me God.
And for anyone who loves this nation and this ideal, what can we say about America that can compare to this image:
'I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here'
'After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."
Note to the worried: Our music sings Come here and prosper, not go out and pillage.
I was one of those pilgrims, hurtling through the darkness of my own ignorance, towards this home we share and love so deeply. It's good to be home, at last.
Ronnie, forgive me. I'm sorry. I just had no idea at all.
And if that Lady in White is reading this: Drop me an e-mail. I'll knock you off your feet.
Welcome to the Eject! Eject! Eject! commenter community. Please read and understand the following:
1. This is not a public square. This is a dinner party on personal property. Good conversation is not only tolerated but celebrated here. But the host understands the difference between dissent and disrespect, even if you do not. Louts will be ignored until the bouncers can show them the door.
2. This is a voluntary online community. Your posting of any material, whether in comments or otherwise, grants to William A. Whittle, Aurora Aerospace, Inc. and their affiliates, a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, sublicense, reproduce or incorporate into other material all or any portion of the material posted, for commercial or other use.
3. If a comment does find its way into a main page essay, print, or other media, every effort will be made to credit the individual making the comment. So chose your screen name accordingly, SLNTFRT33@yahoo.com!
Now let's see some distributed intelligence and basic human decency! Don't make me come down there every five minutes!
Comments
Bill,
Great essay...best one so far, IMO. I was going to launch into a bit of commentary here, but I think I'll just wait for the inevitable Chomskyite zombie (Chombie?) to show up here in the comment section and try to "refute" or "disprove" you.
P.S. You're right about Russell at MMM. I check his site every day to see what looniness is happening out there in Cloudcuckoo Land. How he endures it all, I'm not sure, but I'm glad that he does...
Posted by: Xenophon | February 24, 2003 12:15 AM
Wow, if this is the "weak" essay then the strong one must be beyond anything I can imagine. Once again, your writing has amazed me, motivated me, charged me, and driven me. I feel like crying, laughing, breaking out into a loud rendition of "God Bless America" and running around waving an American Flag all at the same time. Thank you!!
Posted by: Greg | February 24, 2003 1:02 AM
Bill, -
First thoughts on reading...
Three quotes from your essay today: -
“We chose to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things; not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” {- President John F. Kennedy -}
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” {- President Ronald Reagan -}
"I’m not fiercely proud to be an American because of my upbringing, or an accident of birth. I read. I think. I make my own judgments. I feel that way based on the evidence." - {Yourself)
IMO, couched behind the Confidence of America, I see a power jealously guarded in all that America is - that of "Discernment". To measure a thing, turn it, and consider again - and only then to act, trusting with confidence in the spirit of the "social experiment" that is America.
The power to do this is truly unique to America - in all other places it is compromised to some degree, for only in America do "the People" have the primacy of rule. (Or leastways the possibility thereof, should they choose to take up the torch)
What America must face now will not be easy, neither the Battles nor the 'self-examination'. But the promised rewards for all the world's peoples are indeed great, and worth the hard effort - careful learning, studied choices - the exercise of discernment - with confidence.
A "quieter" essay. ....Much food for thought.
Thank you, - Power on!
Tiburon
Postscript: - I see you have taken my (and others!) advice and are setting out your lures for the upcoming book! Rats! :-)
Posted by: tiburon | February 24, 2003 1:34 AM
Mr. Whittle,
I think the lack of confidence is taught to American kids at a much younger age than University, it starts in grade school when "self esteem" is valued more than true confidence and achievement. Predetermined outcomes, grade inflation, etc set a lot of people up for a harsh fall later when they are unshielded from reality...maybe making them more ripe for self-hatred later? Confidence comes from believing in yourself, and past accomplishments...if you have neither of those then you will either try harder, or come to hate those that do succeed, or are confident.
Posted by: Matt | February 24, 2003 4:24 AM
Bill, I have often said that Peggy Noonan is the best writer working today.
Well, now I have to revise that. She may be the best writer working for pay, but you have stolen her crown, as far as this humble (but strongly opinionated) critic is concerned.
Of course, when you begin selling books, I'll have to revise my opinion once again - and I cannot wait to do so.
Thanks again for another great essay.
Posted by: Russ | February 24, 2003 5:45 AM
Bill, you have risen above the ranks of us scribblers and metamorphosed into a Force of Nature!
When I see those pro-Saddam protestors on TV, I start thinking, "Never trust a military officer (or critic) who's always prepared for the last war - they can get you killed!!" When I participated in the liberation of Kuwait during Desert Storm, I thought I was working to lift the curse of Vietnam, but if anyone voluntarily chooses to cling to such a curse, there's nothing I can do about that.
Thought for today: For every person who writes in encouraging you to publish your essays, there could be dozens of others who may not send you any letters or e-mails at all, but would purchase your book if it were made available to the public.
Posted by: Charles M. Sakai | February 24, 2003 7:27 AM
Sign me up for a copy. Wow. That was great.
Posted by: Toxic | February 24, 2003 7:56 AM
Awesome.
Posted by: BillB | February 24, 2003 8:12 AM
Thank you again for a wonderful essay. I was brought up on a steady diet of "Victory at Sea" and WWII documentaries, so I was brought up to believe in America at the greatest nation on Earth. None of my college poli sci professors (and I went to the ultra-liberal University of Wisconsin) was ever going to change my mind about that. I'll make sure that my future children are instilled with that same confidence about their country. Hell, I would also make sure that their future father feels the same way about America as I do!
While our space program may have fallen by the wayside in recent years, I do think it's a mistake to think that our spirit of exploration is gone, or that we've turned our energies just to Playstation and the like. American confidence and ingenuity have created the Internet. Just think about it. We are so confident as a nation that we allow ANYONE to write whatever they want and allow ANYONE to read whatever they want at the touch of a button. That's not Saturn, but it's still damn amazing.
America does have more of a consumer culture now, but that's not a completely negative thing. Iraq may possess weapons of mass destruction, but the American consumer is a weapon of mass consumption. For example, we've used our consumer power to help change South Africa for the better. We can use it now support countries that are actual allies and punish countries that would oppose us.
Posted by: Kris | February 24, 2003 8:15 AM
Another grand slam. I felt like both crying and laughing out loud at many times throughout that essay. With the proper credits, can I just make copies and hand this out on the streets?
I want to finance publication of essays from you, Mr. Den Beste, Vic Hanson, whoever else resonates, into a book and just mail it out to random people. I also want to start a guerilla substitute teacher program to impart this kind of thinking on young learners. My mind never stops working on how to get the message out en masse.
Don't ever stop writing. Thank you!
Posted by: Michael Trossman | February 24, 2003 8:40 AM
Mr. Whittle,
Conversational, persuasive, amazing... God can you write!
Your essay "War" was the catalyst that moved me to fully support our upcoming war against Iraq. This is the most accessible, reasoned and persuasive argument against "Transnational Progressivism" I've read.
Man, you rock. Get that book published. I want a copy.
Posted by: Royce Dunbar | February 24, 2003 8:41 AM
Can I just interrupt the back-patting club to ping a contrarian note?
Without a doubt, the Reagan lagacy is that of returning confidence to the USA. My problem with the guy is that so much of his quotes were empty lip service.
At the end of his time in office, SS taxes were increased to make up for Reagan's early cuts so that by the time he left office, taxes were higher than when he went in. Spending never decreased...
And then he re-ignited the war on drugs, ensuring the imprisonment of millions of non-violent victimess "criminals". Now, regardless of how you personally feel about drugs and about the war on them, it is decidedly NOT an approach that respects "millions of individuals making their own decisions". It is "putting people first" by rewarding their decision, good or bad, by imprisoning them... and using billions upon billions of centrally-planned federal tax dollars to do so.
Hypocracy? SURE it is -- even if you've gone as far as you can to convince yourself otherwise. A free country respects the decisions of its own people -- even and ESPECIALLY when those decisions are bad ones.
It's equally as hypocritical as those who would fight for the bill of rights while excepting the second amendment. We cannot fight to free millions of people overseas while we fight to restrict the choices of people at home. I LOVE how the current fight has been framed correctly as freedom versus tyranny, but only if that means we continue to be eternally vigilant against tyrannies on the home front, whether they come from our political friends or our political foes.
Posted by: Undertoad | February 24, 2003 8:50 AM
Mmmuuusssttt bbbuuuyyy bbbooooookkk
Posted by: Zandar Grieg | February 24, 2003 9:01 AM
Just a brief word, Bill.
Awesome, as usual. Thanks.
Posted by: Drumwaster | February 24, 2003 9:01 AM
I'm running out of adjectives to describe your essays, Bill. Fantastic. Moving. Heartening. Inspiring. Thought-provoking.
Thank you.
Posted by: Rachel | February 24, 2003 10:11 AM
Awesome essay, Bill, with two glaring errors, both to do with the protesters, then and now.
You say that the protesters of today sap our confidence. I say that Americans who managed to see the signs these yahoos were carrying (most of them weren't shown on television for some odd reason) were enraged, not frightened or persuaded. The Americans who voted for Mr. bush, for that matter the ones who came to support and respect him post 9/11/01, are quietly and bitterly angry about being equated with Nazis. I suspect that support for an invasion to free Iraq increased since those Stalinist orgies.
The '60s and '70s demonstrations were not right, ask the millions of Vietnames who fled to America. In the afterlife, ask those who were murdered by the Communists or the thousands who died trying to escape in leaky, overloaded boats. Ask the million Cambodians murdered by the Pol Pot regime. Ask the now bald and fat Marines who, like I did, saw the shallow mass graves in Hue.
The demonstrators now, and then, are as wrong as the Flat Earth Society, only more evil. They are not merely wrong, they are actively seeking to keep millions of human beings subject to barbaric regimes that use murder, torture and rape as instruments of social policy. The protesters were despicable then, they are worse now, history has shown the results of their success, bodies stacked upon bodies.
The 'antiwar' will lie and try to say all kinds of pious platitudes, the millions of voiceless dead beg for the refutation of those lies. Dead men do tell tales, the tale they are telling is that resistance to the barbaric regimes and their 'antiwar' apologists is crucial.
The 'antiwar will come on and try to refute this. The proof of their lie is their utter silence when Mr. Clinton was flinging bombs and cruise missiles over half the damned world.
This one gets my full name.
Peter W. Davis, Wills Point, Texas.
Posted by: Peter | February 24, 2003 10:22 AM
Another great essay Bill. I was like you, a cynical, disallusioned, product of the university system. President Reagan's greatest gift to me was his vision of America and the seed of patriotism that grew and bloomed in my heart in September 2001.
Posted by: Mike McBride | February 24, 2003 10:41 AM
Damn, my brother, that was good.
No. That was music.
Posted by: Andrew | February 24, 2003 10:57 AM
To all those anti-American, pro-tyranny, anti-freedom marchers, I say "Imagine No America". Then name one way in which humanity and the world would be in better condition.
Posted by: Jabba the Tutt | February 24, 2003 10:59 AM
"Each individual immigration, from the native Indians crossing the Bering Straight, through Plymouth Rock, Staten Island and LAX"
Think you mean "Ellis Island", but that's my only quibble.
Posted by: John Henderson | February 24, 2003 10:59 AM
Mr. Whittle,
Your Columbia essay made me hang my head in shame. Not for its eloquence, but for the fact that I never served in uniform (ill-health is not a comforting excuse to me). But I loved it just the same.
What I really thank you for, though, is to confess that - like me - you were once a young liberal "idiot" too, who then grew up. It definitely made me feel not alone. Thanks for that. I'm buying your book.
Posted by: Mario | February 24, 2003 11:00 AM
Chinese footprints on the moon - opening day of the Beijing Olympics, summer 2008.
You read it here first.
Posted by: Douglas | February 24, 2003 11:02 AM
Hey Undertoad, here's a political history pop quiz:
According to the Constitution, where MUST all spending bills originate?
Which party had control of Congress when Reagan tried to implement his tax cuts?
"Smells like bacon... Oh, hi Senator Byrd!"
Posted by: Loweeel | February 24, 2003 11:04 AM
Undertoad -
Spending never decreased - with a Democratically controlled congress - that broke every spending agreement they ever made.
Revenues, however, increased markedly.
Posted by: Parker | February 24, 2003 11:06 AM
Some friends of mine live in Nappa. They have a few acres of land with some very good grapes, and make a hundred cases of wine a year, mostly to give away. It's some of the most wonderful stuff I've ever had, but according to them it's no better than OK.
When they have people over to dinner, or go out to someone else's home there's a strange etiquette. It doesn't matter how good the wine is, you never get enthusiastic about it. In an area where the neighbor might have made some of the world's best, being effusive would get old quick. So when you have a sip of the nectar of the Gods, a vintage that can change lives and bring about world peace, you just say "Nice wine. Not bad."
Nice post, Bill.
Posted by: Richard Riley | February 24, 2003 11:12 AM
Another great essay. I grew up in the seventies, and started becoming politically "aware" during the Carter years. Reagan had been President for one year when I started high school. My initial leanings were definately leftward-it was self evident to me that America was in decline. Nixon, Viet Nam, hideous inflation, gas lines, Iran, the military debacle at Desert One. I thought reading anything I could about Che and Castro would make me more authentic.
But at my high school were two students who really stood out. They were Laotion refugees, who could barely speak english and wore Good Will clothes. Paradoxically to me, both these guys aced every subject with ease. One day on a lark I got to talking with one of them, and he told me of his journey to our country; a spellbinding and harrowing tale of hiding in the jungle from soldiers, surviving on insects and whatever else they could scavange, a year at a refugee camp, and finally making it here. It radically altered my perspective, to say the least. Here I was thinking suburbia was hell-how pathetic.
I'm going to let my son, whose know as old as I was then, read some of your essays. I would love to buy him your book.
Posted by: Rick | February 24, 2003 11:16 AM
Bingo! Nice one!
It's very hard for Americans to really grasp just how confident we really are compared to the Europeans. Even little things - like sports stadiums. We argue over the merits of a covered stadum. In France, they don't think it's possible.
I suspect that this, more than anything else, is why we are so detested. Our attitude is, "The difficult we do immediately. The impossible just takes longer." Their attitude is, "The difficult costs too much to do. The impossible is just plain impossible."
But as Caligula said, "Let them hate us. So long as they fear us."
Posted by: Mike McDaniel | February 24, 2003 11:19 AM
I found the link that brought me here over on InstaPundit. This is the first essay of yours that I've read.
Thank you for writing it.
I grew up with an awareness of and belief in patriotism long before Sept. 11th, have been and continue to be proud of a family history of military service, and have traveled extensively in Europe and elsewhere. I have seen for myself places where things are not quite so comfortable as they are here, and have spoken with those who have lived under unpleasant regimes (e.g. East Germany prior to the Berlin Wall's fall). I have learned to value America highly.
I now live among a community of friends who-- recent events have revealed-- do not share many of these views. It was quite a surprise to find such sentiments here at home, more difficult than I ever expected it to be, and so I very much understand the crisis of confidence to which you refer. I will be sharing your essay with them, and I appreciate reading your thoughts.
Posted by: Aspen | February 24, 2003 11:20 AM
Hey whiney, hand-wringing, bleeding heart:
Getcha some of that!
Posted by: Ed Poinsett | February 24, 2003 11:21 AM
Damn you Bill. I really didn't feel like spending 25 bucks. Now I have to.
Posted by: set | February 24, 2003 11:23 AM
Woo-hoo!!!!!!!! Another bulls-eye, Bill. I cannot wait for your book, because I want one for myself and for my dad, who was a history teacher. Capitalism RULES!!! Thanks for making my day (again).
Posted by: Angela | February 24, 2003 11:27 AM
You and deBeste are the top two reasons I will never start a blog. The entire thing would consist of links to you two!
Posted by: B. Durbin | February 24, 2003 11:33 AM
That was amazing.
In fact, I think it even cured my hangover.
Thank you.
Scott, Austin TX
Posted by: Scott | February 24, 2003 11:34 AM
Nice work, Bill. And don't be too discouraged by the rantings of liberal trolls who *can't even spell* (another tribute to the pedantic, pretentious, politicized, and poorly performing public education system).
Posted by: Mike Lutz | February 24, 2003 11:51 AM
Another great essay Bill. I almost want to say I wish every American was a clone of you, but that would detract from what makes us unique and free. A contradiction in and of itself, but a compliment nonetheless.
I read this(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2684329.stm) article recently and it gave me hopes that our space program might finally make the leap towards the next level of space exploration. I wonder, just how much our economy would benifit, from a rock filled with platinum the size of Texas.
Posted by: Mike R. | February 24, 2003 12:02 PM
Bill,
Thanks for giving me things to read that make more sense than a barrel of monkeys (which is hard to do... I mean.. they're monkeys).
Keep it up, yadda yadda, can't wait to read the book, yadda yadda, I'm not worthy, yadda yadda. Cheers.
Posted by: Joshua Ferguson | February 24, 2003 12:10 PM
I am constantly astonished by your writing, and I must echo others - if this was the WEAK essay, then I'll buy the book just to read the one you didn't consider weak.
I am so wishing that I hadn't been in a rush on Friday - I was in NYC to do something, and had a VERY tight schedule. On the corner of 8th and 34th (NY'ers know where I'm talking about), there were people handing out fliers as to why we should inspect Iraq into submission. I intentionally picked up one that had the proper treatment (i.e. - I can still see the footprints on it), and read it as I walked. I was SO tempted to go back and tear apart their list to their faces, but my appointment was more important to me.
I'm waiting for the next time I see someone equate Bush with Hitler. I guarantee you I'm gonna tear 'em a new one.
Posted by: Keith McComb | February 24, 2003 12:13 PM
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1998-2000 in a small northeastern village in Romania. I suppose one of my most vivid memories was when an old farmer discovered that I was an American. His face brightened and said "what took you so long?...we have been waiting for you since 1945". Romania's revolution took place in 1989, and even after 10 years under a "democracy", he was still ecstatic to be seated next to an American. That message didn’t really sink in until I discovered what the majority of Romanians went through during the Cold War. Secret police files were being opened for the first time while I was serving. I think we will hear similar quotes from thousands of liberated Iraqis. We will have to explain to the heartbroken that their mother, father, brother or sister could have been saved in the early days of 2003...but their liberators fell victim to the influence of those who forgot history. A war to free the innocent victims in Iraq is needed TODAY. It is time to stop waiting. We need to free the Iraqis, move on to Iran, then Syria, and push down to Saudi.
Posted by: jake | February 24, 2003 12:14 PM
As the mother of three boys who is trying to raise her children to be strong and free, and to understand that liberty is worth fighting and dying for, thank you for this essay. I'm going to make it mandatory reading for my sons. Keep writing and spreading the word.
Posted by: Susan | February 24, 2003 12:17 PM
Well done! The reader who commented that instruction in American self-hatred begins well before the college years is quite correct. My children (a senior and a sophomore in high school)have, for years, been coming home from school with some truely bizarre versions of world history. Whenever my husband (a history buff) and I have attempted to offer a different assessment of the events in question, my kids have become very uneasy (nervous, actually). What's going on here? I can remember debating and questioning my mother (respectfully)about past and current events, and I never felt nervous about listening to a different opinion. My reaction was - bring it on! - and then I'd happily trot off to school ready to debate (respectfully)the teacher.
Posted by: Jane | February 24, 2003 12:37 PM
Sometimes the best response is a smile and a nod of the head. I'm doing that now.
Posted by: thefallingman | February 24, 2003 12:41 PM
Wonderful essay.
But I, too, must disagree with you about the protestors hanging around from Vietnam. They were wrong then, and their cowardice led to the deaths of over a million innocent people. They are still protesting the US today because to do otherwise would be to admit they were wrong, and they can't, or won't, do that.
They must hate America, and American power, because otherwise they would have to hate themselves.
Posted by: Greg D | February 24, 2003 12:56 PM
Q Max, Bill! I linked over from Glenn's Instapundit, you made my week!
Posted by: Jeff | February 24, 2003 1:04 PM
Some of the Vietnam protestors believed than an American victory over the North Vietnamese would be an injustice to the Vietnamese people, who would be made worse off by being deprived of the benefits of a Communist government.
Those protestors were full of shit.
But others simply argued that American involvement in the Vietnam War, and especially the practice of drafting unwilling participants into that war was an injustice to Americans.
They were not full of shit.
Posted by: Ken | February 24, 2003 1:21 PM
I don't think our goal in Vietnam was wrong. I do think that we fought that war as badly as it was possible to do. If we couldn't commit to winning -- and we couldn't -- then it was time to get out.
That's why I think the protestors were right. We threw our best people into that mess with no plan and no goal. I support getting out of a mess like that. If that was how we were going to fight, then we shouldn't have gone at all.
If, on the other hand, we had gone in to WIN...
Posted by: Bill Whittle | February 24, 2003 1:22 PM
That was a great essay. I love that you hit on one of the most patriotic feelings of being American: If not us, then who?
Those on the left, who hate our freedoms and our democracy, will never fight to support liberty. They would not lay their lives on the line for their own freedom much less for the people of a faraway third world police state, and they become jaded knowing that others would.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it"
Thomas Paine, 1776
We know that the left will not support freedom; therefore it falls on us to do so.
Posted by: Bildo | February 24, 2003 1:24 PM
There is something really odd -- not at the core, but on the skin. You wrote a great post, but for some reason you had to dis "the Vietnam protestors". And folks piled on.
Let me get this straight. People got arrested, teargassed, and beat up marching in the streets, because they said the McNamara and LBJ and, later, Nixon and Kissinger lied about the war. And now, 30 and 40 years later it turns out -- they were right. McNamara himself conceded that.
Just how, exactly, were the protestors wrong? Or even unpatriotic? I remember a guy (one of the three organizers of the Moratorium) who got his start during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. After the fall of Saigon, he was one of the first to photo-document the Khmer Rouge genocide.
Stand beside people when you measure their size.
I don't take a back seat to anybody as a patriot. But I don't think ya gotta whitewash America to love it, nor throw mud on honest people to prove you're righteous: do you?
Posted by: theAmericanist | February 24, 2003 1:31 PM
Bill,
Fine piece of writing, sir. Thank you.
Posted by: addison | February 24, 2003 1:41 PM
What an incredible essay. And this is the weak one?
This should be given to every history and social studies student in the country.
And sign me up for the book, too.
Posted by: Don Collett | February 24, 2003 1:59 PM
Bill,
Outstanding article - again. I'll echo the post above that you are one of the reasons I won't start a blog. I simply couldn't compete or say things half as well as you.
Orion
Posted by: Orion | February 24, 2003 2:04 PM
Sir,
Reading your essay was an emotional experience. I want to buy your book, and I will make my three kids read this essay. If this is the weak one, I will need a complete cardiac workup and admission to ICU after reading a strong one. You have convinced me to abandon any pretense to writing for pay in the future. If it is any consolation, the muscular confidence your lamented still exhists in the military. Astounding writing, Jim
Posted by: LTC Jim Gierlach | February 24, 2003 2:11 PM
Bill--
My father was in the US army for 20 years. He fought in WWII and Korea. No one in his right mind would have called my father a liberal, but he was against the Vietnam war for the same reasons you have expressed, that being that if we were not over there to WIN, which means the systematic and total destruction of the enemy, then we shouldn't be over there at all.
Posted by: Ratbane | February 24, 2003 2:17 PM
That was a classic essay! Thank you, sniff, sniff.
Posted by: Becky | February 24, 2003 2:20 PM
"I ask you again: Where are the Iraqis?"
The same place that social workers were in 1996, during welfare reform. Not for it.
The reason is analogous. War in Iraq will probably be good for the Iraqi people (ignoring the dead and maimed ones). It is bad for the American people. Why? It is costly, for one, but mainly because it exposes us as a hegemonic power; hegemons attract terrorism. We should not be trying to attract terrorism. We should be trying to avoid it. Pushing around the world is not in the interest of America as a whole. It can, of course, be in the interests of American subgroups (oil service companies; the military-industrial complex, to name two). And it can be in the interest of foreigners.
The question, for an Iraqi, is easy enough. Why liberate yourself, at prohibitive cost in money and lives, when you can get a big dumb government to do it for you - all expenses paid? The question for Americans, I think, is not so cut and dried. Charity warfare is not the mission of the US government. The mission of the US government, I should remind people, is to establish justice for Americans, to ensure domestic tranquility among Americans, to provide for the common defense of Americans, to promote the general welfare of Americans, and and secure the blessing of liberty - to Americans. Not to the world.
We should not be invading the world for charity. No matter how bad a foreign state is, we should only be using military force against it if the benefit to Americans is greater than the cost.
The message from the Bush administration to the world is increasingly clear: "get nukes or we'll push you around". North Korea has already answered the call. Iran will within a few years. Perhaps Egypt will be next. These are regimes we want to have nukes? This proliferation makes it increasingly likely that nuclear devices will fall into the hands of terrorists. We should not be encouraging nuclear proliferation; we should be opposing it by the only effective means: peace. War, as a means to prevent proliferation, is foolish. Regimes do not give up weapons when they feel threatened. They get more and better weapons.
Undertaking to invade the world for democracy (or whatever) may be a fine cause. But it should not be funded on my tax dollar, nor with soldiers and weapons which are supposed to be defending me - not riling up foreigners to hate me. The result of such hatred, in a nuclear armed world, is going to be nuclear terrorism. By pushing around the world now, we are increasing the probability that the first nuclear terrorist attack is against New York, or LA, or Washington. This is not wise.
Let those that wish to liberate Iraq do it privately. Set up a charity to collect money. Set up a volunteer army for people to join, or hire some mercenaries. That is, if you have, shall I say, the confidence of your convictions. I suspect, though, that few people (if any) of those reading this would contribute much to a charity army trying to remove Saddam Hussein. Certainly not the many thousands (on average) that you are currently paying in taxes, which goes to the Pentagon. I also suspect that few of you (if any) would volunteer for such duty. That you people are happy to liberate Iraq only with my tax dollar tells me all I need to know about your "confidence".
Posted by: Leonard | February 24, 2003 2:20 PM
...(sorry - second post - but...): -
concerning the "high frontier" and towards an "educated imagination" =
The HighLift people have redone their home page graphic with a nice watercolour
They say Ten Billion Dollars ($US) to first payload. Confidence, anyone? (Bill GATES, where are you?!)
http://www.highliftsystems.com/
Posted by: tiburon | February 24, 2003 2:21 PM
OH, and to "Leonard", just above. Commies pray every night to their god, (themselves) - for "utopians" like you to prosper.
You just don't get it, do you.
What you have written is morally reprehensible - It was mistakes by the "West", of which undeniably the US is a part, that have led to Iraq, North Korea, et.al., acquiring these weapons. What? Now we just wash our hands and go home???!!!
What you have written is also the height of illogic (or as said above - a pollyanna-ish "utopianism") - Have you the faintest idea of what it is to live under a fascist dictatorial regime? You think all it takes is money and lives to 'rise up'? You remind me of the folks who criticize retroactively the concentration camp inmates, who with bellies well full from the grass they ate last week's meal, were to rise up and rush the electrified wire and machinegun towers. Are you on the same planet as the rest of us, Leonard? Or are you by nature just a cold and cruel (but oh so proud) isolationist - Fortress America and all our problems will just go away.
What you have written is also supremely uneducated. Have you no DISCERNMENT? Your little "essay" is chocker with platitudes, but do you ever really examine anything you write? WHEN, EVER in the entire recorded history (oops, excuse me - history means it was recorded - heh!) of humankind, has a group of people had something, treasure, land, resources - and been able to defend it without being prepared for battle - and by battle I mean GOING TO THE ENEMY WHEN REQUIRED? Or perhaps you would prefer to duke it out in Riverdale. Maybe you would. Good feeling that, just really fulfill your defeatist and guilt-ridden world view, eh? And I reel with vertigo when I hear people like you espouse the view that of all people - Islamic Fundamentalists! - will not come a-knockin' if we just "leave them alone". Have you ever read a single solitary book about Islam, Leonard? (Coles notes and/or the apologist historical revisionist crap that's out there now doesn't cut it - sorry)
Get it, Leonard, now or later. The world HAS gone Global. US is alpha male. As Edmund Burke so aptly explains to those whose ears are not stuffed with wax - peace proceeds out of ORDER. You wanna rewrite the rules? Go up to the hills and build your own community. That's still allowed here in America.
And I feel ridiculous for having to point out the obvious here - but where is it NOT in America's direct interest to have order, and thus peace, at the wellheads of our chief foreign sources? If this results in more Freedom and Opportunity and Safety for several tens of millions of people, people like you are just gonna have to choke on it.
What a waste of bytes this is - It's obvious to me (oh..."IMO"), that Bill's essay just went completely over dear Leonard's head.
Please see my post above, fellow sane commentators - I find it helps to take the taste of defeatism out of my mouth...
Posted by: tiburon | February 24, 2003 3:04 PM
Thanks, Bill
Posted by: Rich | February 24, 2003 3:11 PM
Another nice essay, and your still working on the "C"s! (Courage, Confidence). One democrat web-site recently went nuts ranting about the dangers of private space-launch firms landing equipment on the moon, saying it could destabilize the moons orbit and send it crashing into the Earth. Some outlooks produce people who are afraid to do ANYTHING, and will even cling to physically impossible outcomes to justify their fears.
Kind of like Leonard's post above, where he argues can't use the military to do anything that might piss anybody off. I guess they should just guard the Canadian border or something. That's just letting childish fears produce inaction. If we went for his future of privately funded right-wing mercenary armies, does anyone think the left would go along?
Posted by: George | February 24, 2003 3:20 PM
Sir,
After reading various articles from pro-war and anti-war perspectives, something becomes clear about the dialogue. It's not a dialogue, but rather just differing groups talking within themselves. The real points of disagreement are never really brought out to the forefront.
For example, few people will argue that America is not a great place to live. Few people will argue that the American public are not generous and well-intentioned. Few people will argue against the American founders' ideas of liberty and government by the people. These are not points of contention.
Disagreements arise on very different matters, but unfortunately, no one seems to write about them.
One of the central issues is the degree to which we can trust our leaders. Many people would trust our leaders when they say that they want to spread democracy. Others do not trust them - and for reasons they claim are historical fact.
Another crucial matter is the possibility that the war may do more harm than good by further tarnishing America's image, by provoking more terrorist attacks, and by decreasing international cooperation. The anti-warriors are guilty of assuming worst-case answers to these questions, just as pro-war writers are guilty of assuming best-case answers.
Everyone would be best served by open-minded discussion of these and other crucial specific issues - because the real disagreements lie within.
The freedom of speech and expression is a characteristically American freedom. It is great to hear everyone using our freedom to discuss and argue important issues. It would be ideal, however, for people to start speaking to others who disagree with them and to start speaking about the particular bones of contention.
Posted by: michael | February 24, 2003 3:53 PM
Wow.
Posted by: E. Nough | February 24, 2003 4:02 PM
I am utterly speechless. That was perfect. I'll buy the book, but you need your own TV show.
I am reminded of a conversation I recently had with an extremely liberal client (the beneficiary of a nice trust) wherein I raised many of the same points (though far less eloquently). When I got to the point about the role of communists in the anti-war movement, her response was, "What's wrong with communists? Why are you so against communists?"
I am filled with doubt with respect to many things; communism isn't one of them. But how sad that somone who had enjoyed AMERICAN freedom and prosperity could even ask that question.
I doubt she ever heard the music.
Posted by: Bob | February 24, 2003 4:06 PM
Bill, the only way I can give your essay the compliments it deserves- for the compliments to make any sense- is to go over it brick by brick:
I can remember the years of being a young, naive, pup: I'm still IN those years. Beauty, a wicked tongue, and a woman who project unimaginable, seductive power across the room? Been there, done that. However the hell your friend worked up the sheer brazen audacity to tear through her there on the dance floor, probably neither of us know. Can people DO that in real life, can newbies move up to women who can be as cruel as pretty, and say the right thing with the right attitude to get her to like you? Forgive me if I seem weak, but I STILL can't fathom that kind of super-sized, awesome confidence, to hang back after a shoot-down and try a shot of my own. Just say "to hell with it" and put out an attack of your own to show someone they aren't invincible? I can immediately tell, this is going to be one hell of a lesson in the value of confidence.
When you talk about the moon, the seeds of the doubt (what doubt? I'll get to that) are planted. America is thiiiiiiiiiiiis big: America can conquer space. Sure, the Soviets paved the way in space, but AMERICA is the one who relentlessly, implacably pushes the boundaries of space exploration. Other people have the ability, so why don't they do off to make these attacks? Confidence? Is THAT the reason Canada's hugest space accomplishment has ben the Canadarm? It would be like us, wouldn't it: incredibly useful and hella reliable, but at the end of the day JUST NOT ENOUGH to satisfy the infinite dreams and infinite possibilites of people who accept ZERO limitations on their own potential.
And so as you go on, talking about how America's strength is created by fulfilling these desires for people to prove how good they are, and find the happiness which has always eluded them. Does a government program need to be created called the Happiness Enabling Act? GOD NO: just ask EVERYONE in your nation who had a friend who helped them out at a critical time. Ask anyone who had the luck of finding someone's attention to tell them about how skilled/ pretty/ brilliant/ hardworking you are, so hire them, dammit! Ask anyone who had that one flash of inspiration to make a product to change lives: or who keeps having flashes of clarity and understanding, which are then transcribed to text on the Internet to change thousands of lives in the last three months. :) America GIVES HAPPINESS JUST LIKE IT IS, no matter how many socialists want to say otherwise. To the point where not merely America's "economic power", but the American dream, gets into the heads of every last person on Earth and offers them all they've ever wanted. People in black defying gravity, cheap food with a nice taste, and POWER OVERWHELMING: power people can't even hope to explain without bringing up "exploitation." Yet when the naysayers look at America's true brilliance, invention, and confidence? What can ANSWER possibly say to that?
I'm thankful that you don't like seeing brown people die. ("Vut about tha Hindus?" has been one of my fave quotes since July 2000, even though I'm Catholic. But I digress.) You quite nicely summarize what the America-loving optimists of the world believe: that America wouldn't oppress Iraq just for the hell of it. Just for a bit of oil, when they have more money than millions more people than themselves combined. Maybe even "more money than God" as my namesake put it. They just wouldn't, it doesn't make SENSE.
But then you talk about the horror of America actually losing in this fight for hearts and minds. Even when people enjoy all the spoils of America, they fear, envy, maybe even HATE its personality. Is this possible? So many of my friends, yes FRIENDS, feel badly about the war, even though it is necessary. Judith, for one, had a little poster on the front of her binder for the "Campaign to Stop the War in Iraq."
(For those who don't know the effect on me: Picture Margaret Thatcher kissing a portrait of Joseph Stalin, or Churchill saying that Hitler was not that bad a bloke. It amounts, on a very personal level, to about the same thing. I've already lost two girls to an INABILITY to convince them of the necessity of my politics- I'll be damned if I lose her affection, too.)
Then you talk about the line, which you carve in STONE, between the honest protestors who feared the evil things we had to do to fight a desperate defensive action in Vietnam, versus the EVIL (and I'm thankful you used the terms you did) Communists who subscribe to an ideology that has scourged the entire planet in even more bloodier and total ways than Hitler did. You don't need to play the Red Alert series to understand: even the mild version of Stalin, where he sexually abuses a female staff officer and strangles a comrade officer to death for failing to note an Allied Radar Dome is chilling- ESPECIALLY when you remember that this is outright tame for Communism. All that suffering... all that death... whatever America has done is NOTHING compared to this. You take the well-deserved shots at the sponsors of these attacks on America, and exhort ALL Americans to consider the source, and consider the track record, of the people who hate what America IS.
You go right on swinging, hitting the EU and their elitist syncophants so hard they fall right to the floor. You move through them without even blinking, and state:
America may not be perfect. But we are the BEST. We will help anyone who earns it- not welfare, but WHAT WE HAVE. Join our cause now!
You tell us about your feelings for Reagan and his ideology- feelings I shared when I was 15, I'm sorry to say- then tell us about someone who TRULY lived under communism? "The best alternative to capitalism," they called it: what did the Hentai Reviewer say? Saying that communism is a good alternative "is sort of like saying that cup of concentrated carbolic acid you just drank was the best cup of concentrated acid you've ever had." And every day, I'm still thankful that I never have to violate my principles by pretending to ignore the arguments against Communism, and support the system that delivers justice and prosperity to ALL who are willing to pay the price.
Don't worry about THIS college student, Mr. Whittle- I'm not giving up. I'm still dreaming big, and I'm still going to do what I KNOW will help people, instead of lending my relatively meagre powers to people who would usher in a Soviet Canada/ America.
Your essay convinced me of something: why live in a society where you're held back? The "laws of physics" and what everyone thinks they know about America JUST CAN'T HOLD AMERICA BACK. You guys are truly AMAZING in a way a country that devotes itself to stability and security cannot.
The seeds of doubt in the smug anti-Americanism, this constant thought that the "barbarians are always at the gate," the smug presence of idiots like Rick Salutin and Heather Mallick representing the government opinion so sit down and listen to your betters CONSTANTLY grates on me. I tried saying that Canadians are Marines with UN cred at my blog. But with a government, with an cultural construct like what we have now, I have to admit something.
I feel AMERICAN. I wanna be like your country. And the restraints of the "system" that will perpetually keep it from flourishing here, resorting to constant attacks every DAY on what simple, helpful, KIND conservatism is, simply aren't cutting it.
You know me: admitting Canada isn't #1 is nothing short of a grievous wound to my book. But I love what America stands for more. If that means I lose the security I've got right now for a culture don't know HOW well I'll perform in:
So be it, eh?
Posted by: trevalyan | February 24, 2003 4:11 PM
That's how words are supposed to be used.
For what it's worth, I have no intention of letting Apollo be the apex of American achievement. There's a universe full of interesting places out there, and the least we owe each is a personal visit.
Besides, Apollo was kind of prissy. We can't end on that note. This time, let's go to the stars with Athena...and let's stay.
Posted by: Steve | February 24, 2003 4:44 PM
From your "young Padwan," Bill...
WOW. There are no other words. Just, wow.
And Leonard:
We *are* a hegemonic power. And it's not really a secret. We've clealy already attracted terrorism without "doing anything" (and I'm not even going to entertain the argument that it's possible to do something to deserve the deaths of any innocent people).
If we refuse to address the issue of terrorism and the problem with Saddam, then who will? France?
The truth is that if we don't address threats to our security - there is no one who will.
Please give me a good reason why we shouldn't be using American tax money to protect Americans.
Posted by: Demosthenes | February 24, 2003 4:58 PM
Just a reminder to those in favor of "liberating" Iraq:
What is the post-conflict strategy in Iraq? If it isn't aggressively geared toward political and economic development, we are in danger of leaving the Iraqis worse off. UNICEF and WHO have concurred that half a million Iraqis would require medical attention after an invasion. 10,000 Iraqis could die from dislocation-caused exposure to measles. Measles! It's an 80-cent vaccine. Simple to prevent those deaths. But will the US make it part of the post-conflict agenda?
I would agree that regime change could be better for the Iraqis if the example of Afghanistan didn't look so bleak. Have Afghani lives improved? I read a report that the US sent 400,000 textbooks to Afghanistan, but how many schools have we built post-conflict to house students? How many teachers have we trained to instruct them without foisting extremist overtures? How much local governance have we established to ensure that funding for education does just that?
The data doesn't support the idea that the US is "liberating" Afghanistan. In fact, the Bush Administration's budget this year allocated $0--they simply forgot (or we should hope)--for aid to rebuild Afghanistan. And now we're going to "liberate" Iraq too?
I hope I hear you folks itching for war out screaming for funding to rebuild Iraq after the bombs rain down. I hope this talk about liberation isn't just a veiled attempt to legitimize constabulary intervention when other methods are possible to ensure American safety.
We are the greatest state in the world, so long as we act like it. I love this country. I would question protestors too if I was 100% certain the Bush Administration would be there to implement a Marshall Plan-style renovation of Iraq. The data from Afghanistan suggests otherwise.
Posted by: Dutch | February 24, 2003 5:01 PM
Micheal: -
I'm uncertain whether this is the forum to discuss these matters - the thread has primarily been dealing with the direct issues that Bill has raised in his essay. I'd request that if he wishes, he act as moderator in this regard.
That said, there are two principal points you make in your essay, the first of which I believe IS centrally addressed in the essay "Confidence".
First: -
"One of the central issues is the degree to which we can trust our leaders. Many people would trust our leaders when they say that they want to spread democracy. Others do not trust them - and for reasons they claim are historical fact."
Bill speaks about the 'corruption' of academia, I'll not go into more detail and presuppose you read his essay closely. What is the answer to your first question, then? Let me turn to Professor Paul Eidelberg, and draw an excerpt from an essay he published today - "A Question of Decency".
"Modern political science, like the social sciences in general, propagates the doctrine of moral relativism. According, political science, like sociology, anthropology, psychology, and criminology, provides no rational foundation for decency. Traceable to Machiavelli, modern political science reduces politics to an egotistical struggle for power. In fact, students in colleges and universities are taught that politicians use such notions as the “common good” or the “public interest” as a façade to advance their own personal interests. Don’t expect higher education to cultivate decency."
"Now, it so happens that any social science that propagates moral relativism removes one moral constraint on the behavior of public officials. Hundreds of federal, state, and local officials in the United States are convicted each year on federal corruption charges. Surely the doctrine of moral relativism, which permeates every level of education in the democratic world, cannot but contribute to this corruption."
[......]
"This dogma, ever trumpeted by the media, is symptomatic of the prevalence of moral relativism in the democratic world. It is precisely because all expressions of opinions about good and bad are morally equal (and must therefore be tolerated in a democracy) that hardly anyone takes opinions seriously."
I believe it would be fair to say, Micheal - and believe it would also prove out in demographic analysis, - that the overwhelming majority of the anti-war protestors are either a direct product of this educational phenomena, or are in fact among it's leading promulgators. As absent a 'moral compass' in political analysis, these individuals are constrained (speaking generally, of course) in their ability to entertain discussion of consequence on this central issue you identify, or many of the other issues that arise out of the present conflict.
Secondly: -
"Another crucial matter is the possibility that the war may do more harm than good by further tarnishing America's image, by provoking more terrorist attacks, and by decreasing international cooperation."
Here, Micheal, I am struggling to understand why you believe this issue would, in a serious debate, even "rise above the radar".
- America's image will be as equally boosted among those who support her now, for demonstrating concerted purpose, and I cannot imagine who you are referring to, whose image of America would be worse following war. Arab totalitarian regimes? France/Germany/Belgium? It seems pretty clear in an objective view of the data, that these groups already view America in the worst possible light.
- "Provocation (of) more terrorist acts" I think all informed folk would agree is likely. America is now on notice, in any case. But is it possible to even realistically contemplate the alternative? With unchecked might in the hands of our sworn enemies, America would indeed become the "paralyzed giant", served up for the 'death of a thousand cuts'. As on March 7th, 1938, when Hitler re-militarized the Rhineland, Saddam Hussein has bespoken his intentions when he ejected the inspection regime in 1998. The consequences of such an act were clearly spelled out in the agreements terminating hostilities following the Gulf War. A response is overdue if all "collective security" is not to be rendered a complete joke internationally.
Which brings us to the last aspect of your curious "major issue" in the war/no war debate:
- "Decreasing international cooperation". WHAT "international cooperation"?
I must agree with you that dialogue on the war is critical. Your first question is of some import - thou