We conservatives need to calm down

Chicago Sun Times ^ | 04/06/09 | DAVID HOROWITZ

[Borges]

I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd on the left.

Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with President Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.

I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.

This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, a recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.

So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments, as many conservatives seem to think -- unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this, you fall into the "Bush-is-an-idiot" bag of liberal miasmas.

It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what's the surprise in this? After all, George W. Bush and John McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he has run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee -- and that should tell you the American system is still in place.

Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.

In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him, either.

As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so, conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let's leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.

[Earthdweller]

Seems to me you just called some people "stupid and ignorant" (people who are correctly upset about being told to ,essentially, STHU about your loss of freedoms and money by one of "their own")....People using political terms such as 'Republican in name' and Communist.

Now who is playing below the belt again?

[DoughtyOne]

Just relax Germany and Italy, sure Hitler and Mussolini are bad, but they do have accomplishments. Don’t start sounding like the anti-Bush haters...

Fascism is Fascism David.

[MrB]

“A narcissistic leader is likely to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc.”

Scary, isn’t it?

It’s almost as if we have “Che Hitler” on our hands. Che was all about killing the “counter-revolutionaries”.

[rlmorel]

"...Che was all about killing the “counter-revolutionaries..."

As was Bill Ayers' group, the Weathermen. And he was one of the guiding lights of Barack Obama's political career.

But, nothing to see here.

[MrB]

From the gun and ammo sales,
us “counter-revolutionaries”

have no intention of being caught off guard.

[Las Vegas Ron]

Hey D.O...long time.

This is the most bizarre thread I think I've ever read here.

I'm reading from some FReepers we shouldn't believe our lying eyes and except a dangerous move to fascism, socialism and communism. But it's OK because we can reverse it and have suffered worse. And I guess that little speech about not being at war with islam and we never will be was just a prank....ha, ha, he's only kidding.

Truly bizarre

[fr_freak]

Instead you are engaged in the classic rhetorical overreach of the reductio ad Hitler, "like Hitler, a lover of dogs..." In case nobody noticed, the whole point of Godwin is that this *always* happens when one side loses an argument.

The point of Godwin's Law was that people would get into arguments over anything and invoke Hitler and the Nazis, and that was silly. For example, two people might be arguing about whether there should be a leash law for pets, or whether movie theaters should offer both Coke AND Pepsi, and one of the idiots would say, "Well, if you like corporations to have that much control over people, then you're no different from the Nazis. If you think dogs, who were born to be free in the wild, should have to wear chokers, you are no different than Hitler with the Jews."

When you are discussing a situation where there actually are parallels to pre-Nazi Germany, such as Obama wanting a national security force as powerful as the military at his disposal, and Obama firing corporate CEOs, assuming complete control of the company, it would be asinine NOT to note the similarity.

Your attitude reminds me of the "zero-tolerance" policies that so many small-minded bureaucrats engage in, where 10 year old children are suspended from school for drawing a picture of a gun or bringing Tylenol. Such people lack the ability to discern when certain reactions are appropriate, and when they are not, so they engage in the same reaction every time. You have decided that it is ALWAYS tinfoil conspiracy theory to notice any ominous parallels with Nazis, so you'll use that same reaction even when there really ARE parallels.

[armymarinedad]

First off I never mentioned the “Black Helicopter Crowd” that was that was ArmymarineMOM, my wife. I don’t hang around with them for the same reason I don’t hang out at prisons and mental institutions. They just ain’t my kinda folks.
You defended your “Big Tent” concept with another “Big Tent” concept. You are right though inclusiveness did give us Obama.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

The gift exchange with the Brits showed me just how low down, low class these people really are and how very little they understand about the workings of politics or government.

Don't get calmer people, get more riled!

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

In case nobody noticed, the whole point of Godwin is that...

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this Godwin dude has ever done that usenet geeks are still talking about his silly "law" 20 years after the fact.

[abb]

LOL! I think the historic whitewash phrase for Mussolini was “Well, at least he made the trains run on time.”

[fr_freak]

We have survived civil war, the actual great depression, world war, Soviet communism, Vietnam-era hippies and Obama’s liberal predecessors — and we will survive Obama.

We survived those things because we did not underestimate their threat to our country (with the exception of the hippies). We saw a threat, and we went full throttle to deal with it. What you seem to be advocating now is a relaxed, "let's just see what happens" posture where we are already assured that we'll be just fine regardless of what we do or what attitude we take. That position is similar to a football team relaxing in the fourth quarter because they have a 10 point lead and figure they can't lose. That is precisely when such teams lose. An overreaction to Obama and his communist yahoos is far, far better than an underreaction.

[EveningStar]

Is it necessary to call someone a RINO or a communist because you disagree with him on one column?

[RedElement]

My two cents: Horowitz is more right than wrong. Yes, the press is a huge part of O’s success. But, O knows what his agenda is, and a lot of plans were in place for Day 1. We do the conservative cause a disservice by relegating him to idiocy. Wrong, yes. Naive, yes. But also, shrewd, goal oriented and focused. A thoroughly tough opponent, and we are going to have to be very shrewd, tough and focused to turn this around.

[MayflowerMadam]

Calm down? Hmmm... NFW!!! Our calmness has been America’s downfall.

Conservatives’ problem is that they’re... well... conservative, and are pretty much for staying out of other people’s business. Our live-and-let-live, free-will-of-man attitude has created huge problems for America. We should be as active as the left-wing whackos have been. They may be over-the-top weird, but at least they’re organized and get their ideas out. I think it’s too late for us.

[wastedyears]

Why should we calm down?

[RatsDawg]

Love it!

[Deb]

Horowitz has never been a “conservative”, he (like Nixon) is an anti-Communist. There is a very big difference. He has many beliefs people on this site would completely disagree with, but he hates the Left worse than anything.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

“It can’t happen here, because it hasn’t happened here.”

It’s a very comforting thought. In a lethal sorta way.

[RichInOC]

I am calm, David. But when a president and his administration suck, I find it useful to say so. Calmly, pleasantly, and with good humor, yes, I can do that...but these guys suck the big one.