The Moment of Truth for "Root Cause" Politics

As we limber up to deal with the Islamist threat, writes Emanuele Ottolenghi, we need to deal with the problem right at the heart of our Enlightenment project.

On the one hand we have the benign belief in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the context of an eternal optimism. But there is also the dark side, of the French Terror of 1793,

of the tyranny of ideas over the liberty of men, of the totalitarian regimes that sprang out of Enlightenment philosophy no less than liberal democracies did.

Over the years our lefty friends have learned to deflect attention from the bloody side of the Enlightenment. They excuse it with their “root cause” analysis. Violence is a product of oppression and unmet grievances.

Grievances arising from the troubled Middle East feed into terror. Solve them, and there will be no terror.

But why should the specific grievances of Muslims deserve any special privilege?

Should anger at high taxes, inefficient health care, poor environmental standards, or disagreeable op-eds solicit “understandable” similar responses?

Should the lefty Guardian change its editorial policy to appease the rage of right-wingers who are enraged by the opinions of its lefty pundits?

The “root-cause” argument boils down to excusing the inexcusable.
...
As for those who have “unaddressed grievances,” one thing should be made clear: as children of the Enlightenment, we believe that some values are universal, both rights and duties. Therefore, we believe in reciprocity. Those who renege on this social compact and choose not to play by the rules are beyond the pale. They must be treated accordingly.

The dirty little secret of the last century is that our lefty friends have often used the “root-cause” argument in their naked grab for power. They excuse the threats made by their violent supporters but exoriate “hate speech” in right-wingers.

But now the game is up. In the rise of Islamist fascism we have arrived at the moment of truth for “root-cause” politics and its excuses for the inexcusable.

We believe that the lefties are wrong. We believe in the West that we have a process that is adequate for addressing grievances. It is called the rule of law and the democratic process. We believe that people with grievances who resort to violence “must be treated accordingly” as thugs and fascists.

The problem we have right now is that our lefty friends are not yet willing to admit this. The result is that millions of people will be killed.

And that is an outrage.

Yes, Let's Focus on the War on Terror

Last Friday The Wall Street Journal edit page folks did a reality check.

The 8/10 terror plot failed, they wrote, because

"a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with [British] police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

As if on cue, they continued, the Democrats came out with their usual line that “the Iraq war is a diversion and provocation” from the war on terror.

Good point. Now would they have us concentrate on surveillance? But the Democrats and the media yelled blue murder last year

when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Would they have us concentrate on the terrorists’ spending? But The New York Times yelled bloody murder when it turned out that the feds were monitoring terrorists fund transfers at an international bank clearing house.

Just what would the Democrats have us focus on? 80-year-old fundamentalist Christian grandmothers?

The president’s critics

should be reminded that the British and other European legal systems generally permit far more intrusive surveillance and detention policies than the Bush Administration has ever contemplated.

In that sense, you could say, the Bush administration has been outrageously going it alone instead of cooperating with and aligning itself with our allies.

Barone on the Democrats

You can read too much into a single election. But you can read too little too.

Michael Barone reckons that the primary election that Joe Lieberman lost last week pretty well tells us where the Democratic Party in in 2006.

In Stamford, where Joe Lieberman grew up the son of a liquor-store owner, and where there are still sizeable blue-collar and black communities, Mr. Lieberman won with 55% of the vote. In next-door Greenwich, where Ned Lamont... grew up as the scion of an investment banker family, and where the housing values are now among the highest in the nation, Mr. Lamont won with 68% of the vote.

The Democratic Party is still the party of working-class America, but only just. It is therefore a party split down the middle, between voters who vote their interest as recipients of government programs and between “professional class Democrats” who vote

their ideology and, living a life in which they are insulated from adversity, feel free to imagine that America cannot be threatened by implacable enemies. They can vote to validate their lifestyle choices and their transnational attitudes.

That is the big split across America. Should we work to build a transnational world, as professional-class Democrats want, or should we keep the nation state model.

This is an important question. We know how the nation state works, with a balance of power between political power, economic power, and cultural power.

But what is the transnational model all about? It seems suspiciously feudal and oppressive in nature. The progressive class gets to decide everything and ordinary mortals had better fall into line or face the consequences.

Or am I missing something?

Flying on Hair Gel Day

Was it hair gel? Or was it a sports drink? Or was it an explosive combination of the two.

Imagine the marketing opportunity! Girl stuff mixed with boy stuff makes an explosive combination.

Oh dear! Islamist Marketing Partners already thought of it!

Seriously though, President Bush ought to get the credit for a good TSA response to the latest Islamist outrage. It was my luck to be traveling to a family reunion on 8/10, and the government response was appropriate and measured.

Somebody had dragged federal employees into the Seattle airport to direct passenger traffic and route the security lines from the ticket hall out into the parking garage and back in again.

Sooner or later, I wound my way to the head of the line, got through security and out to the gate.

Of course, by that time my flight had left. But no worries. There was another flight for Toronto leaving in 90 minutes, and I got on that one without incident. It was 90 minutes late leaving, but who was counting?

And when we arrived in Toronto, a lot of people didn’t have their bags, including me.

And that was a problem for me, because although I had my lap-top with me, the power supply was in my checked bag.

Memo to self. Never, never, never, ever again separate lap-top and power supply.

In Toronto the car rental guys had kept my car for me even though I was six hours late. Thanks guys!

And now Lady Marjorie tells me that my checked bag is on its way.

So who’s complaining? Imagine: the feds could have closed down the whole system just to be on the safe side.

Instead, they kept the great glorious air travel system running, even if it was operating in low gear. Or as we fly-boys say, with the prop stuck in fine pitch.

Just don’t expect the MSM to give any credit to the Bush administration for an effective response to a new escalation in the war on terror.

NYT: Lieberman Defeated by Moderates!

You gotta love those guys at The New York Times. How do they characterize the defeat of Joe Lieberman? Revenge of the Netroots? Soros Money Hits Paydirt? Oh no.

It’s the revenge of the moderates, they write in an editorial.

The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction.

Sorry, old chum, it won’t wash. The Lieberman defeat was a fallout from the deliberate decision of the Gore camp not to concede the 2000 election, and to stay in campaign mode.

Not surprisingly, Democrat partisans took the hint and descended into Bush hatred. Their intensity would right the wrong of November 2000. The trouble is that the Re-Defeat of Bush never happened. Bush and his evil Svangali, Karl Rove, kept winning.

And worst of all, the deepening war with radical Islam is proving the progressives wrong on the central belief in their belief system. Just meet the just demands of the oppressed, they insist, and you can say good-bye to the cycle of violence.

It doesn’t look like it, comrade. The Islamists are just angry. Period.

The defeat of Joe Lieberman has nothing to do with moderates. It has to do with angry liberals. You’d have to live and work at The New York Times to miss that.

Which Party Is Best For The Jews?

Over the centuries Jews have been by turns admitted, ejected, humiliated, and even annihilated by the peoples among whom they have lived.

They have had to develop sensitive antennae so they can detect trouble ahead.

So all over America, Jews must be wondering about whether they still belong in the Democratic Party. Because the rejection of Joe Lieberman by Democratic voters in the Senate primary in Connecticut is not a good sign.

Joe Lieberman was a good liberal Democrat, conforming on all the issues except one: The War in Iraq. And for that he was rejected by his party.

It makes sense that Joe Lieberman would support the president on Iraq. Whatever the strategic reasons for the US efforts in the Middle East, supporting Israel has to be right up there close to the top.

Now Democrats are saying: screw it.

And the opinion polls confirm it. A poll for the Los Angeles Times shows that support for Israel is much stronger among Republicans than among Democrats. Asked whether the US should continue to align with Israel:

Judgment on Israel’s Actions Reps Inds Dems Continue with Israel 64 46 39 More neutral posture 29 49 54 Side with Arabs 1 2 2

Asked for their judgment of Israel’s actions in responding to Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, voters responded like this:

Align with Israel? Reps Inds Dems Justified and not too harsh 64 37 29 Justified but too harsh 11 15 20 Unjustified 17 33 36 Israel acted properly 64 37 29 Israel did not act properly 28 48 56

I don’t know about you, but if I were a Jewish American I would be thinking about the harsh words on the American left about “neo-cons,” a veiled reference to Jewish conservatives, and I would be thinking about the rejection of observant Jew Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary. I would be wondering about changing my party affiliation.

I wouldn’t actually do anything yet, you understand. I would just be thinking about it.

US Turns a Political Corner

Last night we entered a new era in US politics. When political novice Ned Lamont defeated incumbent Joe Lieberman for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate with the help of George Soros and the lefty “netroots” we turned a corner onto an unfamiliar street.

The “netroots” consider themselves as a political movement like the conservative movement that came to national power in 1980. They were saying in 2004 that this was their Goldwater election. Ten or twenty years in the future they would achieve their Reagan moment and become the new political majority in the United States.

That is their story, and maybe they will turn out to be right. Of course, to have a true Goldwater election they should have nominated Howard Dean, not the establishment choice John Kerry. Perhaps they will rectify the mistake in 2008.

On the other hand they may also calve off another iceberg from the great political glacier that once was the Democratic coalition. That berg would be the 9/11 Democrats who are nation-state Americans before they are partisan Democrats.

But what is pretty certain is that the Democratic Party has crossed a bridge with the defeat of Joe Lieberman. It has made a bold statement about what kind of political party it wants to be and what the party should stand for.

Whenever you take a bold step like that you take a risk. You are stepping out into the unknown and you really don’t know the consequences of that act.

Republicans hope that the netroot Democrats are marginalizing the party, and getting it off its game which must be the defense of the vast hoard of benefits and privileges that it has secured for its supporters over the last 70 years.

But what do we know? What is certain is that the party of the people is being led in a new direction by Ned Lamont, an heir of the Morgan banking fortune, George Soros, a billionaire speculator, and the single, secular, childless, college-educated, angry netroots. They will have to work hard to keep their connection with the throbbing heart of the American people.