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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-09-09

Reconciling the "Two Americas," part I 

No, not those two Americas--the most self-aggrandizing, hypocritical populist schpiel in the last 40 years, delivered by a guy who gets $400 haircuts, lives in a 28 THOUSAND square-foot home, and runs around the country in private jet.

I'm talking about the two Americas that Michael Barone has so intelligently identified, and which are being highlit in no uncertain terms by the ongoing debate over the War In Iraq.

Democrats identify remarkably well with "soft America"--the part of our society where there is little competition and accountability. . . Soft America seeks to instill self-esteem. In the current debate over Iraq, the Democrats have tried to claim that the soldiers and Marines who are called on to fight are "victims" and dupes; that they somehow found their way into a uniform without any reasonable expectation that they would have to honor it by fighting. Since the Democats have had control of the school systems for the 45 years, they assume that they have successfully inculcated the "soft America" mindset into 18 year olds; thus, for any of them to actually want to fight for their country they must have been decieved. It is beyond the ability of liberal Democrats to understand that there are still warriors among us.

Beyond that, the liberal Democrats are going to try to convince America that the mission is unachieveable--that, no matter how effective our American military is and no matter how wise and skilled the leadership of the [unanimously confirmed] Commander and his subordinates, that there is no way for America to see this through to the other side successfully. Why? Because it's too hard, and we're not up to it. In the words of the Senate Democratic Leader, we are a "miserable failure;" in the words of the Chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign, our men and women are "incapable."

The liberal Democrats are at the mall while the Marines are at War.

Instead, liberal Democrats are calling for an increase in the diplomatic pressures brought to bear, believing (in their softness) that negotiation is the only way to achieve the objective; and they are calling for "symbolic" troop drawdowns (as, sadly, are some Republicans), believing (in their softness) that symbolic measures count as much as real actions.

The overarching reality of the liberal Democratic position is that they do NOT believe in America's ability to achieve great things, because to do so is too hard. Unfortunately, what they will attempt to do with this reality this week is enforce "softness" on the rest of the country by trying to discredit one of our greatest warriors, and then trying to pull the rest of the team off the field while the game is still in the balance.

The elements of "hard America" which got us into this position had better get ready to articulate what makes them think America still has "Hard" tendencies. I will do so tomorrow.

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Posted by: Michael / 9/09/2007 01:38:00 AM

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