MysteriousFaith

Does Being Wrong Matter If You’re Sincerely Wrong?

Does the administration have to appoint a pro-choice Supreme Court nominee to shake Republicans out of the myopia through which they view the nature of this Presidency? It seems that only cultural issues matter any more for most conservative voters. “Screw fiscal responsibility, we’re against abortion!” seems to be the rallying cry of most Republicans. The Republican Party I thought I understood and loved was fiscally responsible: we believed in cutting taxes to spur economic growth and to keep government from over-reaching, and we believed in controlling ballooning government expenditures.

I have an honest question for my Bush-backing family, friends and fellow country-men: what does the Bush administration have to be wrong about to shake your faith in their ideas, the direction they have set for America and, as a consequence, the implications of these ideas to the world? I am stunned at the reversal of a conservative movement I was once an intimate part of. From standing for fiscal responsibility, conservatives now stifle their criticisms of the administration’s economic plans and foreign policy over fear that internal party strife decreases the likelihood of winning the election - a telling insight into how political power has become more important that doing the right thing. From standing for limited use of American power internationally for fear of being drawn into un-winnable wars, to the now pornographic policy of pre-emption, conservatives have shown a palpable lack of sensible direction in responding to the events of 9/11. To argue that conservatives have been able to rise above the most base of tactics - that of fear-mongering - is dubious when Vice President Cheney argues that a terrorist attack is more likely to occur if Kerry is elected. Instead of shaking our collective heads at the dark heart such a comment reveals, too many conservatives slide even closer to the edges of their seats, sucking at the teat of fear and loathing. Long gone are the days when conservatives could argue for taking the moral high ground within the country’s debate over critical issues.

Support for Bush’s foreign policy hinges on a complex rationalization for the immediacy of the threat Iraq represented and the mandate to the American Presidency that no imminent threat be allowed to develop without pre-empting the full development of this threat. Logical application of the doctrine of pre-emption will never be discussed in a meaningful two-sided debate forum because its implications are horrendous, the rationalization of its doctrine being sustainable only in limited spurious engagements with placating television hosts and fearful citizens. This doctrine will result (if applied logically) in a very real constant state of war, as a reasonable analysis of threats equal to the nefarious threat Iraq posed would mean a laundry list of countries the US must now militarily engage itself with. The laughable doctrine of pre-emption, once a serious but unspoken foreign policy engagement known as anticipatory self-defense, is now the hall mark of a meandering behemoth, frightened, wounded and looking to lash out at anyone it perceives as a threat. The doctrine the Bush administration has put forward simply can not be justified when properly analyzed by those who know enough to question the futility of such a banal idea.

But I do not believe support for the doctrine of pre-emption is the only reason people support President Bush’s invasion of Iraq: many people support him because they believe “action” is needed to ensure no 9/11 event ever occurs again. These are no doubt the same people who largely believe that cold-cocking the big surly guy at the end of the bar is the pre-eminently wise and prudent choice for avoiding having to fight him later on in the evening when you are both fastidiously working your way towards a drunken stupor. Supporters of President Bush honestly need to explore what the implications are to a world where the United States seeks out gathering threats and deals with them pre-emptively. How do we determine what is and what is not a gathering threat? Why is the doctrine of pre-emption, which relies so critically on good intelligence and wisdom to cut through politics, not being evaluated against the now-obvious claims that the administration politicized the intelligence gathering for the explicit reason of justifying an invasion of Iraq? Folks, if you are OK with an administration that invades a sovereign country on the basis of wrong and intentionally politicized intelligence, you have allowed fear to take over rational thinking. The implications of such fear and loss of rationalism are much more terrifying to the American republic than any threat Saddam Hussein ever represented.

Americans are gradually becoming aware of the fact that the Iraqi occupation is not going well. It should be rightly said here that just because something is hard, or because something costs more than it was thought to have cost, it is not the wrong thing to do. Many of the most precious things history has recorded and lauded as the highest of human achievements came difficultly. Such recognition needs to color our thoughts on the current status of the Iraqi war. I am wary of opponents of the Iraqi war who feel justified in their position when things go badly. The fact that over 1,000 US soldiers have died is tragic, but it is no more tragic than the much more severe and mounting death toll of Iraqi civilians. People such as myself who would accept the label of “liberal” are doing a particularly poor job of presenting an idea of what our involvement globally should be, of providing frightened Americans with another idea they can believe in, something other than militaristic retribution they can seek solace from.

In the face of a strongly defined ideology as represented with the Bush doctrine of pre-emption, it is wholly insufficient to simply be against the Iraqi war. We must put forward an idea of an open global society, meaningful international law, and the means by which the globe can deal with both gathering threats and international despots. 9/11 was a golden opportunity to define a new way of engaging the world. The harsh reality is that the neo-conservative movement pounced on the opportunity, leaving those who disagree in the unenviable position of simply arguing against the prudence of their policies. We are missing our voice; we are sacrificing our ideals; no better example of this being the wandering message of the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

Even illustrious conservative supporters of the Iraqi war like Andrew Sullivan who bought into the complex rationalization that justified the invasion are having buyer’s remorse over how the war is going: “The president has no excuse for not knowing the disaster that his conduct of the war has unleashed, as his own internal assessment has been bleak. But he refuses to acknowledge reality - perhaps the most dangerous characteristic in a war-president. At this rate, it won’t matter that John Kerry seems unable to make the case against the president. The shambles that this president has created in Iraq war will do it for him.” (AndrewSullivan.Com, 9/16/2004 blog entry) Perhaps you are like Andrew, and believe the best about the Bush administration. That is fine. But it is unreasonable to not ask yourself what they have to be wrong about to lose your support. Why are you not offended that they would intentionally politicize the intelligence gathering process in order to get people to say things that were not true? Why are you not up in arms at a policy of pre-emption that requires consistency in order to be effective in deterrence? Why were you against Clinton’s foreign policy of engaging American troops in areas of tyranny and genocide, but now side with President Bush when he justifies his actions on the basis of a now-democratic Iraq? Why is it only now that your sense of international justice fits the complex rationalization of invading Iraq and not other despots that right now, in this moment in time, play similar devious roles with their people? Be honest, you support invading Iraq for three reasons: fear, the intimate vulnerability you feel after 9/11, and a blind allegiance to the label “Republican.”

Does the administration have to appoint a pro-choice Supreme Court nominee to shake Republicans out of the myopia through which they view the nature of this Presidency? It seems that only cultural issues matter any more for most conservative voters. “Screw fiscal responsibility, we’re against abortion!” seems to be the rallying cry of most Republicans. The Republican Party I thought I understood and loved was fiscally responsible: we believed in cutting taxes to spur economic growth and to keep government from over-reaching, and we believed in controlling ballooning government expenditures. But flash forward to today’s Bush Presidency: his budget for the next 10 years totals out at $3 trillion. Kerry’s budget for the same period of time totals out to $2 trillion. This is asinine and shameful irresponsibility on the part of conservatives who claim to know better.

The scandal within this statement is not the absolute fiscal shame of both our parties (one of whom pushes the pabulum that you can lower taxes and increase government spending without violating the long term financial viability of the country, and the other who believes in raising or maintaining taxes in order to fund government spending), but the recognition that the debt-as-a-forever-dance partner thinking that brought MCI-WorldCom, Enron and Global Crossing to their respective knees has found its way to the White House, that lofty air where, per Vice President Cheney, debt does not really matter. Folks, when the party ends - and it will in our lifetimes - we are going to go hunting for the heads of our leaders who stood on the sidelines and watched us march towards the abyss, knowing full well the problems the country faced, but being unwilling to do exactly what they were elected to do - to lead.

You do not need to take my word for this - look at the Congressional Budget Office’s comments:

“Over the longer term, the federal budget will face significant strains, which will begin within the current 10-year projection period and intensify as more of the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age.(4) The annual growth rate of Social Security spending is expected to rise from around 4.6 percent in 2004 to 6.3 percent by 2014. Medicare and Medicaid spending are both projected to increase by 8 percent to 9 percent a year toward the end of the projection period. Under baseline assumptions, those three entitlement programs together will account for nearly half of all federal outlays by 2014 (up from 40 percent this year).

After 2014, as the percentage of the population age 65 or older continues to increase (from 14 percent in 2014 to 19 percent in 2030), spending on those three programs will claim an even larger share of total outlays. Over the long term, increasing resource demands for major entitlement programs will exert pressure on the budget that economic growth alone is unlikely to alleviate.” (Emphasis mine).

Whether you consider yourself a Republican, Liberal, Independent, conservative, liberal, socialist or centrist, we all should agree on one simple thing: the politicians of today embody an unwillingness to deal with the real issues. It is much easier for the people we have allowed to be our leaders to fight over Vietnam-era service records than to debate and discuss what we need to do to ensure the fiscal viability of our very way of life for our generation. This Presidential election is going to be about political skill, not about critical ideas. It will stand starkly in history as a moment in time when America was unwilling to ask its leaders to lead, to shine light on the difficult situations we find ourselves in, and to deal with these problems.

I, like most Americans who care, am weary of today’s politics. Our politicians are deluding themselves so they can placate us. Our politicians are engaging in secondary issues in order to sidestep the thorny issues that should be primary. Our politicians are offering us new pet programs in the hopes we will not notice the fiscal insolvency of the programs we already have, that most of us are counting on. Our politicians are fighting with each other because reasoning with each other is harder.

Like the latter-day Roman Empire today’s America is often compared to, we the citizens are allowing our ears to be tickled, our stomachs filled and our lives entertained by our politicians so that we do not notice that our Empire crumbles around us. May God give to us men and women who are willing to lead through the fiscal, cultural and security crises that await us and, may God give us the citizenry to stand by these leaders as they undo the damage today’s politicians have done. May God give us the chance again to have the American dream the world holds up as one of its highest ideals. May we be worthy once again of the responsibility of republic.

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• September 24, 2004

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