Tariq "Comical" Ali
On the day Hitch forgives Henry Kissinger for helping to save the west from communism, we can welcome him to the right.
Sigh
This was quite anti-climactic for me. I'm still waiting for someone to define neoconservatism for me. Although this article implies that it's a term that's been in vogue for decades, I've really only heard it used for the past couple of years.
Hitchins can still uncork some pretty leftist sentiments. That doesn't place him in my, 'A good guy to call when you need to sway public opinion' column.
When he's right, it's nice to read. When he's not, it sucks.
Since you can't honestly tell which side he'll come down on, you have to dismiss the guy for the most part.
If you can keep the debate narrowly focused, he may be good on some issues. The problem with guys like this though, is that they will kill you on the periferal issues. People too often reason that if he is solid on "X", then he must be right on "XX" too. With Hitchins, that's a flawed assumption.
Funny, but I sometimes have similar musings about the conservative right. Who in the U.S. Senate still stands for them? All I see is a constant parade of folks like you saw at the GOP convention - big government "conservatives" that don't want to shrink our burdensome federalocracy or even defederalize it. They just want to keep liberal hands away from it by acting neoliberal themselves.
I can sympathize with Hitch. Many times I feel my party has left me. I just don't reach the same conclusions as he has because our goals are different.
I have always had respect for Hitchens. He's one of the few on the (used-to-be?) left that actually thinks for himself, instead of mouthing talking points from HQ.
He sounds like someone with whom one could have a reasonable debate, IOW -- not someone on the left that always brings to mind Ayn Rand's "drooling beast."
And anyone that takes long road trips with P.J. O'Rourke can't be all that bad. ;o)
Seems this is "an interview with Hitchens" ... using quotes from the author, Johann Hari.
BUMP
Tariq "Comical" Ali
Haven't you heard? It's a battle of words the poster bearer cried.
Are there any neocons who are not Jewish conservatives?
Wow! And it's a floor wax and dessert topping, too !!
bump
Tim Russert had a great show a few weeks back with Hitchins and Andrew Sullivan. As much as it pained both of them, they ultimately had to agree with Bush on the Iraq issue.
They realize it's a battle for civilization itself.
Bump for later read.
Bump.
The neocon dream of using the american military to liberate and then birth jeffersonian democracy is S-T-U-P-I-D and amazingly naive. It is no accident that a system of freedom, checks and balances, and representative democracy grew out of a hotbed of Calvinistic Puritianism. We have tried to install our governmental models for YEARS in South and Central America, and all we ever get is a couple of charismatic leaders who give a nodding acceptance in passing to some key buzzwords, as the corruption continues. The fact that men share the desire for freedom in their hearts (the religionists call this "made in the image of God") does NOT eradicate the culture of oppression, hatred, fear, and servitude that Islam embodies. The very IDEA that men have "rights" as an individual is hostile to islam. Islam is statist at its core and will always be so. It is the essense of silliness to try and establish a government based on individual exercise of rights in a culture like this.
I like Hitchens but I wish his brain could be totally free of the leftist fog. It is clouding his mind and holding him back from really great thinking. He says things like this: "Not without what that took - which is an absolutely convincing defeat and discrediting. Something unarguable. I wouldn't exclude any measure either. There's nothing I wouldn't do to stop this form of fascism."
On the other hand he is against the death penalty. Would he be against the death penalty if we caught Osama alive?
"I haven't forgotten the 152 people George Bush executed in Texas."
First of all George Bush didn't execute them--the state of Texas did it. Secondly, the people that were executed were Osamas to the people that they tortured/killed and the families of the murdered that were left behind. It took 9/11 to wake him up--would it take a grisly murder in his family to change his tune on the death penalty? Time to get out of the fog completely Mr. Hitchens.
excellent article - it seems Mr. Hitchens has discovered the essence of a Jacksonian within him.
