How in the Sam Hill have we gotten this stupid?
And why is it that during my four days in the crowded streets of Aspen, Colorado, during this Leftfest, at a time when the town was so blue as to be ultraviolet and visible only to bees, did I see one – one! – black person, and him driving a cab? How long are we going to let these celebrity millionaires, these limousine liberals, these champagne socialists, tell us they are the party of the people, of working people, of the middle class? How many times are we going to let someone who makes 25 million dollars for two months of standing around making faces tell us we need our taxes raised and that they’d be willing to give up a million or two to show what good sports they are? How long are we going to tolerate being called racists by professional race baiters and how many Uncle Tom / House Nigger insults will Colin Powell and Condi Rice have to endure from these self-appointed champions of African Americans? How many times is a suspender-wearing gasbag going to wish me “Courage!” before he realizes that he and the rest of his defeatist ilk are doing their level best to destroy every last semblance of courage in this country and are in point of fact the exact last place we look to for encouragement? How many times are we going to hear from famous high school dropouts how stupid the President of the United States is? And how, dear God, how immeasurably far is the fall from Winston to Ward Churchill?
I, for one, have had enough of it, as Ponytail discovered in LAX a few weeks ago. I’m done. I’ve had it. Even at my most liberal, I was enthusiastically pro-capitalism and pro-military, and even so it just floors me when I think about how many opinions I had assembled on top of a foundation of near-total ignorance.
The kind of willful corrosive rot eating at the foundations of our Sanctuary cannot be explained away by mere stupidity – much as I had hoped these past few years. So we’ll have to take a close look at this world of ours, and a deep look at the kind of creatures that have built it.
Not too long ago, I was watching a documentary concerning large numbers of adolescent bottlenose dolphins that were washing up on shore. The cause of death was unlike anything seen before. Each had suffered a severe blunt trauma injury to the midsection, like they had been rammed with a broomstick. Similar deaths were occurring among harbor porpoises across the Atlantic.
Naturally the first thought was to blame ourselves. Perhaps the Navy was responsible. US sonars are astonishingly powerful when they need be – they boil the seawater surrounding the emitter with just the strength of the sound they can generate.
But that would have resulted in the compression and damage of the air-filled areas of the baby dolphins – the lungs, mostly – and this was not the case. This was a sharp, pointed impact. They tried to string this out into an hour-long mystery, but I knew from the first few minutes who the real culprits were.
I grew up on Flipper. As a kid I completely freaked out at the end of the movie when the blood trail in the water led to Flipper dying on the beach. I have written science shows on dolphins, swam with dolphins, worked with dolphin researchers. And so I knew, almost immediately, what was killing these dolphins. I’d seen Flipper ram that same damned drugged tiger shark right in the gills something like fifty thousand times. I knew what was going on.
It wasn’t humans. It was other dolphins. Males were killing the children that they had not sired. This is common in the animal kingdom. It is a survival trait among mammals, ensuring that the strongest, most dominant bloodlines survive.
I mention this because while I love and admire dolphins, I don’t fetishize them. They are highly intelligent, very social creatures, but I do not think we will find them at the edge of the galaxy as astral travelers propelled by advanced spiritual auras.
Some people do. Some people think dolphins are the most advanced life form on the planet – far beyond we filthy killer apes and our evil, planet-spoiling technology. To many people, being a dolphin is as good as it gets: the pinnacle of gentleness and insight and playfulness and non-violence.
So it’s a little hard to watch the video of grown dolphins ramming these sleek little infants hard enough to send them flying across twenty feet of open sea. And make no mistake about it, these killers are indeed playing with their prey: tossing them, chasing them, and bashing their little perfect bodies again and again, long after they are dead. We know that female dolphins that lose infants in captivity become morose, depressed – practically suicidal. What were these female dolphins feeling as I watched this video in horror? Who could they call for help? What price would these young males pay for this act of torture and murder? How could they be sure that these killers don’t kill again?
The Simulated Progressive I keep in a little mental cage for moments just like this wanted to know: who taught these young killers the cycle of violence? What part of dolphin society was responsible? How do we break this cycle of violence? What are the root causes of this aggression? What governmental agency can we form to prevent such deaths in the future? And most importantly, how was Karl Rove able to issue instructions to these killer dolphins so that I could use them to advance the Right Wing Agenda?
Of course, this wasn’t really murder. This is nature. These are animals. This aggression is instinctual; dolphins share it with all other mammals. We don’t think twice when we see a male lion murder a rival’s cubs, or when two mountain goats battle for dominance, or two elephant seals, or two gazelles. It’s nature. Mnnnnn…nature….
I have seen footage of the gentle chimpanzee, Man’s closest relative, with whom we share 98% of our DNA, nuzzling their parents lovingly, eating fruit and playing tag with their siblings. I have seen a chimp die of a broken heart after the loss of his mother. I have also seen a platoon of chimps split up into teams and herd a terrified, screaming monkey into a kill zone, and then watched as these playful, gentle cousins tore that shrieking animal literally limb from limb and gorged themselves on bloody little hands and arms.
What’s the difference between a Chimp digging a small twig into a termite’s nest, and a scientist firing a high-energy proton to split an atom?
Practice. Nothing more.
Like humans, chimps are intelligent, social, warm-blooded mammals, just like bottlenose dolphins, just like the Killer Whales that likewise torture and play with sea lion cubs and often leave them floating, uneaten: murdered for sport.
This is what intelligent, social, warm-blooded mammals do: they kill things. Sometimes they kill their own. Wolves do it. Lions do it. Chimps do it. Even the gentle dolphin does it.
But when we do it, it’s murder.
Progressives will see me using this argument to defend murder and killing as natural and unavoidable. They will, as has become routine for them, be precisely, 180 degrees wrong.
Murder and aggression are indeed a natural, inborn quality that often manifests itself among the young males of social mammals. It lurks there in the R-complex of each of our big brains, just waiting to be cut off in traffic. You could make a case that humans deserve the same break that chimps and dolphins and all the others get: that killing is part of nature, and that underneath all the Old Navy lurks what is essentially an animal – an animal of a species at least one million years old, wearing around it the thinnest veneer of civilization for about one-half of one percent of its existence. I’m not going to make that case at all. THAT is where the road to Nazism lies.
Why have so many people become so ashamed of themselves? Murder and rape are universal in the animal kingdom: only one species even tries to prevent such things and punish the perpetrators, and that species is us. We are not the only animals that kill. We are not the only ones that hunt terrified prey, we are not the only ones that murder our own kind (freaking dolphins, people!), and we are certainly not the only ones that destroy ecosystems – far from it.
We are, however, the only ones that try to do something about it. We should be taking the energy we use to beat ourselves up and spend it patting ourselves on the back, for human history is nothing but the upward, halting, tentative progression out of the world of death and misery and into a world of law and decency.
In 1651, Thomas Hobbes wrote of such a natural state in Leviathan:
…No place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
All Hobbes could imagine to remedy such an existence was an absolute monarchy. I believe if he could have read Jefferson and Paine he would have amended his solution.
The world Hobbes describes may still be found in a few places in the world, places like the rain forests of the Amazon and New Guinea. Progressives speak of such places as Nirvana. As Nirvanas go, the rents are very reasonable, and the people who speak of such primitive cultures as such could pocket some serious change should they sell their houses in Connecticut or the Marina District or the Hollywood Hills, and do what any sensible person would do upon discovering Nirvana: move. They certainly have the means to go. And yet they do not. Why? If our society is so poisonous, and their primitive one so authentic, then why do they not go? Could it be that deep down they understand that the only thing truly authentic about hunting dinner and gathering firewood and carrying water and wearing leaves is that such authenticities are an authentic pain in the ass? But if such people are seen wearing cotton, or wishing for indoor plumbing, then somehow their lives are judged to be ruined by these same avatars who would no sooner live like that than do any other species of hard, relentless, grueling work.
We are related to nature – we carry those killer genes, and they have brought us a long way. But we are more than genes. Laws and Justice and Freedom and Sanctuary are inventions like fire and the wheel, and like fire and the wheel we have been improving them steadily with each generation. Science and art and literature – medicine! -- human inventions, unique to us.
Why then, do so many people – most of them on the far left – so fundamentally hate humanity?
I think it must be the constant frictions between what they hope people are and what they really are. The French Revolution produced the New Man, free of religion, and fully decimal. The streets ran red with blood for a decade – then came Napoleon, and then back to the Bourbon kings that they rebelled against in the first place. If I shared that history, I’d be a cynical, defeatist, Frenchman too. The New Soviet man was to be different: communal humanity Mark II with all the latest improvements. 50 million died, shot in the back of the head in basements and forests, or starved in frozen camps and coal mines, followed by collapse, ecological ruin and endless misery. And still these leftists push the same ideas. Poor bastards. No wonder they are so damn cynical and depressed.
Here they sit, surrounded by laws and medicine and art and culture: despising themselves. Remarkable, isn’t it? These people, who pride themselves on nuance, see no difference between a naked human pyramid of ten prisoners lasting two minutes and piles of corpses six million deep. Both shameful, therefore, both equal in their eyes. And we are the ones who only see things in black and white?
I believe that in general, humans are good and kind. But some of us are beyond the laws and civility we have created inside our Sanctuary, hidden from the brutality of nature and lawless men. If there are killers spawned anew each generation among the gentle dolphins, then there are killer humans, too – and this will not change no matter how deeply we may wish it. And that is why I continue to argue for what to so many of us is plain to see: no people are perfect, but some societies behave better than others. It is one thing to kill to oppress people and make them do your bidding, and something else again to kill those oppressors and expand the bubbles of safety and security that are so pervasive in the West that many cannot possibly imagine what the natural state of man is like.
I wrote, “can’t imagine,” but can’t remember is much more on target. Our parents knew more about the reality of human nature than people my age: they saw what the Japanese did in Nanking and what the Germans did in Poland. My grandmother grew up in an America without electricity, running water, or an indoor bathroom. Depriving a convicted murderer of these things today would be considered a human rights violation. The whole idea of “Human Rights” is an invention that we basically gentle and kind apes have made to protect us from the horrors and savagery of our ancestors’ existence. Our parent’s grandparents knew death and pain up close and personal; they slaughtered animals with their own hands, lost half or more of their children before they became teenagers, and lived in a very hard world where stealing generally meant that someone would die as a result of what was stolen from them. These people had no problem discerning victim and perpetrator, and determining where the blame and the responsibility lay.
Such a world becomes ever more distant and fantastic. We will have hell to pay if we don’t remember such times, and many that were much worse, as a measure of how far we have come. The hell we will have to pay is that we will have to go back there, as a species – again. And again. And again. Until we remember what we have built for ourselves, and what it has cost, and what it continues to cost us to maintain.
So why -- someone? anyone? – why do otherwise intelligent and educated people so despise American society, which has achieved more in the way of individual rights, science, arts, medicine, diversity, cooperation and prosperity than any other in history? Why would they oppose such a society when it is trying to bring these blessings to people who have spent thirty years cowering in dark places, fearful of letting the slightest word slip, or betraying their entire family with an askew glance or unguarded moment? Why would someone so viciously oppose freeing a People who have lived for a generation in total, abject fear?
It’s because they have never lived it. That is what I mean when I say reality has left their building. How many people would be opposing the war in Iraq if they had to watch, actually witness, three or four hundred thousand people being shot in the head in front of their families? At the rate of one life taken every single second, with one unique and irreplaceable person being extinguished every tick of the 60 Minutes stopwatch, going without sleep or rest, you would be at it for three and a half days. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Every face unique, every one someone’s son or mother or precious grandchild. Bang. Bang. Bang. All night and all day, every second for three and a half days. How long to wipe out your entire family? Four seconds? Eight? Thirteen? We have found that many in Iraq, more will follow, believe me.
How many children – four or five year old boys and girls – do you need to see raped in front of you before you change your mind about Iraq? Fifty? Fifty thousand? Will that make a dent in your stainless steel belief system? How many cries for mercy in the muffled corridors of prison basements? Ten thousand? Ten times ten thousand? They were there. They happened.
They just didn’t happen to you. Not in Berkeley. Not in Manhattan. Not in Santa Monica, or at Columbia University. Not in your Sanctuary. If they did we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we? You’d be dead, and it would be your relatives begging for good and powerful people to come to their rescue to stop this horror.
There’s nothing “progressive” about what these people believe. It is refined selfishness and moral cowardice. I can understand not wanting to go overseas and lose blood and treasure to solve other people’s problems. I can at least understand that. But these “progressives” should be thanking whatever they take to be sacred – which is nothing – and hit their knees in gratitude that better, braver people have built them the kind of Sanctuary where torture and state-sponsored murder are so far from their closed eyes that even the act of imagining such horrors is beyond them.
How far from the reality of human nature do you have to be to see our culture as a curse on the Earth, rather than being the only ones willing to roll up our sleeves, shoot the wolves that are eating our kids, go out into the blizzard to collect some firewood and then paint the goddam house?
So what can we do? We can stop, in little ways, taking so damned much for granted.
As an exercise in perspective, let’s briefly compare our civilization to another. Let’s compare our supposedly soulless, banal, hum-drum society to the splendors of ancient Egypt.
And let’s tie both hands behind our backs while we do so. Let’s not compare the Great Pyramid to one of our skyscrapers, or airports, or hospitals, or even our shopping malls. Let’s take a moment to compare the Great Pyramid of Cheops with the most common and drab and ordinary structure on the block: The Great Pyramid vs. the 7-11.
Assume that we could transplant a corner 7-11 to the Egyptian desert, with all of the support systems that make it what it is. It is a tiny speck compared to the gleaming white marble sides of the pyramid. It looks small and poorly made. From afar.
Pharaoh comes by barge and litter to inspect the competition, laughing at the mismatch. He and his princes and a retinue of servants approach the plain, unadorned metal doors and step inside.
By the Gods! It is cool inside! As cool as the desert night, here, in the middle of the relentless day! Outside the servants sweat and minor officials fan themselves, but Pharaoh is, for the first time perhaps, comfortable in the middle of the desert sun. He turns to exclaim this wonder to his underlings, and -- By the Ghost of Osiris!! The walls! You can see right through them!
Ten seconds into the contest, and already Pharaoh has been rendered mute by miracles.
He commands endless lines of bucket-laden servants to throw water upon this transparent wall, flinching and then laughing endlessly with his children as the water stops in mid-air and slides to the ground. It is called, glass, Great King. It’s cost? No, hardly a years harvest. It is a trifle, the cost a nuisance should it need replacing.
After an hour or so of pressing hands and faces against the glass, of running inside and out, of feeling the smoothest surface they have ever experienced, Pharaoh reluctantly moves on to the magazine rack. Glancing at one, he recoils in horror, making a sign of protection against evil. There, like a tiny row of jail cells, sits face after face of imprisoned souls, bound into small rectangles. What else can they be? We have all seen Egyptian hieroglyphics: they are entrancing, but photorealistic they are not. How many monuments, how many man-years of backbreaking labor, how many deaths could be averted for a man obsessed with being remembered, if only Pharaoh had been able to be photographed? Immortalized! Captured with a precision and nuance greater than that of all of his artisans working together for a thousand years?
And there, on the rack beside the magazines: newspapers, pictures and text detailing the most significant events across the entire globe, covering an area that makes the Egyptian empire look puny and insignificant. How to explain to a king who must wait weeks or months or even years for critical information, that each bundle of paper contains news no later than a day old from every remote corner of the Earth, and sells for about a tenth of what our most poorly paid laborer makes in a single hour? Now he begins to think we are mocking him. Yet there is much more to vex and amaze Cheops.
Toilet paper. Draw your own picture of what the highest-born Egyptian must do in those circumstances. Down the aisle to the back – wonders on either side. And then: Ice.
Likely Pharaoh has never seen ice, let alone touched it. At first he recoils, thinking he has been burned. You grab a handful, and gesture for him to put a cube in his mouth. Pharaoh grows enraged – you are trying to kill him! You do so first, sucking on an ice cube. Tentatively, he tries, for the first time in his life, something cold – a diamond that turns to perfectly pure water in his hand.
Think, for a moment, that you have drunk river water for your entire life. Think what a taste of cool, clear water would taste like. Just imagine that one, garden-variety wonder. Then beers and wines, refined and brewed and filtered, not the murky swill he will have known. And as Pharaoh hesitates with each can and bag and box of food he opens, you will have to reassure him, time and time again, that even though you have no idea where the food was made, or when, or by whom, you know it absolutely to be safe to eat. Corn flakes and potato chips – how many lives would a bag of Ruffles be worth to this man, he who has never seen, let alone tasted a potato? How many men would Pharaoh send to die to obtain another box of Oreo cookies for his sons? An army? An entire fleet? Cans of ravioli. Peanut butter. Eggs and milk, of course, but of a quality and size unheard of.
Grab a frozen lasagna and hand it to the Great King. Frozen, like a brick, and like a brick he gnaws on it. Delicious! Then across the room to a small black box, which opens with the same magic lantern that lights this palace of wonder day and night. A moment of conversation passes, and Ding! What was frozen is now steaming hot! Without fire, and in an instant!
The Princes have been exploring every nook and cranny, reporting back to their father: In back, water which flows endlessly, purer than any they have ever tasted, and some of it is hot! It flows from the walls, father! A stream unending! Behind the counter, scores of small, beautifully-colored cylinders which make fire! Made of – what? Not wood or metal – something smooth and hard and perfect! Soaps, of wondrous scents and soft as pillows! Father! Come and see this!
But Pharaoh hardly notices. He is staring up at a box mounted in the corner of the wall, and there, for the first time in his magnificent life, Pharaoh can see…Pharaoh!
Cheops raises his arm, and the small shwabti Cheops raises his! Pharaoh advances, makes a face! The imprisoned Pharaoh does the same! And there, in one of the four corners! The back of the slave Pharaoh’s head! And in another small square, the Crown Prince! He is not in the room, and yet Pharaoh sees him plainly! When he emerges from the storeroom Pharaoh hugs him as if he had returned from the dead.
Yes King, we can on such boxes see any event of significance around the entire world, as it happens. And we can see singers and minstrels and performers – not only those alive today, but those who may have died many years ago! Yes, as real as any other! Preserved forever in language and form!
What would that be worth to such a man?
Over there, in a corner, another magic tablet that communicates back to you, and upon following a set of instructions you give it, disperses money at your command, a seemingly bottomless pot of gold (although, it must be said, the only flash of disappointment Pharaoh has shown was for the quality of money – gold coins would have made a much better impression.)
The sun is setting, and yet the magic of the palace grows ever stronger. Light does not fade. Having read by candlelight his entire life, the idea of day during night is powerful magic indeed. The princes have fallen silent. They have discovered the Slurpee machine and mortgaged their birthrights, entire kingdoms to the clerk for another refill.
There, behind the counter: a machine that will do mathematical calculations to eight decimal places, flawlessly. Instantly. There sits a machine that can do in five seconds what it would take an entire court of astronomers and scribes five years to calculate. The eyes of the underlings, the Egyptian bureaucrats who must count and account for everything in the kingdom – by hand – begin to glaze over. What they could do in a single day with such a wonder! But Pharaoh now is transfixed by the metal of the countertop. Hard. Very hard. On impulse, he removes his short bronze sword and hacks at the steel. Impervious. Cheops’ prized sword is dented and useless. What a sword and shield such material would make – and it’s everywhere: in the doors, the cabinets…common as sand.
But Pharaoh is no longer happy. Like many of that era, he suffers from terrible toothaches. There is so much sand that even the grinding of flour produces bread that erodes the tooth enamel. Pain is a constant companion for him, and like many of his age – like many of every age, before our own – he suffers in silence. That is his life. This, the most powerful man on the planet, suffers just like the poorest. But here, in this bland, ubiquitous convenience store, there is mercy for rich and poor alike. Cold medicine. Medicines to reduce fever. Medicines for toothache, too. And medicine for pain.
In fifteen minutes, this Great Pharaoh will know a few moments free of pain. His children, whom he loves as we love our own – also free of pain.
What would the most powerful man in the world give for such a thing? How much gold? How much land? How many lives?
The pain subsides. And although perhaps not a good or a wise send off for a man with a toothache, the transcendental look of joy on Pharaoh’s face when he first encounters a Coke and a Snickers bar is a sight that his children will never forget. Even after he is long dead, they will always remember him thus, as they ride toward the river on the dark night of the new moon, the little palace glowing in the dark like a beacon visible for fifty miles and more.
Now, on the other hand, the Great Pyramid of Cheops is a massive, beautifully decorated and cunningly designed pile of stones.
We live in an age of miracles, and we just don’t see it. All of the magicians who stand on generations of other magicians – engineers, technicians, architects – go unnamed and unsung, while common actors, tradesmen whose art form has barely advanced since the days of Babylon and Egypt, are deified and rewarded as no living gods in history.
We, in our Sanctuary, who sleep in warm, dry, safe places without a second thought of the men and women who shiver in the cold to keep us free and secure, are getting very far away from the forces that have threatened us for millennia and threaten us still, as potent as the black rage of an incensed mob of religious lunatics killing people in response to some real or imagined slight.
And yet our elites – bored, pampered and without a glimmer of perspective – search the inside of our walls by night, looking for cracks to enlarge.
I can’t pretend to understand this. It is simply beyond my ability to grasp. Nor can I understand why so many rich people who so resent and revile this land do not simply move somewhere else.
Unless, of course, this is a giant game for them: a chess match of rhetoric to gain a little temporary political advantage, and the sullen petulance of someone deciding that if my candidate can’t be the one doing the liberating then entire nations can remain in darkness. This little thing for the price of destruction of all we have worked for. How can such selfishness face itself in the morning?
I don’t know why so many people can miss so many wonders and miracles that are laid right before their eyes. But I do know that their poison has cut deep in to the foundations of a country I love because I owe it my happy and comfortable life and all the opportunities – not guarantees, but opportunities – it has provided me and my family.
So we will fight this amnesia and ingratitude, you and I will, right here on these pages in the days to come. And I will do my best to fight the battle in the one place, the only place it can be won: inside of my own heart.
Recently, I was very frustrated at my job. I felt I was not being treated well. Well, actually, I felt I was being screwed, and hard. I was angry and sullen. I had been wronged, you see? Me! Taken advantage of! By the system!
Among my many complaints, I was upset that I did not receive as much extra pay as I felt I deserved for all the extra work. Life was bad and everything sucked. It just sucked to be me.
And then, on the way to my stunning girlfriend’s apartment to bitch about how unfair life was treating me, I saw a fairly common sight in Los Angeles. I saw a group of young Mexican men gathered on a street corner, waiting for any kind of work.
And there, through some act of grace that occasionally opens my eyes and reveals to me a better person in my reflection, I suddenly realized that these men are waiting – fighting -- to work long, backbreaking hours for next to no pay. They sleep in small, cheap apartments, hot-bunking it, working sometimes two or even three jobs and keeping nothing for themselves. They never eat out, never go to movies, and planning for a future is not an easy thing when every penny you make above what you absolutely need goes back home to Mexico to feed your family.
And I stopped at that light, and looked at these men. And I realized right there that I should spend an hour a day prostrate and thanking God I was born an American. How many struggle and die for this privilege?
But there is hope for us. We can change. I can change, and I am as stubborn a cuss as they come. And there is hope here, on these pages. Not my pages -- I’m but a speck of flotsam in an electronic ocean. But these pages, these ghostly pages pulled from the ether down highways of colored light. These pages may be able to save us.
Because now, for the first time in human history, a small person can talk to millions. The defeatism and cynicism of our betters is no longer the only voice we hear. Now, for the first time, we common people, we citizens, can speak directly to each other about life within the Sanctuary, and those unseen people, those builders and maintainers of decency and civilization have at their command a tool with which to make their voices heard. We can patrol and repair these crumbling walls from within and man the gates ourselves.
There are millions of us. Millions. And we do not have to go gently into that good night.
(If you would like to support essays like this one, you can purchase SILENT AMERICA: Essays from a Democracy at War, right here.)
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Now let's see some distributed intelligence and basic human decency! Don't make me come down there every five minutes!
Comments
Sorry this took so long to write. It's actually Frank J.'s fault -- he was the one who gave me the idea of writing one monster essay every six months. Bastard. Curse you, Frank J!
I CAN ASSURE YOU there will never be a gap anything like this ever again.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | May 18, 2005 8:58 PM
Bill, take all the time you need. Each essay is like a mastercrafted weapon we can use in the good fight. We don't mind waiting a bit to get a finely honed razor edge.
Posted by: V-Man | May 18, 2005 9:12 PM
Nothing more? Or nothing less?
Great work again, Bill. I love the "exercise in perspective." From my first read-through (and there will be repeats) that seems to be pretty much the whole point.
As usual, it's been well worth the wait (not that I enjoy waiting, but... er... well, I'm sure you've heard every possible variation on that theme.)
Posted by: Russ | May 18, 2005 10:28 PM
Concerning the people from Mexico, from another Californian...
What is wrong with America was that we thought that our young AMERICANS under 16, or over 65, or those who hadn't gone through high school, would not want to do the jobs that Mexicans would do. Or we didn't want to see them do it. Or we were too cheap to pay them well for it. Or were afraid-we can't expect these people not to TALK about their experience in a language we can understand.
What's wrong with America is that we've hired people from a slave culture, lest we be forced to teach responsibility to our young kids. Far better for them to hang out at the 7-11.
What's wrong with America is that we've put the bill for the medical care of the most recalcitrant of those immigrants on the shoulders of our kids-expecting them to compete with the recent arrivals by adopting the same culture of the mother country-'Work like a dog! You can sleep when you're 60!' Useful philosophy for an employee to have? Yes indeed! Want your kids to live by that maxim? Lemme think a minute...
What's wrong with America is the same thing that was wrong with the British who colonized Africa-rather than insisting on teaching the natives English (with which they could have asked for the know-how that built the roads, cleared the land, organized the politics, and brought the trappings of civilization) they taught their own expats Swahili. Instead of striving to make sure that everybody can communicate the ideas of freedom effectively, we defer to the 'cultural values' of the new arrivals. Let them set up entire parallel cultures in their own language. Remove them from the mainstream. We don't like talking with the people who do those jobs anyway, much easier if they don't speak our language.
What's wrong with America is that we're EXPLOITING the vast sea of disaffected humanity out there rather than EDUCATING it in the ideals that made us a sanctuary in the first place.
America shouldn't be hiring illegals. If the job isn't being taken by a qualified American, then increase the pay or build a robot to do the job. I sure as hell know that there's enough technical know-how for a good robotics industry in CALIFORNIA, of all places. At least the robot won't have to have the rest of the American taxpayers pay its Medicaid. Start an entirely new line of robots, and a new set of jobs for people to maintain them...heck, if advances in artificial intelligence don't keep pace with the advances in fine robotic motor skill, build a virtual reality plant in Mexico where people can operate them remotely.
Does all of this sound too hard on the illegal immigrants? I submit to you that every one of those Californians of Mexican descent who came here, worked hard, learned English, and started a family away from the failed state in Mexico would not only agree with everything I wrote, but jump on the chance to operate that robotics factory.
Posted by: Epoetker | May 18, 2005 10:55 PM
Yes, yes, YES. You have once more written powerful words, but they are only so powerful because of the truth that propels them.
I live and work in an institution of higher learning, and I see the disease in its acute form pretty much every day. Ivory towers are perfect Sanctuaries; and there is no place on Earth where it is possible to believe nonsense for longer.
This was well worth trading an hour's sleep for; indeed, with this essay ringing in my head I feel wide awake indeed. Thank you.
Posted by: Ben | May 18, 2005 11:15 PM
W00T! Now to read the thing...
Posted by: Cybrludite | May 19, 2005 12:15 AM
"For these highly nuanced deep-thinkers like Ward Churchill and Kos and Howard Dean and all the others, the world is divided into Progressive People Who Naturally Agree With Me on one hand and Jesusland on the other."
Bingo. As another who lives in a Very Blue State, I can tell you that most liberals are so sure of their superior intellect simply because they pass their ideology amongst each other and base their entire philosophy on these stereotypes. The fact is that most of them unknowingly live in the one-sided Sanctuary of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS, NPR, and the Daily Show and couldn't even give you an accurate representation of a conservative viewpoint. Exposure to icky Republikkkan hatemongering might infect their delicate sensibilities and therefore must be avoided at all costs. That is an advantage that we have: we know all their slogans (we can't avoid them), while they only have vague ideas of ours.
I used to silently laugh at the BUSH=HITLER people, and thought they might quiet down after the election, but it seems their voices are only becoming more shrill. Like Bill, I have had enough and I now regularly engage them in a duel of fact and logic. It doesn't take long before they encounter ideas they have never even considered (many of which I gleaned from this website), and their closing statement is usually something along the lines of "Well, that's just my opinion and you're not going to change it." So much for liberal open-mindedness.
And the reason they want us to lose? Because Bush is in charge. It's that simple.
Posted by: Hudson21 | May 19, 2005 1:16 AM
This essay's strength & scope seem beyond my poor power to add or detract: One of the best I've ever read on the Web. Bravo.
Posted by: JC | May 19, 2005 2:20 AM
The perspective to understand the greatness of the riches we enjoy in this country is not easy to get. And not much fun in the getting, either (if it were fun, no true perspective would be ingrained).
When I was young, my parents took their six children hiking or back-packing for entertainment. It was all they could afford. At the time there were no (or very small) National Park fees, and the only other expense involved in this particular form of entertainment was food, which was necessary anyway.
Being a mosquito magnet, I was not always a willing participant. Especially on hot days, going uphill, on a dusty trail... or on cold, rainy days, going uphill, on a muddy trail ...
But it brought a perspective to life not enjoyed by some. Later in college, I was pressed for a list of life's luxuries by a professor. It took very little thought to come up with three:
Fresh fruit when you haven't had any for a week; cool, clean water on a hot day; and a warm flat rock to lie on when you are tired.
The professor thought I was strange. The professor had most likely never spent two weeks on trails in the pre-backpacking-as-a-yuppie-sport age, when most packs were wood and canvass, dried food was ... dried food, carrying a stove meant hatchet+sharp knife+waterproof matches, a tent was a piece of plastic tarp draped over a rope, and the only waterproof clothing available was a plastic poncho and waxed boots.
That's perspective.
These days my back-packing equipment is a little more sophisticated - I have an old Kelty, a nifty little stove, a reeeeeally light-weight tent, I use freeze-dried food, and I never, ever, ever leave without Jungle Juice 100 (100% DEET).
I still use a poncho.
My list of luxuries is a little more frivolous these days too. It still runs to some relatively common foods (OK, OK! CANDY!), cool water or cold milk (or a diet soda if I'm really flush), and warmth on command.
And *still* I have to remind myself every single day to be thankful. Perspective must not only be gained, it must be maintained.
Thanks for a great essay, Bill!
Posted by: boxstockracer | May 19, 2005 2:34 AM
Magic.
That is all.
Posted by: David | May 19, 2005 2:34 AM
I like it! It covers a lot of my "I've had it" issues. Lucid logical thinking seems to be hard to come by in America these days. Your "Sactuary" is right on. Thanks!
Posted by: EDK | May 19, 2005 3:45 AM
Beyond "Wonderful" essay! Forget all the standardized tests kids are supposed to pass to get a high school diploma, make them read this essay and write a commentary on it. Maybe then they will have a true perspective on reality from the get go, rather than after 10 to 20 years of failure trying to achieve the Hollyweird version of the American Dream.
Posted by: DeNeethe | May 19, 2005 5:40 AM
Thanks Bill.
Posted by: Jim` | May 19, 2005 6:02 AM
Your ability to crystalize exactly what many of us have been thinking continues to amaze me. Kudos on another outstanding effort. I eagerly await your next effort.
Posted by: physics geek | May 19, 2005 6:38 AM
One of the things that I believe most deeply, is the blessing of having been born in the United States.
Thanks Bill, for sharing your genious with us once again.
Oh, and Bravo for your verbal smackdown on the Ponytail dude! LOL
Posted by: MargeinMI | May 19, 2005 6:45 AM
Nice essay though you seem to choose pretty easy targets. Your ponytail guy is hardly representative of the left that I know. In years of good humoured debate which I have enjoyed with right wing associates I have never resorted to that other 'N' slur. (Perhaps because I am a knowledge worker and know Zawinski's Law well!)
You are a bit hard on the Russians. You should know that the ordinary Soviet bore the brunt of the Nazi peril - as did the Chinese. Can you blame them for reacting against that? Sure the US came in at the end but who did the grunt work? Anyone who knows knows the Russians and Chinese sacrificed around 50 million in total which make them have a very different perspective to the anti Soviet invective of western boy's comics.
Still it is as interesting as ever to try and get a glimpse of that obscure and oxymoronic beast the American Consevrative Intelligence through your writing. Whilst I mock gently I am sure we could probably get along well.
Posted by: Juan Kerr | May 19, 2005 7:15 AM
This is an exemplary exposition of applied reason as I think I have seen anywhere on the web.
Ave! Ave, magnus magister!
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: RadioActive Chief | May 19, 2005 7:47 AM
EDK said: It covers a lot of my "I've had it" issues.
Mine too. I REALLY needed to see this today; I've had a whole lot of "I've had it" spells lately.
THANK YOU, Bill. It goes without saying that it's well worth the wait.
Posted by: Beth | May 19, 2005 7:51 AM
As I have long time monitored these pages I have to ask:
Why do you accept the rapacious greed of your corporations in ripping off Iraq and your taxpayer? There is at least $8.8 billion missing of Iraq oil. Could we have an essay on the effect of this on American Life? Surely this is counter libertarian.
Your essays are well written but taken from an essential standpoint of the war being justified. Presupposing that, everything else follows. Without that being the case it is baloney. The war is not and was not justified. Like Vietnam.
Posted by: Juan Kerr | May 19, 2005 8:25 AM
Holy crap! You where that close to greatness?
Churchill...
Ward that is....
/please if your a lefty lookin' for the sarc tag- @%$%@$#
Posted by: madawaskan | May 19, 2005 8:42 AM
Ahhh, how I thirsted for that.
Thanks Bill, we can always count on you to put our thoughts into a fine form.
Posted by: Another Bill | May 19, 2005 8:43 AM
Wow. ....just wow.
Posted by: Bill | May 19, 2005 8:50 AM
Sensational, Bill. Many, many thanks.
I was also pleased to see numerous hints, throughout SANCTUARY, that this was intended to be the first essay (introduction??) to a new book. I'm delighted, and I look forward to future efforts in that direction.
Juan Kerr: no doubt Bill Whittle could respond far, far more eloquently than I could. So I'll let him do the talking. Go pick up a copy of Silent America and read it. If you prefer, you can read the whole thing for free (minus the intro and closing notes) right here, on Bill's website. Then come back and tell us why you believe "the war is not and was not justified".
Go ahead; we'll wait.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Posted by: Daniel in Brookline | May 19, 2005 9:05 AM
Brilliance. Sheer unadulterated brilliance.
The Master has returned. And the libs better hold onto their butts.
They've already lost. They just don't know it yet.
Let Janeane Garofalo sputter and spew. One Bill Whittle is worth a hundred--nay, a thousand--Janeane Garofalos.
Bill, you're the only person whose writings I will point EMinders to with the message, "Drop what you're doing and read this now." Your essays are like 100-car trains full of Grade A Clues. Thanks for putting all the skull sweat into this one; believe me, it shows.
Posted by: Erbo | May 19, 2005 9:08 AM
Another one out of the park, Bill. Well done. I've recently come to many of the conclusions you put down so well in Sanctuary, especially about how some people would rather see our entire enterprise come down in flames than admit they were wrong.
Another way to look at it: one of the greatest strengths of our Democracy is that each is free to pursue their own life according to their own morals. None can force another to live their life any other way. Thus, if you want the nation to change, you are left with one tool: persuasion. Regardless of how right you think you are, if you cannot persuade the majority, you will fail. Yet some apparently are unable to accept that failing to persuade the majority to accept their views means that they could, just maybe, be wrong, or at least unappealing. Better to wish hellfire and damnation on the "Nazi" majority than take a serious look at one's beliefs and how one explains them.
And Juan, just because a war may not have been prosecuted 100 percent efficiently does not make it unjustified. Maybe some corporations have taken it as an opportunity to shaft the American taxpayer. I wouldn't be surprised. But that is a completely seperate moral issue from whether or not to fight in the first place. I can accept that the war was justified while still castigating those who have been proven to have profiteered by it, if there is proof.
Of course the essays don't make sense unless you accept that the war is justified. THAT IS THE ONE OF THE POINTS BILL IS TRYING TO PROVE! Reread a few of the other essays and you'll see what I mean. Vietnam was a completely seperate entity in a completely seperate time. If you wish to argue the justification of the war, fine. But please present your case with better arguments than tired Vietnam comparisons.
Posted by: Grey Matter | May 19, 2005 9:12 AM
Holy Smokes!
Such prose! Such insight!
Awe inspiring to this Marine... And it calls to me. It answers, or, at least addresses some of the reasons I wonder why I endured all the mundane garbage that comes with being a Marine Grunt for a bunch of folks who don't seem to apprciate the gift that my brothers and sisters and I are giving to them.
Well, maybe it's not for them... Maybe it's so that, if this country falls like the Roman Empire, I will not only have the skills and the contacts to survive the resulting chaos, but I will also have a memory of how to rebuild, like some Pheonix...
Thanks for penning this!
Posted by: Sgt. B. | May 19, 2005 9:19 AM
Juan Kerr, your presence here is beyond repugnant. Crawl back into your "leftist, progressive" hole, read Bill's profound words over and over, supplement them with the Classics and a healthy smattering of history, mix it with some introspection, and don't come back until you're ready to acknowledge the wisdom of Bill's words. Take your smug condescension and go. And I'll say what the security personnel wouldn't say to your ponytailed compadre. Go...PLEASE!
Posted by: JABBER | May 19, 2005 9:20 AM
Great work, Bill.
Posted by: Jeremy | May 19, 2005 9:23 AM
Just war
A just war describes a war that satisfies a set of moral or legal rules. Though in origin a Christian doctrine, Francisco de Vitoria based his arguments on reason and so put the tradition on a more universal basis. [1]
(http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.1998/pub_detail.asp) The rules applied may be ethical, religious, or formal (such as international law). The rules classically cover the justification for the war (Jus ad Bellum) and the conduct of the participants in the war (Jus in Bello).
Just war theory has ancient roots. Cicero discussed this idea and its applications. Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas later codified a set of rules for a just war, which today still encompass the points commonly debated, with some modifications.
In modern language, these rules hold that to be just, a war must meet the following criteria before the use of force:
(Jus ad Bellum)
War can only be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense against an armed attack.
War can only be waged under legitimate authority. Usually the constitution and the laws of a nation state specify the institutions and personnel authorized to make war decisions. The U.N Charter authorizes the Security Council to make the international community's war decisions. Citizens at their own will cannot attack another country without the permission of the legitimate authority. Conversely, in a democratic nation state, statesmen with legitimate authority will need to convince citizens that their course of action is legal and proper.
War can only be waged with the right intention. Correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain is not. Thus a war that would normally be just for all other reasons would be made unjust by a bad intention. Right intention requires that democratic statesmen accept the decision of their nations' courts and electorates on the legitimacy and the justice of their action.
War can only be waged with a reasonable chance of success. It is considered unjust to meaninglessly waste human life and economic resources if defeat is unavoidable.
War must be waged with proportionality in mind. The suffering which existed pre-war should not be overshadowed by the suffering the war may cause.[2] (http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/justwar.htm)
War can only be waged as a last resort. War is not just until all realistic options which were likely to right the wrong have been pursued.
I'm not going to overstress Kellog-Briand or anything but the US of old did vote for that. In many ways I can admire Eisenhower's way, even as a liberal. But nothing justifies the use of war from these previously accepted tenets.
Posted by: Juan Kerr | May 19, 2005 9:26 AM
Oh, Mister "Knowledge Worker"...
It seems that you are either forgetting some key facts or you actually work in the Revisionist History department.
Now...
Has it ever crossed your "reality based" mind that perhaps the "ordinary Soviet bore the brunt of the Nazi peril" would have not had to if Stalin hadn't crawled into bed with the Nazis and instead told them to "f" off? And I find it always rather humorous that "reality based intellectuals" such as yourself seem to forget that Stalin was not exactly Mr. Rogers-he managed to kill just as many "ordinary Soviets" as Hitler did. Of course, he was a Communist and "reality based" people such as yourself seem to think it is perfectly fine that they kill people.
Has it hever crossed your "reality based" mind that perhaps the Nazis would have never done what they did if appeasers like Chamberlain and his political ilk and their mouthpiece "the press" (the modern leftist/MSM/Democrats ideologial grandfathers)had not kneeled down before Hitler-giving him everything he wanted on a silver platter?
You also seem to forget that it was your ideological grandfathers who tied the US governments hands before Pearl Harbor, too. I am sure you forget that we kept our army by ONE vote at that time for instance. Your ideological grandfathers were the "peace at any price" crowd. Of course some of them came to the harsh realization that peace DOES have a price and freedom is NOT free. I suggest you review what Orwell thought of "pacifists" in his 1945 work "Notes on Nationalism".
Has it ever crossed your "reality based" mind that perhaps if the MSM of the day would have been truthful with people instead of trying to push a political agenda then perhaps the average person would have understood what was coming and demanded their governments to quit kissing Hitler's ass and do something about him?
Instead of being truthful they praised Hitler and the Nazi movement, calling the German people "poor but honourable people who got screwed by the imperialists and have a right to there rage" or using the "we should ask ourselves why the Germans hate us so much" blame game and calling people who were warning about the coming storm "drunken imperialistic warmongers" (like the BBC called Churchill) or WORSE.
Has it ever crossed your "reality based" mind that perhaps IF the government of France had not been full of brain dead appeasers who thought that if they buried their heads in the sand long enough Hitler would just go away and maybe take those "arrogant, imperialistic British" with them (exactly as they are now, btw). IF they had stood up to Hitler when he sent troops into the Rhineland (which by a treaty the Germans had signed they were not allowed to do)that it might have stopped all the rest that followed? I know you will not agree, but your opinion doesn't count. The German generals and other officials at the time thought so.
Of course people of your ilk are working very hard in the "knowledge industry" to erase pesky little facts such as these in your attempts to revise history to suit your politics. Unfortunately for you, people of your ilk are no longer the gatekeepers of "knowledge". The Internet is the modern day version of the Guttenburg printing press. It may do you well to review that time in history. You won't like it. For you will find that the ordinary people finally obtained access to information and made their own minds up, much to the distress of the "intellectuals". People found out the truth and how they had been lied to and manipulated by the "intellectuals" and some got rather angry about it. People like you love revolutions and revolutionaries and you WILL get your revolution. I doubt it will be to your liking, though.
Now to China....
It seems you forget that they were invaded by Japan, not Germany. You referred to them as "Nazis" in your original post, Imperial Japan may have signed a treaty with Germany but they were not National Socialists. In fact the second Sino-Japanese war started in 1931. What happened in China bears little resemblence to what happened in the rest of the world outside of the fact that it took place at roughly the same point in time. It was in actuality an ongoing war within a newer, larger scale war.
I am also sure that it has never crossed your "reality based" mind that if Mao and the Communists had spent a bit more time fighting the Japanese in an alliance with other Chinese political factions for the greater good instead of trying to set themselves up to take over after the Japanese were gone things may have turned out just a tad different.
Posted by: Nahanni | May 19, 2005 9:30 AM
You think these people are out of touch with reality, having had it so easy.
I disagree. They are perfectly in touch with the reality that matters to them: they lust to rule, but have no power.
Otherwise, I agree with you. Show the swine no respect at all. Batter their nonsensicle ideology at every opportunity. In the end, there's nothing to it, or them, but their hunger for power.
THE SAUDS MUST BE DESTROYED
Posted by: Stephen M. St. Onge | May 19, 2005 9:32 AM
Jabber, you do your more considered conservative colleagues great disservice.
I can assure you I am nothing to do with your straw men leftist progressive stereotypes described. And I am sure Bill is able to tolerate my presence here. He at least recongises the value and need for measured dissent.
I am not condescending. That is what you have been by:
a) assuming I have not read classics, Bill or history
b) am not able to be introspective
c) discussing me in stereotyped terms
I appreciate Bill's argument and would love to actually talk to him. I accept your rights to be and think how you do. Can you look into your hearts and say the same to me?
Posted by: Juan Kerr | May 19, 2005 9:34 AM
I am in awe. A great essay.
Posted by: docjim505 | May 19, 2005 9:49 AM
Nahanni,
Pretty cogent strike back dude!
Yes Japanese were not Nazis, this was an implication not intended - sorry. In many ways they were seriously nastier to the Chinese (for anyone who has not done so do read up on the rape of Nanking if you do not believe me).
I am only a database programmer BTW - not a spin doctor - easy tiger! I am not even particularly leftist and I really do not grasp this reality based thing you seem to carp on about. Please do me a favour and accept me as a real person and do not stereotype me.
If anything I am on the libertarian side, which is something I feel I have in common with Bill. To me this is directly opposed to the polcies of GWB and Stalin who I would class as authoritarian. This is why I am a bit puzzled as to why you might think I am in league or have any approval of Mao or indeed Stalin.
Most governemnts at the time did not handle Hitler well. I hesitate to bring up Prescott Bush but seeing as we are getting personal here...
Oh, and I am certainly not an intellectual. Prett much a 'jock' by most standards.
Posted by: Juan Kerr | May 19, 2005 9:50 AM
Oh Mister "Knowledge Worker"...
Why don't you ask Jaques Chirac, George Galloway, Jean Chretien, Total/Elf/Fina/Power corporation, Kofi & Kojo Annan and various officials at your sacred cow the U.N. where all the money went?
For someone who claims to be an "intellectual" you are rather clueless. I am not surprised.
Posted by: Nahanni | May 19, 2005 9:58 AM
I have been waiting for this essay for quite some time (and have tried in small, humble ways to add to the conversation). Even if we survive the MSM/elites conscious and unconscious attempts to undermine our war efforts, we have a long, bitter struggle in front of us. So much of what our elites do plays into the hands of bin Laden and his ilk. You have addressed their tactics in Part 1, I hope to post an article addressing their strategy later today. This war is complicated and it is indeed a battle between civilization and the Hobbesian world of our not so distant past; our guilt ridden, narcissistic elites forget and/or ignore this at our peril.
Posted by: ShrinkWrapped | May 19, 2005 9:58 AM
Bill Whittle,
Because now, for the first time in human history, a small person can talk to millions. The defeatism and cynicism of our betters is no longer the only voice we hear. Now, for the first time, we common people, we citizens, can speak directly to each other about life within the Sanctuary, and those unseen people, those builders and maintainers of decency and civilization have at their command a tool with which to make their voices heard. We can patrol and repair these crumbling walls from within and man the gates ourselves.
There are millions of us. Millions. And we do not have to go gently into that good night.
There are tens of millions of us, and a bunch more join us every day. And that's just in this country.
Thanks for the perspective check, sir!
Posted by: Matthew Goggins | May 19, 2005 10:04 AM
QUOTE: I hesitate to bring up Prescott Bush but seeing as we are getting personal here...
That is nice.
Because you know I would just have to bring up your hero Teddy Kennedy's daddy Joe. And you KNOW you don't want to go there.
Posted by: Nahanni | May 19, 2005 10:07 AM
Great essay, Mr. Whittle. Thanks much for it,
One little niggle. . paragraph #6. . perhaps "first" instead of "fist"?
Posted by: John | May 19, 2005 10:46 AM
Juan, did I stereotype you? Yup, sure did. But if the stereotype fits, use it I always say. Anyone that can seriously say that the war wasn't justified, despite all that has been discovered (mass graves, oil-for-food, et al), falls squarely into the middle of the leftist camp, regardless of what one calls him or herself.
As for assuming that you haven't read the Classics or history, again, guilty as charged. What I SHOULD have said was "reread them and COMPREHEND them this time."
And, as for suggesting that you are not introspective, I plead NOT guilty because it's clear that your obliviousness to history and human nature is, indeed, NOT introspective.
Now, for a real apology: I'm sorry. Have I been hard, perhaps too hard, on you? Probably. Consider it my correlary to Bill's "pony-tailed guy in the airport." I get so sick of hearing these leftist platitudes that sometimes, well, I just want to scream...
Posted by: JABBER | May 19, 2005 10:46 AM
Thanks, Bill! I am a proud owner and re-reader of "Silent America".
Kerr, how do you live with yourself? How do you sleep at night? OIF was unjustified? How can you justify the negligence of allowing Saddam's mass murdering and torture, when you have the chance, the means, and much reason to end his brutal reign? You are the appeaser, the Chamberlain. You have blood on your hands, by your words and actions, of Saddam's hundreds of thousands (and counting) of raped and murdered innocents. You are the vichy french, allowing your neighbors to be taken to the gas chambers, and helping their depraved murderers to do it.
Read a little history, get a little education before attempting to spout your illogical, non-factually-based religion (for what else can support such a non-sensical belief system) here.
I, too, have had enough.
Posted by: Matt | May 19, 2005 10:50 AM
Bingo.
At the core of Elitist America Hating lies an increasing detachment from the struggle and sacrifice that build HONOR and CHARACTER, appreciation for OPPORTUNITY, and the manifestation of a projection of their own SELF-LOATHING. Not to mention the closed-minded GROUPTHINK that extremists at both ends of the spectrum are susceptible to.
What I find particularly despicable is the degree to which this mindset is currently being harnessed and exploited out of political desperation by the Left. Their SANCTUARIES are crumbling, from the elected executive and legislative branches, to the mainstream media that has advanced their agenda for decades.
Their final strongholds are the judiciary and indoctrination cent...um, college campuses. But the cracks in those foundations are widening as well.
They know they are losing the battleground of ideas (and subsequent power), hence their shrieks are increasing in both Volume and Virulence. I hope this doesn't culminate in Violence, but history tells us that it very well may.
Take nothing for granted - not a single breath.
Posted by: Idly Awed | May 19, 2005 11:01 AM
Any talented writer doesn't need praise to know that his work is true and good, from all angles. It just does the rest of us good to tell him/her so, that there is someone who can put into words the thoughts and feelings we have that elude being put into writing by our hands. Yup, it is that simple, so congrats on a most excellant essay that rings right and true. The import of this essay echoes down through time and another voice has taken over at this particular junction of our collective history.
Posted by: Lonely Donut Man | May 19, 2005 11:04 AM
Kerr:
Unjustified war? You need to reread UN Resolution 1441. Here, this shoud refresh your memory:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/11/08/resolution.text/
Does the phrase "material breach of its [Iraq's] obligations under relevant resolutions" ring a bell?
How about "The Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations"?
What do you think "Serious Consequences" means? Another resolution? Yep, that would have gotten Saddam to cooperate after he'd ignored 11 prior years' worth of resolutions!
BTW, reading about "just wars" isn't the same thing as understanding the concept. The Iraq War was certainly just and, as you've conveniently forgotten, sanctioned by the very UN that your breatheren face when you get out your liberal prayer rugs every morning. What could possibly be more just?
Posted by: Pax | May 19, 2005 11:21 AM
I like Miller's take on this kind of decay:
From A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (1959):
...
Posted by: James | May 19, 2005 11:33 AM
Thanks, Bill. You rock better than anything that has rocked before! As for Frank J., I'll keel him dead! for postponing this essay.
Posted by: Plea Deal | May 19, 2005 11:36 AM
dude, not one person is arguing that saddam was a bad mofo. it's a better planet with him and cronies not running the berg. but the world was lied to by the government about the reasons for going to war. that's the objectionable bit.
Posted by: captain america | May 19, 2005 11:38 AM
Brillant. I am going to have my children read this and then discuss with them the importance of understanding the world as it is, not as some would have us believe.
Posted by: Rick | May 19, 2005 11:58 AM
Magnificent as always, Bill... you do indeed have a way with putting my thoughts down into electrons.
and to c.a... you can scream the "BUSH LIED!!!" crap as much as you want, but just because you have the freedom to say it doesn't make it true.
Posted by: hindmost | May 19, 2005 11:58 AM
The USA did not start this war. But we will take it wherever we need to and we're gonna see it through to the end.
Great article Bill and welcome back. You were missed.
Posted by: jimboy | May 19, 2005 11:59 AM
Mr. Whittle:
A co-worker of mine sent me your website, and I felt compelled to write. You are absolutely correct with how far we have sunk as a society that hails philanderous presidents yet condemns brave leaders who make unpopular, yet ethical, decisions.
I am a combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and have been engaged in several direct fire, IED (Improvised Explosive Device), rocket and mortar attacks. It is an insult beyond reproach when self-righteous, hypocritical and morally weak individuals hurl insults and judgements at the brave Americans who put their lives on the line every day, not only for their fellow Americans, but also for Iraqi citizens who simply want a better life. Innumerable "experts" in America incessantly spout how unwanted Americans are in the Middle East, and that we are mirrors of Victorian Imperialist powers--from the safety of their barcaloungers, nonetheless. I wonder, how many of them have had an Iraqi man approach them during a roadblock, offering his oranges and thankfully shanking hands, telling us he loves Americans because now his daughters are safe? Yes, you are right, you have to live it to understand it.
It is laughable how out of touch and hypocritical the liberal left really is. A perfect example is a former girlfriend's family--they wouldn't waste a second to criticize how horrible our social programs are, how we have no business enforcing our American democracy overseas, and illustrate the greed of upper class America. Yet, this family wouldn't think of giving up their 6 horses (at $10,000 apiece), their twin Mercedes or 6,000 square foot house (with 1,400 square foot barn). There is an old expression in the Cavalry, which I am a proud officer of--"whoever sounds the charge leads it." Funny, I don't see this family or the John Kerry's of the world donating their estates to help feed the homeless. We may be vile, greedy and selfish in wanting to provide more for our family, but at least we don't admit it and don't try to hide behind a facade of nobility while raising the middle class taxes for pet programs.
Hypocracy and lack of responsibility is the bane of America. I find it insulting that Michael Moore, who so vehemently attacks the glamorization of guns and violence in American society with "Bowling For Columbine" was the Second Set Director for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Insulting, yes, but surprised, no.
I ramble on, but I wanted you to know that from the American soldiers, we've got your six, Mr. Whittle.
John Kelly
1LT(P), AR NCARNG
Executive Officer,
HHC/1-252d Armor
Posted by: 1LT John Kelly | May 19, 2005 12:26 PM
Excellent, Bill.
I can't give any higher praise than to say that this essay is up to your usual standard. How high is that?
Well, how high is the sky?
More, please. Soon, please.
Posted by: Denis | May 19, 2005 12:27 PM
Oh no, like a tattered alley cat, Capt. America drags the dusty, dead WMD canard in to smell up the room. Captain, you obviously never bothered to read all the EU and CIA intel reports. Some of them may have been wrong as to quantity but events proved them accurate as to intent. As a result, we know a lot more about what A.Q. Kahn, Libya, Iraq, and Iran were/are planning for us. Recall the truth that Billy told your namesake in the last five minutes, "We blew it."
Bill Whittle - If you haven't, read "The Windhover." Your prose style often circles like the falcon and then, from prosaic clay, "gash gold vermillion."
Posted by: Billy Hank | May 19, 2005 12:55 PM
''This is what intelligent, social, warm-blooded mammals do: they kill things.''
Intelligent, social carnivores and omnivores.
I believe it was Larry Niven who said, "How smart do you have to be to sneak up on a blade of grass?"
Great essay, Bill.
Forwarding it to everyone on my list.
-N. O'Brain, Imperial Minister for Useless Information to Emperor Misha I
Posted by: N. O'Brain | May 19, 2005 12:59 PM
Bravo! Well worth the wait, although I'll have to work an hour later than planned (many) thanks to you.
Posted by: Chris | May 19, 2005 1:02 PM
Bill,
Thank you once again for a wonderful essay. Like you, I have experiences of noticing those less fortunate but consequentially, I do not have delusions about the "healing powers" of expanding social programs. Instead, thank God for the gifts you have and continue to do good things for others and yourself.
You've done a good thing Bill.
Posted by: Gerard Gibbs | May 19, 2005 1:04 PM
Well worth the wait. Your clearness of thought and ability to transfer same to written word is a talent sorely lacking, in both the MSM, and amongst those who use the information highway to speak their piece (myself included). Bravo Zulu!
Posted by: Guy S | May 19, 2005 1:07 PM
What fantastically wonderful surprise to come home to today!
As usual... AWESOME stuff Bill. Look forward to the next one.
Posted by: Ryley R. Hayes | May 19, 2005 1:15 PM
Dear Juan,
You and I can sit here and argue in the depths of the chart room for days and days, comparing maps and getting nowhere.
While I am, as always, floored by every comment in support of my writing, the letter from Lt. Kelly, above, has justified every hour I spent thinking on this subject.
He is not down in the chart room -- he is on the bridge. He sees the landscape as it really is, not as it is reported to you and me. He has been there. You and I have not. His letter carries more weight than anything you and I can write, and it is upon accounts like his that I base my opinions.
It is an honor and a privilege to help spread the word of what men and women like Lt. Kelley are risking their lives to do. I hear from men and women like this all the time, and it has given my entire life meaning.
I would remind you that at the time of the Vietnam war, there were thousands of people like you claiming the only reason we were in VIETNAM was to steal -- wait for it! -- their OIL.
Get some new ideas, Juan. Watergate and Vietnam are SO 20th century.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | May 19, 2005 1:38 PM
Bless you!
Posted by: Common Reader | May 19, 2005 1:44 PM
Once again an essay that is worth the wait. It is always a bright spot in my day when I find out a new essay is available here. Thanks.
Posted by: Defense Guy | May 19, 2005 2:01 PM
Just war.
Ending Saddams rape rooms.
Just authority - because we can.
Giving Iraqis their own government: because we want to.
Just do it.
Posted by: M. Simon | May 19, 2005 2:05 PM
My sincere respects for the enormous amount of time and effort it must have taken to write this essay. I especially appreciate the clarity and inventiveness of your writing style.
Two questions that come to mind:
Do you ever engage in any conversation at various websites amenable to discussion such as Belmont Club, Tacitus, or Left2Right?
I have often depaired of the mess the educational system has become in this country, especially as it pertains to the abandonment of teaching history. Do you have any thoughts on what steps might be taken to rescue our children from the "educational establishment" which controls, and in my view is destroying, the schools from kindergarten to the university?
Thanks again for a very stimulating read.
Posted by: veryretired | May 19, 2005 2:07 PM
Lt. Kelly,
Thank you for your service and the service of all who serve. I can't help but think, every day of that night in December when, at a Naval Acedemy Men's Glee Club Concert, I suffered nausea, chills, and a wet streak on my cheek , as they sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" ...".....as he died to make men Holy let us die to make me free..." ...the realization that ....THEY, THOSE MEN on that stage, were willing to die to make ME free. Thank you.
Posted by: Matt | May 19, 2005 2:08 PM
oooops, this is what I meant to write
Lt. Kelly,
Thank you for your service and the service of all who serve. I can't help but think, every day of that night in December when, at a Naval Acedemy Men's Glee Club Concert, I suffered nausea, chills, and a wet streak on my cheek , as they sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" ...".....as he died to make men Holy let us die to make me free..." ...the realization that ....THEY, THOSE MEN on that stage, were willing to die to make ME free. Thank you.
Bill, thanks for what you do to support them, as the mere words of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" have doen much to sustain the spirit and soul of America and Americans, so your words do the same and provide us with much perspective.
Wolf
PS Bill, any idea why I had a tough time posting, this said I'd been blacklisted
Posted by: Matt | May 19, 2005 2:10 PM
Captain America,
For me the was was always about shaking up the autocracies of the Middle East.
Sorry that your goals were so much narrower.
In any case it was up to Saddam to show what he had done with all the stuff we know he used to have. He was not behaving in any way like South Africa did in similar circumstances.
BTW what was the purpose of all that yellow cake Saddam had? Coloring glass?
And what about those explosives very useful for building nukes doing in Quaqua?
No WMDs? In my book that makes the war a success.
Posted by: M. Simon | May 19, 2005 2:20 PM
Bill, thanks for saying the things I feel and think, better than I can myself. As a rule, I don't send out links to "go read this" very often. For your writting, I break that rule.
Posted by: CodeViolation | May 19, 2005 2:32 PM
This was a fine bit of prose. It took me most of the day, off and on... Keep up the good work. And there is nothing wrong with posting longer articles further apart.
Posted by: Stanley | May 19, 2005 2:42 PM
Bill –
Lovely essay as usual. I always enjoy your perspective, probably because I share it.
Juan Kerr –
You are correct in that no one has yet addressed your arguments in your comment with another comment. Others have been dismissive towards you, but I believe this is because they feel your comments have been addressed adequately elsewhere and through Bill’s previous essays. Some were a trifle snotty toward you, which I feel is inappropriate.
You are clearly wishing to engage in intelligent debate, which is truly refreshing. Thank you for that. Though I am certainly not as well read as you seem to be, perhaps I can address one or two of your points with respect to Bill’s essay.
Bill does seem to address a very common stereotype when discussing the “left”. However, you must understand that this is what Bill deals with on a daily basis when working with Hollywood, which may be overly represented with people like his ponytail guy. So perhaps he can be forgiven of this trespass.
Bill’s vignette didn’t seem all that crucial to his argument though – he used it to put a personal spin on his overall point, rather than let it be the point itself. Bill has a concern with moral equivalence. He cites Michael Moore’s comparison of Iraqi terrorists to the minutemen. He references Ward Churchill’s comparison of 9/11 victims to Nazi bureaucrat Eichmann. Are these the strawmen to which you refer?
If so, I would agree. Their arguments are ineffective and poorly contrived. However, they are also well known, and have surprisingly loud voices for such strawmen. So perhaps Bill can be forgiven for lighting fire to them.
Yes, Bill was hard on the Russians. But Stalin was harder. I don’t think Bill is discounting the importance of Soviet Russia in defeating Hitler; I think he is acutely aware of the blood sacrifice that the Soviet Union made during World War II. I also know Bill is acutely aware of the blood cost by the US turning a blind eye to our former ally’s brutality to its own people and Eastern Europe. Fifty million of Stalin’s own people lie dead from his policies of brutality, state control, and starvation. So perhaps Bill can be forgiven for discouraging the use Soviet Russia as a model for a humane government.
Your further comments indicate that Bill’s premise falls apart unless we assume that the Iraq war was not a just war. In other words, one cannot hold an enemy combatant responsible for his actions in war if one cannot justify the war.
An interesting comment. Certainly a worthwhile debate topic, but as Bill’s essay points out, a topic that is moot outside of US and Coalition rules of engagement, or if you will allow me the term, Western rules of engagement. Certainly we’ve seen civilians targeted in war, and most developed nations now strive to resist the practice. It is difficult, however, to grant the benefit of doubt to nations that have targeted their own citizens, such as China and the Soviet Union. I daresay that Germans would rather take their own lives than pursue the ideals of the Nazi party against their own citizens again, but I worry that the German people are too anxious to sweep their history under the rug instead of ensuring that such mistakes never happen again.
Those who would pervert Islam purport the belief that it is justified to lie, to cheat, to murder, to target civilians and children, so long as the action is against an unbeliever. Should we assume the best of these people as well? Should we assume that they will abide by Western ideals of engagement, and share our value system?
Of course not, to do so would be an act of arrogance on our part. But isn’t that what we’re doing when we say, “we shouldn’t meddle in their affairs”? How arrogant of us to assume that our help is unwelcome, or is unnecessary.
However, you are right to demand that we hold ourselves to the highest ideals. Americans are imperfect, but there’s no reason for us to hold ourselves to a lower standard just because our enemies do not hold themselves to the same standard. Bill’s essay does a much better job on this issue than I ever could.
So let us assume for a moment that this issue is accepted: an enemy combatant cannot be held responsible for his actions in an unjust war. You provided a measure for determination of justice – approval by an accepted Authority based on moral, ethical, or legal grounds.
You provide the example of such Authority – the Security Council of the U.N. As pointed out, the UN passed 16 resolutions since 1991 regarding Saddam’s former regime that provided the legal basis for war.
When asked, the Security Council would not grant specific authority for the Iraq war, nor would it prohibit it. The request was withdrawn by the US. Although the Security Council refused to grant specific permission for war, I would argue that the council was an inappropriate Authority to grant such permission, as three member nations – France, Russia, and Germany had economic ties with Saddam’s regime that would constitute a conflict of interest. Russia was the largest provider of weaponry to the Iraqi regime, despite international bans on such sales to Iraq. France and Germany have been shown to have had numerous oil contracts with Saddam, some done through the UN’s corrupt Oil for Food program, and some through under the table arrangements which would have violated economic sanctions that should have been enforced by the UN.
So the President sought and obtained US congressional approval for war on Saddam’s regime. He used the moral basis of freeing the Iraqi’s from an oppressive regime, and the legal basis of violation of UN resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction. Though such weapons were not found, the resolutions passed by the UN were specific in regard to compliance with inspections. Saddam never complied with the inspections. He was to produce records showing the disposition of all known we