Letters to the Editor
meglev
Published Letters: 3
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The core belief is not the Fuhrerprinzip
[Read the article: The Weekly Standard mentality and the Senate Intelligence Committee]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]GG may put too much stress on admiration for the Leader as the main belief of the Right. Their main belief (which of course GG also emphasizes) that we are At War for the Survival of Western Civilization. Once that latter belief is accepted, all else—obedience to the C-in-C, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, limitless killing of potential enemies—follows. Also, there is no need to suggest that Democrats are caving in because of venality. "They're doing it for the money" is an insulting description of the motives of people who arenot behaving as you think they should. It is enough to say that they are either caught up in war fever, or are flummoxed by the prospect of being labeled traitors, even if the majority of their constituents are also "traitors." The single point of indisputable fact to continue stressing is that we are not at war, there is no war, that there is no threat to the country.
I note that Bush has subtly changed his tune in recent days. He no longer cites Iranian acquisition of an atomic bomb as a causus belli, merely the possibility that they will acquire knowledge of how to build one. He is cunningly preparing to point out, after he attacks and it turns out the Iranians were not working on a bomb, that he never said they were.
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Fear of accusations of treason
[Read the article: Howie Kurtz, Shailagh Murray, and the vapid, petty Beltway media mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is no use pretending that mainstream media commentators are uncritical of Bush's lies and perfidy because they are junior-high shallow or in a bubble or unintelligent. The reason is quite simple: once your country is in a fight, any sort of criticism of it is easily represented as treason. Media commentators and politicians know this, so shy away from criticism. The great feat of the Bushmen was to start a wholly unprovoked war of aggression, and rely on fear of being labeled disloyal to shield them from criticism.
My own view is that you do have to be disloyal. You do have to criticize and undermine our troops. After all, they are where they shouldn't be, and killing people they shouldn't be killing. In a fight between an American soldier and the iraqi resistance, anyone with any moral sense will root for the resistance. So the Bushmen are quite right: you can't criticize the war and support the troops. Since it seems unthinkable even to critics of the war to be against our troops, they naturally shrink from criticism.
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Hoekstra is right in a sense GG should accept
[Read the article: The Chicago Tribune vs. Time magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hoekstra is absolutely right in one sense. *If* we face a deadly threat, all legal niceties must give way. If somebody was about to shoot your family, you would consider it more important to stop him immediately, even if that required breaking a law, than obedience to the law. You would consider it permissible to break into your neighbor's house to grab a weapon to stop the assailant, even though that is breaking and entering. You would consider it permissible to kill the assailant, whatever the legalities. So the whole issue about terrorism comes down to a question of face: Are we faced with a threat as dire as Bush & Co. maintain? If we are, then illegal evesdropping, war, preemptive use of atomic weapons -- it is all justified.
But if we are not, then none of these measures are justified, Bush & Co. are guilty of waging aggressive war (and should be subject to the punishments administered at Nurenburg), and their apologists are knaves or fools. So I suggest we not waste time on how lazy or irresponsible the media are, and concentrate on this one question of fact.