October 12, 2004
PEACE AT ANY PRICE?:
Not Just a Personality Clash, a Conflict of Visions (DAVID BROOKS, 10/12/04, NY Times)
In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, Adam Wolfson argues that the foreign policy debate between George Bush and John Kerry is really a conflict between two values: freedom and internationalism.That's a clarifying insight. When Bush talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about spreading freedom. What he's really talking about is a decentralized world. Individuals would be free to live as they chose, in their own nations, carving out their own destinies.
The optimism built into this vision is that free people would be able to live in basic harmony. There would not need to be any central authority governing their interactions. Indeed, Bushian conservatives talk about central global authorities like the U.N. the way they talk about Washington - as places where venal elites gather to serve their own interests.
When Kerry talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about alliances and multilateral cooperation. He's really talking about a crowded world. People from different nations would gather to work out differences and manage problems.
The optimism built into this vision is that nations will sometimes be able to set aside their rivalries and narrow self-interests and work cooperatively to thwart the sorts of global threats posed by Saddam Hussein, or genocides like the one in Sudan. Kerryesque liberals are concerned by the possibility that some nations will go off and behave individualistically or, as they say, unilaterally.
Put this way, the argument we are having about international relations is the same argument we are having about domestic affairs, just on a larger scale. It's a conflict between two value systems. One is based on a presumption of a world in which individuals and nations should be self-reliant and free to develop their own capacities - forming voluntary associations when they want - without being overly coerced by national or global elites. The other is based on the presumption of a crowded world, which emphasizes that no individual or nation can go off and do as it pleases, but should work instead within governing institutions that establish norms and provide security.
This formulation explains why Bush's foreign policy is not an aberration of conservatism, as Pat Buchanan and the other paleocons argue, but is actually its fruition.
There's a vitally important corollary of this dichotomy: Mr. Bush's vision is that, for instance, a free Iraq will come to resemble something rather like America once it adopts the freedom-guaranteeing national institutions that the West has pioneered; Mr. Kerry's is that American culture will come into conformity with whatever consensus is imposed by transnational institutions. It's interesting that the title of Mr. Wolfson's essay is borrowed from John Gray's book, The Two Faces of Liberalism, which is essentially a plea that we jettison Western values in order to reach a modus vivendi with those whose values may even be antithetical to ours. It's a scary concept for anyone who believes in America, but nicely illustrates that the Left is willing to swap anything, from our freedom to our moral sense to our national sovereignty, in pursuit of peace and security. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 12, 2004 9:37 AM
A lot of it is also self-centered, as Michael Moore's post-9/11 rant on why they attacked a Blue State showed. The terrorists didn't kill over 2,800 people on a Democratic president's watch, so once the initial shock wore off, it was perfectly OK to oppose a counter attack, because it was being conducted by a Republican, and as people like Moore or Kerry all know, the terrorists didn't really mean to attack us, they were actually targeting those yahoos in flyover country, except that there's nothing important enough there to want to destroy.
If you go back to the old saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, John Kerry's world view about terrorism if he wree elected president wouldn't change until he has been mugged by the terrorists with a new attack on his watch (and far away enough from 2004 so that the former administration couldn't be blamed). If they were able to take away what he and other liberal seeem to hold so dear -- favorable ratings in national polls -- then you might see reality finally hit the senator and his advisors (and if they avenge the deaths of several thousand more people killed in the new attack, so much the better).
Posted by: John at October 12, 2004 9:59 AMJohn:
You wrote: . . . John Kerry's world view about terrorism if he wree elected president wouldn't change until he has been mugged by the terrorists with a new attack on his watch . . . . If they were able to take away what he and other liberal seeem to hold so dear -- favorable ratings in national polls -- then you might see reality finally hit the senator and his advisors (and if they avenge the deaths of several thousand more people killed in the new attack, so much the better).
I'd like to believe you're right, but I'm not willing to lose several thousand people (and maybe the center of a major city) just to run the experiment.
Suggests a new campaign slogan, though: "John Kerry: we're pretty sure he'll avenge Seattle."
Posted by: Mike Morley at October 12, 2004 10:40 AMA synthesis of all things "liberal". The cultural and moral relativism coming from the inherent and incoherent self-hatred of American "liberals" resulting from the collapse of the ultimate form of elitism and self-satisfied intellectualism at the hands of the "idiot" Ronald Reagan has become too much to bear. The rationalization of such a naive and dangerous foreign policy is the result of both wishful thinking and the denial of historical reality, i.e some people and some ideologies are evil, (as a liberal I just can't believe that) might lead one to the conclusion that modern liberalism has entered the stage of psycho-pathology.
Posted by: Tom C, Stamford,Ct. at October 12, 2004 10:54 AM"[T]he Left is willing to swap anything, from our freedom to our moral sense to our national sovereignty, in pursuit of peace and security."
That should say, "... in pursuit of peace and security with them in power." Because they've never shown a willingness to engage in the behavior necesary to be a "loyal opposition", the way the GOP did during the 1950s through 1970s, for example.
"(and far away enough from 2004 so that the former administration couldn't be blamed)"
From the party that still blames Herbert Hoover for anything and everything that goes wrong with the economy? Yeah, right.
"Suggests a new campaign slogan, though: 'John Kerry: we're pretty sure he'll avenge Seattle.'"
Because that's where Jim McDermott's district is located. But what if he as to avenge Spokane?
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 12, 2004 12:01 PMIt's a conflict.
Brooks: free to develop...
Judd: once it adopts...
btw, this reeks of Jack Van Impe.
Posted by: Conflicted at October 14, 2004 3:37 AM