A return of 60's Anti-Americanism and Hippies?

AEI Dinner speech ^

[Billthedrill]

The ultimate nightmare of the art crowd and the self-proclaimed intelligentsia and the self-regarding academia is simply this: to know that they have become irrelevant. Hatred they feed on ("looks like we touched a nerve") but disdain gets inside their shield, and worst of all, laughter. The bleating we're hearing now has degenerated from "power to the people" to "look at me, ma," the ultimate cry of the petty, self-centered child who never grew up. That cry devolves into screaming - and it won't be long.

[Libertarian_4_eva]

I don't think we will see a return of the 60's. Infact if you look at all the best seller books hitting number one on the ny-slimes best seller list we are on the verge of a more conservative era.

[Texasforever]

Anti-government, revolution? Yes.

Are you going to fire the first shot?

[Capitalist Eric]

Great article. I copied, sent it to my friends at the UC Davis College Republican party.

Don't count us all out- I've gotten used to getting into the faces of the "free-Palestine" camel-jockeys, and anti-war shitheads, and telling whose cow eats the grass...

Some 7' tall, geeky looking jerk was trying to tell me he was for California "going back to its' original owners," and that he doesn't support America." I told him "fine!", dug out my Visa and threw it on the table. Told him to pick a country, 'cause I'm buying him a one-way ticket to any country he wanted to go to (we were ~75 ft from the on-campus travel office). He asked what I meant, and I told him I'd buy him a ticket to any country he wanted, as long as he promised never to bring his sorry ass back here, ever again... When he said he's "from here" I said "then shut the hell UP!" He stumbled away, after displaying a look of utter confusion...

Poor jerk. Didn't know what to say to someone who has the balls and the means to actually give him his wish...

FReegards,

[Eternal_Bear]

The Draft created the hippies and it might bring them back.

[GEC]

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Who wants to take the first watch?

[GEC]

Thanks for the long, but fabulous read.

[Ciexyz]

I remember my Mom and Dad having an argument during the Vietnam War, that if I (a female) were a boy, would they send me to Canada to escape the draft. My Mom vowed she'd send me to Canada, but my Dad insisted, "No kid of mine is going to Canada." (I can hear him shouting that even now!) Of course it was a moot point, since their child was a girl, but my parents actually stopped speaking for a couple hours over this. Shows how hot tempers were back in that era.

[Justa]

It's absolutely outrageous that Norman Podhoretz would draw a moral equivalency between 9/11 and the Gulf of Tonkin. This is the premise of his argument. That both wars have the same moral foundation and therefore risk the same moral reaction from the American people. There simply is no equivalency between murdering thousands of citizens in a terrorist attack and a gunboat firing a torpedo at a destroyer. Shame on Mr. Podhoretz.

The threat the North Vietnamese posed to America was minimal. The threat Islamic terrorism poses is maximal. It is even greater than that posed by the Japanese in their attack on Pearl Harbor. The American people understand the scope of this threat, the liberals, and apparently Mr. Podhoretz, don't.

Being a so-called "conservative" Norman Podhoretz must be even denser than Tom Daschle. But of course he's not is he? So what's the purpose of his article?

[WarrenC]

Excellent post. Very insightful analysis. Increasingly, I'm coming to believe that there are significant numbers of Americans who don't even realize the degree to which their attitudes have been affected by patterns of thought and speech that are consistent with an absolute hatred of America and all she stands for. Susan Sontag and those influenced by her, feel in their very souls, a thrill at the thought of the United States someday being at the mercy of nuclear bomb wielding terrorists. When that day comes - and it will if America's actions are influenced by them - they will cluck and observe how regrettable the situation is, but they will note that, under the circumstances, it is simply irresponsible - inconceivable even - to consider doing anything other than what the terrorists demand. They will caution against any "over-reaction" by the "extreme right wing", and secretly they will thrill to America's humiliation and defeat. That is exactly what they - not just Susan Sontag, but even Tom Daschle, whether he admits it to himself or not - have in mind today.

[VietVet]

"If I learned anything from the 60's ...."

What I learned from the 60's was never concede any argument, anytime, any place. Not in the streets, not on campus, not in the classrooms, not in the news media. No compromise, no conciliation with evil.

If they take to the streets, *we* must take to the streets, and in greater numbers and more militant attitudes. If they try to use our schools as propaganda outlets, we must stand up in class and object, stand up at the alumni meetings, at the school board meetings and in the legislative chambers and object. If they write columns in the newspapers, we write letters to the editor, or even found our own newspapers.

Above all we must get involved in the politcal process: vote, work for candidates of our persuasions, run for office ourselves, if need be. The last Presidential race was decided by a razor's edge thin margin, but there were more than enough people who didn't bother to vote to have turned it into a landslide for either side, for the candidate who could have mobilized them, motivated them just enough to get out and go down to the polling places. Local races are often decided by a plurality of the minority of voters who bother to turn out.

It is up to us.

[VietVet]

"Who wants to take the first watch?"

If the young men won't, then the old men must.

[WarrenC]

The threat the North Vietnamese posed to America was minimal.

First, the threat posed to America by international communism was immense. Second, Podhoretz is simply making the point that the Vietnamese War was a popular intervention which was nonetheless undone by a tiny but determined and critically situated minority. He is simply warning us that if it happened then it could happen again. Indeed as he points out, there are already signs that the anti-America crowd aren't even waiting for a decent interval to begin their effort to undermine our resolve.

Many already seem more concerned about offending Muslims than defending ourselves notwithstanding that this attack occurred in America. His analogies are on target.

[truth_seeker]

The Draft created the hippies and it might bring them back.

I was drafted. I became a soldier, not a hippie.

I submit that a prolonged, illprosecuted war, too costly of lives, for no gains, caused American people to become skeptical. I did and my mother did.

The public will support this war, so long as the leaders are honest, the prosecution is effective, the loss of life is relatively small, and the "gain" is significant.

[Eternal_Bear]

Good for you. However when a nation institutes conscription, it opens itself up to revolutionary dangers. That is why the monarchs of the 18th Century eschewed conscription. When the French called out the levee en masse in 1793, it brought about both victories and profound social changes. Millions of armed citizen soldiers can be turned against the governments that conscripted them as the Tsar in 1917 and the Kaiser in 1918 found out. Just pointing out that conscription and social changes seem to be inextricably connected.

[Pistias]

I would sure like to see the total, complete, absolute destruction of liberalism before I die.

You just might. But not the "liberalism" you're thinking of.

[Pistias]

The public will support this war, so long as the leaders are honest

Honest leaders...good one.

[kristinn]

Set a spell and read this, please. Mr. Podhoretz seems to be unaware of Sept. 29.

[cartoonistx]

The times they are a-changed! This time around we've been attacked, not just threatened from afar. No one from the anti-American left will be able to withstand the righteous accusations of disloyalty and ignore the cries of "traitor" coming from an angry citizenry. The claims of "an un-just war' will fall on deaf ears. Bush = Roosevelt, not Johnson or Nixon. It will be the leftists who will have the credibility gap to jump in this war.