Monday, October 23, 2006

Victor Davis Hanson on the Left

(from the Patriot Post US)

“Liberal Democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera. Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller insists that the world would be better off if Saddam were still running Iraq. Crotchety Congressman John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, rushed to announce that our Marines were guilty of killing Iraqis in ‘cold blood’ before they were tried. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin has compared our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, while Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said our soldiers have ‘terrorized’ Iraqi women and children.

Then there is the constant anger from Democratic ex-presidents. It used to be that out-of-office chief executives kept relatively hush... Not so now with Presidents Carter and Clinton. They repeatedly harp about the sins of the current administration...

What sends liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria? Is it that George Bush is a polarizing figure, not just in terms of his Iraq policy, but also because of his Christian Texan demeanor? Or is the current left-wing savagery also a legacy of the tribal 1960s, when out-of-power protestors felt that expressions of speaking bluntly, even crudely, were at least preferable to ‘artificial’ cultural restraint? Why should graying veterans of the barricades, then, remain ‘polite’ when their country’s less sophisticated red-state yokels are taking it in the wrong direction?”


—Victor Davis Hanson

9 comments:

  1. Here is the entire Hanson article: http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?catid=1930
    "they can't gain a national majority based on their core beliefs. (1) More entitlements, (2) higher taxes to pay for them, (3) gay marriage, (4)de facto quotas in affirmative action, (5) open borders, (6) abortion on demand, and (7) radical secularism"

    Those 7 are not going to get anyone elected at a national level, or anyone elected statewide in any southern state. But those are the most extreme viewpoints on those hot-button issues. There are moderate positions on all of those that most liberals/Democrats hold.

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  2. Would you care to comment on the parts of Hanson's article that Patriot Post and I excerpted, Jim?

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  3. There is a range of liberal voices, and not all criticism of Bush can be characterized as "pathological hysteria". I happen to like Christian Texans, and not all liberals are afraid of the Bible, or TX. Limiting discussion of liberals to the extreme severly limits debate.

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  4. "Limiting discussion of liberals to the extreme severly limits debate."

    Really?

    Why is it that those types of liberals are the only ones we ever get to hear?

    We all know what happens to some who don't toe the line on certain litmus test liberal issues, like abortion and the War in Iraq.

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  5. Hopefully they get elected...

    I think Webb and Casey are two moderate Democratic voices, and have been in the news a little lately.

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  6. Webb has allowed himself to be co-opted by the element that has gained increasing domination over the Democrat Party the last decade.

    Can you imagine the Democrats nominating an anti-abortion candidate for President?

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  7. I don't really know, but I can see the Republicans nominating a pro-choice candidate - either McCain or Guiliani. The president affects this issue through judicial appointments, and no specific issue litmus test should ever be used.

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  8. Single issue political agendas are unhealthy, and bad politics to boot.

    That lesson is about to be learned by some lefties who tried to change the political dynamic in the CT Senate race.

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