There is NO defense for Liberalism; however, I refuse to debate with him because I don't want to take advantage of the mentally ill. LOL!
Posted on 08/03/2004 12:09:31 PM PDT by dead
Opening Statement
Dear FRiends:
I once suffered two great frustrations in being a freelance political writer. First, the loneliness: you put an article out there, and you might as well have thrown it down a black hole for all the response you get. Second, the ghettoization: when you do get response, it would be from folks you agree with. Not fun for folks like me who reliish--no, crave and need--political argument.
Then came the Internet, the blogs--and: problem solved.
I have especially enjoyed having my articles in the Village Voice posted on Free Republic by "dead," and arguing about them here. The only frustration is that I never have enough time--and sometimes no time--to respond as the threads are going on. That is why I arranged for an entire afternoon--this afternoon--to argue on Free Republic. Check out my articles and have at me.
A little background: I am a proud leftist who specializes in writing about conservatives. I have always admired conservatives for their political idealism, acumen, stalwartness, and devotion. I have also admired some of their ideas--especially the commitment to distrusting grand social schemes, and the deep sense of the inherent flaws in human nature. (To my mind the best minds in the liberal tradition have encompassed these ideals, while still maintaining that robust social reform is still possible and desirable. My favorite example is the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, author of the Serenity Prayer and a great liberal Democrat.)
Lately, however, I've become mad at the right, and have written about it with an anger not been present in my previous writings. It began with the ascension of George Bush, when I detected many conservatives beginning to care more about power than principles. The right began to seem less interesting to me--more whiny, more shallow--and, what's more, in what I saw as an uncritical devotion to President Bush, often in retreat from its best insights about human nature.
I made my strongest such claim in a Village Voice article two weeks ago in which I, after much thought, chose to say conservatism was "verging on becoming an un-American creed" for the widespread way conservatives are ignoring the lessons of James Madison's great insights in Federalist 51 that in America we are supposed to place our ultimate trust in laws, not men.
Finally, in what I see as the errors of the Iraq campaign, I recognize the worst aspects of arrogant left-wing utopianism: the idea that you can remake a whole society and region through sheer force of will. I think Iraq is a tragic disaster (though for the time being the country is probably better off than it was when Saddam was around--but only, I fear, for the time being).
I am also, by the way, a pretty strong critic of my own side, as can be seen in my latest Village Voice piece.
So: I'm yours for the day--until 7:10 pm CST, when I'm off to compete in my weekly trivia contest at the University of Chicago Pub. Until then: Are you ready to rumble?
Respectfully,
Rick Perlstein
Don't bother trying the insults. You aren't good enough to make 'em work.
Ricky boy, the White House did not abrogate the treaty, the SCOTUS did! The treaty and the lease agreement are quite clear. GITMO remains under Cuban soverignty. SCOTUS overreached, abrogated the treaty by claiming jurisdiction and there will be hell to pay down the road for sure.
What color is your looking glass?
I have a right to post in protest to this liberal spammer Perlstain. Are your sensitivities offended? Too bad, grow a spine. I MUST have touched your feely liberal nerve eh.
It’s just that you’re really coming across as an idiot without a single intelligent thought in your head.
The person who asked you to stop likely just had your best interests at heart.
You should thank him for his concern, rather than continue to lash out incoherently.
Either that or you can post another irrelevant cartoon.
Sheesh you two!! Your insults are cracking me up, but do you mind taking it outside?? ;o)
So, do you actually believe slowing the growth of the Federal Leviathan--or preferably shrinking it in real-dollar terms--is a worthy endeavor? Admittedly, Dubyuh has been a disappointment in this regard fer his first term...if he comes out in his second term and starts devolving Power from the Feds and back to the States, Localities, and Individuals, would that be a good thing?
You know Kerry's raison d'etre (sp) is--as the most Lib'ral Senator in office--to grow the Fed however feasible.
FReegards...MUD
Thanks for a great post!
Rick, I'm openly waiting for your response to Phsstpok, but his argument has been much more persuasive then yours.
Interesting.
If I wanted a pet, I'd get a dog. ;)
There is NO defense for Liberalism; however, I refuse to debate with him because I don't want to take advantage of the mentally ill. LOL!
Conservatives don't like to waste time arguing with liberals because we don't want to argue about first principles with people who do not even recognize that they are making assumptions.
Basically, I don't accept your premises, so why argue about your conclusions?
"Perlstein and his commie pinko liberal ilks idea of "window of opportunity"... through a burqa ie., women have no face, no voice - NO LIFE!"
Mr. Perlstein, and others like him, ignore the cries of agony of Muslim women because they are inconvenient. To agree that something must be done to remove their tormentors from power, means that they would have to agree with the policies of George W. Bush. The left doesn't care if millions of Muslim women suffer. Politics trump principle every time.
Mr. Perlstein: How do you justify this? How can you and your compatriots ignore the gender apartheid that exists in the Muslim world? And if you claim that you don't ignore it, then what is your solution other than overthrowing the repressive regimes which allow it to flourish?
Say, when you ask whether a nice guy would invade a country at the cost of untold innocent lives on the shakiest of pretenses?
Why do you write nonsense like this? Reasonable estimates of the killings by Saddam and his thugs (mostly torture killings) ran at about 10,000 per year, not counting his more efficient gas attack on the Kurds. The current rate of unnatural deaths is far lower, and most of those are targeted military killings of terrorists -- either remnants of Saddam loyalists, or foreign troublemakers who moved in after the war to take advantage of the instability -- not "innocent lives", which made up the majority of victims under Saddam. So there was no "cost" in lives whatsoever -- FEWER people are dying, not more.
As for "shaky pretenses", the fact that a brutal dictator was torturing thousands of people to death every year, and forcing virtually everyone else in the country to live in imminent fear of the same fate, hardly strikes me as a "shaky pretense". Especially when the same brutal dictator had actually used WMDs on his own people, had made credible threats in the past to use them on other countries, and had shown no inclination to abandon a general policy of aggression and brutality.
The only mistake President Bush made was trying to get UN approval for the operation, which approval was only available under a tightly defined "WMD" banner. Hopefully next time (North Korea? Sudan? Zimbabwe?), President Bush won't waste time and credibility trying to get "approval" from one of the most corrupt organizations on earth (whose corrupt officials and member-states were, in the case of Iraq, obviously disinclined to approve any disruption to their oil-for-kickbacks gravy train).
So you formed your opinion of millions of people by statements made by one individual? Without context, your assessment of even that one individual has no weight, except to you because you were there.
As for shallow, your lettr to the editor proved only that you think Ann Coulter is vitriolic. One man's interpretation of "vitriole" is another's acid wit. In fact, I would consider your accusation that NO conservative EVER sits down and talks with someone they disagree with to be vitriole. You're talking to us aren't you? Not person to person, but you already stated that conservatives speak with you about issues in person - i.e.: the Portland "whiner".
I'm still waiting to hear why you assess all conservatives as "shallow"
It's easy to forget that the Freeper horde is working in parallel while he's working in series.
I know plenty about Israel. I've been there, and I have very close friends who were born in Israel, one who served in the Knesset. There are very few "on the religious right" who don't believe Israel have a right to exist. I know the Israelis voted Arik Sharon into office...:)
And, not to put too fine a point on it, isn't it presumptuous to assume I'm a Jew?
Perhaps. So, what are you? A leftist Christian named Perlstein???
Brilliant question, Southack. Still no response I see.
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