Posted on 09/09/2006 5:37:04 AM PDT by A. Pole
"The war we fight today is more than a military conflict," said President Bush to the American Legion. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."
But if the ideology of our enemy is "Islamo-fascism," what is the ideology of George W. Bush? According to James Montanye, writing in the Independent Review, it is "democratic fundamentalism." Montanye borrows Joseph Schumpeter's depiction of Marxism to describe it.
Like Marxism, he writes, democratic fundamentalism "presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. ... It belongs to that subgroup (of 'isms') which promises paradise this side of the grave."
Ideology is substitute religion, and Bush's beliefs were on display in his address to the Legion, where he painted the "decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century" in terms of good and evil.
"On the one side are those who believe in the values of freedom ... the right of all people to speak and worship and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism, the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest."
Casting one's cause in such terms can be effective in wartime. In his Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural, Lincoln converted a war to crush Southern secession into a crusade to end slavery and save democracy on earth.
Wilson recast a European war of imperial powers as a " war to end war" and "make the world safe for democracy." FDR and Churchill in the Atlantic Charter talked of securing "the Four Freedoms," but were soon colluding to hand over Eastern Europe to the worst tyrant and mass murderer of the 20th century.
The peril of ideology is that it rarely comports with reality and is contradicted by history, thus leading inevitably to disillusionment and tragedy. Consider but a few of the assertions in Bush's address.
Said Bush, we know by "history and logic" that "promoting democracy is the surest way to build security." But history and logic teach, rather, what George Washington taught: The best way to preserve peace is to be prepared for war and to stay out of wars that are none of the nation's business.
"Democracies don't attack each other or threaten the peace," said Bush. How does he then explain the War of 1812, when we went to war against Britain, when she was standing up to Napoleon? What about the War Between the States? Were not the seceding states democratic? What about the Boer War, begun by the Brits? What about World War I, fought between the world's democracies, which also happened to be empires ruling subject peoples?
In May 1901, a 26-year-old Tory member of Parliament rose to issue a prophetic warning: "Democracy is more vindictive than cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than the wars of kings." Considering the war that came in 1914 and the vindictive peace it produced, giving us Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, was not Churchill more right than Bush?
"Governments accountable to the people focus on building roads and schools – not weapons of mass destruction," said Bush. But is it not the democracies – Israel, India, Britain, France, the United States – that possess a preponderance of nuclear weapons? Are they all disarming? Were not the Western nations first to invent and use poison gas and atom bombs?
Insisting it is the lack of freedom that fuels terrorism, Bush declares, "Young people who have a say in their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism." Tell it to Mussolini and the Blackshirts. Tell it to the Nazis, who loathed the free republic of Weimar, as did the communists.
"Citizens who can join a peaceful political party are less likely to join a terrorist organization." But the West has been plagued by terrorists since the anarchists. The Baader-Meinhoff Gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Puerto Ricans who tried to kill Harry Truman, the London subway bombers were all raised in freedom.
"Dissidents with the freedom to protest around the clock," said the president, "are less likely to blow themselves up at rush hour." But Hamas and Islamic Jihad resort to suicide bombing because they think it a far more effective way to overthrow Israeli rule than marching with signs.
What Bush passed over in his speech is that it is the autocratic regimes in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman that hold back the pent-up animosity toward America and Israel, and free elections that have advanced Hamas, Hezbollah, the Moslem Brotherhood and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
In Iraq, we see the inevitable tragedy of ideology, of allowing some intellectual construct, not rooted in reality, to take control of the minds of men.
And what would "finish the job"? Utter destruction of Germany and resulting Communist victory (remember that Communists almost won there)? Neither France, nor England nor Russia had resources to do that.
No, the lesson of post WWI policy was to treat the defeated fairly and kindly - that is why after WWII both Japan and Germany were helped and Japan was allowed to keep the monarchy.
Lenin came at the end of WWI because the new pro-Western democratic government was not capable to to rule.
The "harsh peace" was not made by Germany, it was a ploy by the Communists who gave away territory in order to defeat the White Army.
This is a MISQUOTE of the much older saying taken out of the context (I quote from memory).
"There are three forms of good government:
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Democracy/Republic
and there are three corrupt forms:
Tyranny/Despotism
Oligarchy
Anarchy/Ochlocracy (power of the mob).
Of the good forms the monarchy is the best, of the bad the corrupt democracy is the least bad."
The corrupt monarchy is the worst of the bad, the good republic is the least good of the good. So if you are a pessimist, go with the republic/democracy that way you will avoid the worst, if you are an optimist go with the monarchy as you can get the best.
So how exactly would President Buchanan have responded to 9-11? I imagine him, like the Germans in Europe during WWII, constructing "Fortress America". As the Germans learned, no country can be sufficiently fortified to repulse attack.Transforming the Middle East is hard work but is a surer defense than the isolationism Buchanan espouses.
Like the Left, Pat refuses to see the real enemy, Islamic Fascism, and treats our government like the enemy. He and Noam Chomsky sound like they're reading from the same blame America first book.
Vision, passion and time reveal great works. Unfinished masterpieces never look right.
That part is not accurate.
--it's been sad to watch Buchanan's decline over the past decade or so ... he's so hate-filled and bitter--
I think he just got his brain rattled by the bizzare right-wing multiculturalism of the paleos and _Chronicles_as a result he admires the muslims for their religous fervor and nationalism and finds western liberal democracy to be contemptuous.
Yeah, it's a good thing that Riyadh is on the job. Otherwise, we might have been attacked by a bunch of Saudi terrorists.
Oh, wait...
Neither.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezola_B._Foster
I think the person you were thinking of was Lenora Fulani, who briefly endorsed Buchanan in 2000, only to later withdraw her endorsement in favor of the "Natural Law Party" candidate.
You're certainly on to something about Pat. People like him don't really like, enjoy, feel fondness, or admire the American way of life. He just doesn't fit in. And America is just too hedonistic and too vulgar to be loved the way a good Islamic state can be admired by the likes of a Pat Buchanan. There he can gaze in awe at the traditions, the sense of historic mission, and their high public morals (e.g., women in burqas). Of course, behind the scenes there is every bit as much sin, but Pat isn't likely to let that offend him. For Pat, the Islamic way of life is a dandy little authoritarianism that is so dear to his heart. Here in America the unthinking masses can elect a know-nothing like Bush and the Great Man Buchanan is relegated to the side lines to carp and fuss without any real effect. So sad that such a great American can't get elected. No wonder he's not a proponent of democracy.
Yes, you're right.
Last I checked, we controlled western Europe.
No, the lesson of post WWI policy was to treat the defeated fairly and kindly - that is why after WWII both Japan and Germany were helped and Japan was allowed to keep the monarchy.
Gawd, man, we OBLITERATED both counties first. I guess in order to remain a Buchananite nowadays, you have to learn to completely warp history.
And, once again, the west had NOTHING to do with overthrowing the Czar or the subsequent peace.
The "harsh peace" was not made by Germany, it was a ploy by the Communists who gave away territory in order to defeat the White Army.
Thanks for undermining your own argument here.
Mr Nail meets Mr Hammer. Nail loses.
your memory is as faulty as your reasoning: "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1947
"We"? Who "controlled western Europe" since 1918?
Dude, I give up. You cannot even maintain a coherent line of debate. You were referencing post WWII - and we (i.e. the US and its allies) controlled western Europe afterwards. Now you spin it back to 1918.
You may have the last word, since it's a nice day and engaging you in anything resembling debate is a waste of such.
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