In "Calpundit on Terrorism," Armed Liberal writes:
bq. "It's not that they don't like me - hell, lots of people in the real world don't like me, which tells me that I'm an actual person as opposed to a Beanie Baby - it's that I really and truly just don't get the worldview that they are speaking from. I spend a lot of time on the left side of the media and blog world, and am increasingly finding islands there where the words are English and yet I just don't understand the concepts laid out in those words, and I'm finding that depressing and frustrating, given my goal of creating constructive dialog."
A.L., I wish I had a solution for your dialogue issue where the words are English but the meanings alien, and you want meaningful dialogue. What I do have is 2 alternatives, but here's the catch: the first is sometimes true, and only the second has any chance of creating real dialogue, and I can't guarantee either one.
Behind Door #1...
Your first option is to accept that the real meaning of the statements is the actions they support, or the behaviour patterns and preferences displayed over time. This is depressing, because real dialogue becomes the equivalent of winning the lottery. But sometimes it's true.
Think "Type I" for solipsism, or "i" for "ignorant" of you like.
George Orwell's "objective pro-Naziism" is one manifestation, and so is A.L.'s diagnosis of liberals who value preening moral purity, self satisfaction, and comfort above all else. Orson Scott Card's "On Lying" also talks about this type.
Hey, some left-liberals really don't understand what makes their civilization tick, but they've been taught to treat it the way an abusive parent does - or they may actually hate it. Some right wingers really are selfish pricks who don't give a damn, or can't tell the difference between economics and governance, or go certifiable at the mention of the word "c-l-i-n-t-o-n". Or there may be some kind of very personal agenda at work, in either case. It happens.
Reason almost never works here, only external pain severe enough to force internal turmoil and questioning. Fisking won't cause one's opponent to change, but it may back others of a similar persuasion away from that position and help feed the external pain level associated with it. It's an efffective boundary setter for dialogue if used sparingly and well, and an effective way to train and motivate the troops if you're completely on the other side.
Dialogue Solution: tune Type Is out quickly, and fisk only when presented with a can't miss target (N.B. not can't ignore, can't miss). Focus your presentation on those who have not yet made up their minds, or are on the other side but reachable. If there are too many Type Is around, the best you can do is sow serious doubts and cause some people to leave that area. Even a new willingness to 'venture outside' on occasion and meet you in a better online place is a big step forward.
If Calpundit is losing its status as that kind of better place, there's only so much you can do. The site owner has to conclude it's a problem, then deal with it. Backchannel and private sharing of examples from the comments around your dialogues may get you an ally - but remember, he has a lot of readers. Managing that many and still creating a good atmosphere is hard, and the difficulty increases faster than readership does.
P.S. Anyone with ideas re: how Winds of Change.NET can avoid this trap as it grows, please use the Comments section.
Door #2: Dealing With Type IIs...
Type IIs are, as the symbol suggests, people willing to engage in dialogue. You build better places, and support others who do, for them. The stronger this support structure is, the easier it becomes for people to migrate from both sides into "dialogue zones." Which may help sharpen your understanding of what you're really trying to build here at Winds of Change.NET, and via support for a network of liberal-centrist bloggers.
Some of those Type IIs are people you can just pick up and dialogue with, because they're already close to your starting point, or have a lot of similar background knowledge, or harbour serious doubts already. But sometimes, even with Type IIs, their worldview is so different from yours that the only way to begin a dialogue is to start from fundamental premises rather than specific proposals, or even overall analysis.
Let's Start At the Very Beginning
Which means your dialogue with Calpundit wouldn't even start from "what's to do in Iraq." It would have to start with topics like:
* "Traditional notions of state sovereignty should remain absolute in an age of ethnic genocide, state terrorism and WMDs: discuss"
* Why do humans fight wars? (no, that's not too basic)
* "What role does military force play in the modern world?"
* "Who should make decisions about the use of American military force, and why?" Which may lead to...
* "What would have to change at the U.N. in order for it to become an effective body with respect to security issues? How likely is this?"
* The idea that terrorism is a product of poverty.
* "What is the role and importance of cultivated hatred in the Islamic world, and how can it be addressed effectively?"
Etcetera. And while you're having at those questions, the only way to do effective dialogue is to keep hammering back to fundamental premises to avoid diversion, always ask for evidence (esp. "where has this approach worked in the past?"), and offer counter-examples that show different approaches working or that shine a tough light on bad generalizations. Meanwhile, of course, one must be extremely fair and open to influence oneself in order to influence sincere others.
The absolute best guide I've ever found for this kind of work is Owen Harries "A Primer for Polemicists" in Commentary magazine, Sept. 1984 (PDF | Text).
The Deeper Discourse
That's the top level of the discussion, but it isn't the most important one when addressing groups with which one shares some common bonds. That title belongs to the deeper work of searching and probing for the underlying emotions and attachments in dialogue partners. It's about finding that language to really speak to each other, and to probe for areas of common understanding one can build upon. Many of your centrist friends could fairly be characterized as "Kosovo liberals," for instance - that was the "Darmok & Jilad at Tenagra" event that changed the way they talked about international relations. 9/11 worked for others like ex-peacenik leftist Tom Paine. Etc.
Still, let's face it: this is not even remotely easy to do. I've always found it extremely energy consuming, and respect those who will engage in it (tip of the hat here at Winds to praktike in particular). Being able to execute the techniques well in live situations is like learning a martial art, and practitioners of aikido, defensive tai chi, and jiu-jitsu in particular will be able to see a lot of parallels.
I Have Bad News, and "Good" News...
So, Does This Really Work?
Not necessarily. The bigger the worldview difference, the less shared ground, the harder dialogue gets. Then you throw in personalities on top of that, for good or ill. Some folks are just Type I, after all. Others simply refuse to do dialogue, it's either foreign or beyond them. A.L., you & I can think of commenters right here on Winds who were really trying to do dialogue as they saw it, and it was just... like Stevie Wonder trying to drive a motorbike, y'know?
So there you have it. For Type Is, dialogue won't work. For Type IIs, it might work but enormous energy is required if you're venturing as far as "alien worldview" territory.
Ironically, the thing that helps most is pain from the external environment. If there's enough pain from the external environment, it creates an inner questioning that's much more receptive to questioning from outside. It also helps sideline or eliminates the Type Is who would otherwise serve as influences to keep the examination from happening, by making other less likely to listen and by replacing their ideological support systems with alternative structures.
The fractal similarity of this dynamic to our economy, and to the larger conflict we're engaged in, are left as exercises for the reader. Shouldn't surprise, though - all are driven at their core by the same aspects and dynamics of human nature.
UPDATE: Dean Esmay has a good response that extends some of the ideas here. Note that he uses this word in its original sense:
"The liberal wants to find the truth, no matter where it leads him. If he encounters disagreement, the liberal wants to understand the other's position, with an open mind toward some exciting possibilities.... The goal, always, to find the truth, or, failing that get as close as possible to the optimum solution."
Can't sleep...so I find myself back at Winds Of Change, where I am confronted with another brilliant Joe Katzman piece. Little did I know that I would find myself mentioned, and I'm flattered. Thanks, Joe, and right back atcha.
It's depressing to read the drivel that's in most media these days, yet refreshing to find challenging ideas and wisdom here.
This latest post gives me hope that the debate about how best to broadly combat terrorism must not necessarily end in acrimonious disagreement.
As I see it, in order for a meaningful exchange of ideas to take place, each side must accept that the other shares the same goal; trust is a fundamental precondition of open dialogue.
On the one hand, I sense that Joe is not unlike Socrates in his line of questioning, insofar as he aims to lead the rational man to a largely predetermined conclusion. The undertone here seems to be that if you know enough, and if you think hard enough, you will end up where Joe is.
I'm innately suspicious that there is ever one correct answer to a given real-world problem. Maybe all Joe and AL are suggesting is that in order for ideas to transfer, a baseline of common understanding must be reached. I'm much more comfortable with this second proposition.
While I think JK and AL are mostly concerned with how to convince American skeptics, what I'm taking away from this post, in the end, is that we need to engage in this kind of discussion with our allies. I have only a vague notion of how actual negotiations between, say, George Bush and Jacques Chirac take place, but I doubt that those two have established trust and common understanding. Maybe either of both of them have tried without success, and the petulance we've seen on both sides has followed in the wake of failure.
I believe that we need to make a grand gesture towards the Europeans on one of their important issues. We can argue about whether it should be, but I think it's fair to say that terrorism is not the number one concern of Europeans right now. Indeed, I think we have concentrated too narrowly on Iraq and whether to give up some control in exchange for money or troops, when we should be engaging our friends on the big picture in the Middle East, and in the world as a whole.
I submit that America has neither the resources nor the domestic will to remake the Middle East on its own. We need the developed world to commit to this project; in order to do so, we must admit that we are part of the global commons as well. I think you know where I'm going with this....
It was this very issue that got me into blogging in the first place. How could it be that many nice people I know are also so liberal? How could they miss the obvious outcomes of their ideas, up to and including mass graves and burning Jews? I confess I still don't get it. I'm beginning to harden into ideas not very flattering to the left.
Need more ammo.
Pedro
What a wonderful post! "The heart has reasons that reason does not understand" (attributed variously to Pascal and Bossuel, I suspect Pascal). The underlying difference between the Type I's and the Type II's is whether what is being discussed is an article of faith. Appeals to reason are futile in discussing articles of faith.
Additionally, for many these days a good motive trumps everything. Many seem to believe that anything is acceptable if your motive is good. It doesn't matter if it's good, bad, effective, or ineffective--as long as your motive is good. How do you identify a good motive? If they are good people, their motives are good. How do you identify good people? If their motives are good, they are good people. Circular? Damn right!
As AL began, there are indeed a lot of language issues embedded in this entire topic. What he touched on is what in French is the difference between 'langue' (tongue, as in French, German, etc) and 'langage' (language, which has much more to do with having the same frame of reference).
Two people who speak a different 'langue' can have a good conversation if they speak the same 'langage,' which does not necessarily mean that they agree. As AL pointed out, howerver, it tends to work poorly when people speak a different 'langage,' even if they speak the same 'langue.'
In English these days, particularly in socio-political discourse, we have a pervasive problem with 'langage,' primarily arising from the difference between denotative definitions of words and /connotative/ definitions of the same word.
Take "tolerance," for example. Denotative definition is basically the willingness to put up with something (or someone) you don't like. The post-modern connotative definition can be crystallised down to 'affirmation.' Hard to have a conversation with that sort of conceptual gap.
Other conceptual gaps are logical, not linguistic. Few people anymore understand the difference between implication and inferrence. Nor between association and causality. Nor between celebrity and importance. And most especially not between precision and accuracy -- the nice thing about slide rules is that they kept you honest about significant figures.
I think its possible that even fewer people understand basic logic and reasoning. How else would you end up with a sincerely held tu-quoque condemnation of the Bush administration for 'human rights' violations that equates minor imperfections and errors with egregious violations of Saddam, Stalin and all the other scoundrels in the petting zoo of post-modern liberalsim?
In fact quite often when I have pointed out logical inconsistencies in an adversary's position he's gone off on some line about how logic and reason are part of the problem and that we'll get nowhere solving the world's problems until we eleiminate that fossilised remnant of hegemonistic patriarchal Euro-centric, racist, homophobic blah, blah, blah.
So in order not to waste my life energy on fruitless pursuits I quickly terminate discussions with people who demonstrate they are simply too ignorant or self-absorbed to have a good exploration.
Ironically, I have found it is far easier to have a meaningful political discussion with a Peruvian potato farmer who never went past Grade IV than it is with Euro-American academics with far too much alphabet soup after their names for their own good.
What the hell are you trying to say? Who's side are you on anyhow!
Dave Sculer nails it on the issue of faith. In fact, one might make a good argument for signficant sections of modern liberalism and its NGO missionaries as a new clerical class, with many features and characteristics that are familiar if viewed through a historical lens. The bible thumping right wingers have their own issues, but oddly, they don't fit the clerical class template.
But that's another post about le trahison des clercs, to use a charming ancient phrase.
Regarding predetermined conclusions - praktike missed the catch. To influence, you must yourself be open to influence. So it's a dangerous trade. On issues where one has thought it through deeply and concluded that one is right, however, then one can rightly expect that a polemical argument should end up much closer to one's own position. Unless you're up against a greatly superior foe, of course.
On the other hand, real dialogue may also end up departing from the script, and becoming (ideal scenario here) an exchange in which ideas are put out, areas of agreement built on, then polished.
It is possible for all parties to walk away with sharper views, and a different understanding than they had going in. Indeed, in order to cure the "alien English" problem alone, something like this pretty much has to happen. Even if one's views don't change immediately, one is likely to learn a new dialect for expressing them... and over time, that tends to have real effects on one's thinking.
Perhaps if we spent less time trying to redefine "is"....
FWIW, here's one my old takes on "Why oh why don't these fools recognize my brilliance and bow before me as their one true God?", er, I mean "Dialogue Frustration". ;)
way back on March 27, 2002, Brad Delong wrote:
"I have a five-point scale along which to rank commentators: category I try hard to shoot straight all the time; category II use strong arguments where they are available, but get excited and use weak arguments when they are sure they are right but the only arguments for their side are weak; category III don't care whether arguments are strong or weak, leading or misleading, they'll just use whatever sounds best; category IV will baldly lie; and category V are sufficiently clueless that they don't know whether they're telling the truth or not. By this scale, Stephen Moore ranks no better than category III: even when the good, straight, accurate arguments are on his side, he's likely to prefer something twisted and misleading that makes a better soundbite. . .
. . .Let me give some examples. For category I my favorite example is someone like Alan Blinder, who always tries to shoot straight. The most recent example of category V I have run across is Ben Stein: consider his recent claim that the 1929-1939 Great Depression was caused by the New Deal; now at some point in the past Ben Stein probably knew that the New Deal belonged to Franklin Roosevelt and that Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, but that knowledge seems to be so long gone that Stein doesn't even know that he has a bad temporal sequencing problem; he flunks the Turing test--it's not at all clear that there is a mind at work in there. For category II--well almost all of us are in category II. For category IV, my best recent example is Robert Scheer's claim that the Bush Administration was subsidizing the Taliban government last spring by giving them $43 million--a claim that it is impossible to put forward in good faith once one has looked at the record. . ."
I would like to add to that, by characterizing the preferred style of various people's arguments, rebuttals and refutations: Category 1 peoples' instinct is to go for their opponent's most relevant and persuasive arguments, and to correct any obvious, easily correctable errors their opponent may have made, so as to get to the real substantive dispute at hand. category 5's refute their opponents weakest arguments, whether or not they are relevant to the important issues, so as to establish a quick "win", not caring that they may be avoiding the core substantive issues at hand.
What changed my world view?
I used to be a communist of the anarcho variety. I know. A contradiction in terms. But let me give you a short course on my path.
I grew up with pro-war democrats. My parents. Why pro-war? My dad was Coast Guard - Navy for the duration. And as Jews we were grateful for the liberation of the Jews in Europe. No matter how little and how late. I was very pro-civil rights and lobbied Springfield, Illinois on the issue in 1962 when I was going to college.
By 1966 I was convinced that the communists in Vietnam were right and the US of A was wrong. White man stomping on the brown people etc. Plus the commies put on a good face. No post war re-education camps. No post war massacres. All common in post revolutionary communist societies. And I believed they were sincere.
Then post 1975 came the re-education camps, the massacres, and unanticipated the boat people. I lost my faith in communism/socialism. I started to study economics. Also I started working for business. Trying to help companies make a profit helped educate me.
Finally I decided that war was too important to leave to the generals and admirals. So I hit the books on that one.
Today I'm what you might call a pro-war libertarian. And when I say pro-war I mean just that. Why pro-war? Because men like to fight. And for good or ill I am a man. Now I prefer to pick my causes (liberty and justice for all) but still, I like to fight.
I believe I have come to terms with the human condition. Not men as we would like them but men as they are. Now there is a seed of a problem here. What will men do when they have tamed the world and fighting becomes more disruptive than it is worth? I don't know. In any case that is a question for at least 50 and possibly a hundred years from now. My children's or their children's problem.
This leave me with the question of what to do about the opposition. Do not expect to change minds. The best you can do is to plant seeds that will mature when conditions are right.
BTW it turns out that I have not actually given up socialism. Marx said that capitalism was the path to socialism. He was right. Those who want Marxism NOW are not scientific socialists. They are dreamers. Capitalism in America has driven the cost of food so low that government can afford to give it away and hardly any one notices the cost. Next will be manufactured goods. Housing will be last on the list. When we get to that point there will be only one reason left to work. Making a useful contribution. Participating.
So re: war - these days it is all about picking the right cause. re: economics - scientific Marxism all the way i.e. I'm a capitalist for the duration.
I must say than I have been astounded by the extent to which the practice of politics for an astounding number of people - left and right, but mostly on the left - is theology. Rather than seek in good faith to understand the nature of the world, its problems, the actual desires and intentions of human beings and the effects of their actions, the faithful already know how it was supposed to be and interpret everything, despite easily verifiable evidence to the contrary, in accordance with their personal need for reaffirmation, redemption and spiritual purification. It would be amusing if it weren't so tragic.
praktike says: "I submit that America has neither the resources nor the domestic will to remake the Middle East on its own. "
Which is why I predict Bush in a landslide.
The left neither understands the problem nor the American people.
But, hey I could be wrong. As a first step towards the reconcilliation praktike so desires perhaps the Euros could put on a full court press and convince the UN to go BACK to Iraq. i.e. let the Euros show some seriousness. Given their behavior in the Yugoslovia situation in their own back yard what are the odds of that? Slim and none. As a betting man I'd bet 10 to 1 on none.
The Euros may be fine when it comes to keeping peace where they live. They are for shit when it comes to bringing peace where they do not live. For the last 100 years that has been Anerica's job. We do it well. When "peace keepers" (really peace bringers) are wanted any where in the world the locals invariably ask for Americans. Not the UN. Not Euros. Americans. Why do you suppose that is?
Whatever the reason the fact is a clue.
praktike,
BTW the French are not our allies.
It wouldn't be the first time they were on the wrong side. Vichy?
And the Germans? Don't make me laugh.
So who is on our side in Europe? Poland, England, Italy. There are others but I'm only including fairly large countries where the people and the government support the US of A position on the war.
As the Islamics attack the rest they will eventually come around. The attack on the Italians in Iraq is what brought them around.
To stand alone is not to stand in the wrong. Remember England from June 1940 to Dec 1941? A lost cause. And their finest hour.
It takes balls, wisdom, and a certain amount of irrational courage to be a man. It cannot be done with a cost benefit calculator.
I remember the Liberty Bell. "Proclaim liberty throught the land and to all the inhabitants there of." I would add just one thing to it: "Proclaim liberty throught the lands and to all the inhabitants there of." Good words to live by. Good words to die for. Good words to pay for. Being free men here we will find a way or make one.
America may not have the ability or political will to remake the Middle East into a civilized place, but ceeding control to countries that have profited from the unacceptable status quo (France, Germany, Russia), and are fundamentally opposed to American aims in the region, isn't likely to make things any better.
I submit that the trust between America and France is irreparably damaged, and that efforts to "reach out" to France should be used only as a means of giving our enemies false hope, while we mobilize our military forces. This worked quite well in Iraq. The extended U.N. negotiations encouraged Saddam not to launch preemptive strikes at our forces during the early stages of our mobilization.
Riyadh delenda est!
Re: Europe. Put the state-state politics aside for a moment. What are we doing to reach out at a political level and begin making a strong case for a different European policy? Right now, even Europe's right wing is slipping away. Post WW2, there was a lot of useful activity from American labour unions and others, who reached out and formed ties that made a big difference. I'm not seeing anything like that now.
I don't believe acceptance of French or Euro vetos, or tolerance of backseat driving + inability to contribute, is the answwer to fixing the US-Europe relationship. But neither is neglect. These are free societies. Which means that real unity is possible, and negative trends can be reversed without war or even its threat.
That's a great gift. What are we doing with it?
So... to ask a similar question to praktike's but from a very different angle, how might we engage to begin the task of nurturing real (as opposed to undependable/pretend) allies there?
That dialogue would be a most interesting and productive one - and if enough people want to have that conversation, we can start that post.
M.Simon:
Like it or not, the burden is always on the US to make a gesture. The burden of power is that we're supposed to be the grownups. The grand gesture I was hinting out was action on climate change. We grossly underestimate how much Europe cares about this issue; ignoring it undermines our claim to be interested in the well-being of all. While Kyoto was flawed, when Bush defined the issue strictly in terms of "American interests," he did a lot of damage to the trans-Atlantic relationship. Diplomacy still matters, even after 9/11.
To stand alone is not to stand in the wrong. Remember England from June 1940 to Dec 1941? A lost cause. And their finest hour.
Yeah. You seem to have forgotten all about the Lend-Lease program. Try again.
And the Germans? Don't make me laugh.
Well, they're in Afghanistan, they're protecting our bases in Germany, they've cracked down on radical clerics at German mosques, rolled-up terrorists cells, and so on. Yeah, Fischer and Schroeder have used anti-Americanism for domestic political purposes, for which they ought to be ashamed. But they've come through for us, albeit not as much as we might like. Ask JK about the Germans.
You are right that the Russians, with their high cost of production, have little interest in seeing Iraq emerge as a player in international oil markets.
As for France, maybe they're off they deep end for good. If so, we need to figure how best to isolate them rather than be isolated ourselves. So far, the record is mixed on this score. The administration would be wise to avoid the "old/new" Europe formulation, and instead aim for "Europe v. France." If not, then we need to establish some kind of modus vivendi. I may be naive, but I still think this is possible. France is just as interested in reducing their dependence on the Saudis as we are.
As for French profits, if our profits don't hold water as a motivation for action, I fail to see how theirs would either. I think the influence of profiteering is overstated in both cases.
What I should have spelled out, apparently, was that we need to think more broadly about what role our allies can play in the Middle East. I was trying to say that maybe it's time to stop focusing on troops and money for Iraq, and instead work to define how the rest of the world can contribute to the greater transformation of the Arab world. Hence, I wasn't talking about ceding control--although I'm less worried that bringing in NATO and/or the UN would somehow lead to France and Russia plotting to get American boys killed (yes, I remember what happened in the Balkans)--but rather the championing and support of democratization efforts and investments in the region. A common soft power strategy, if you will.
BTW, Joe, I support a thread on how to talk to the Europeans.
Joe,
I don't know if you remember the missiles in Europe flap of the 80s. The political back wash from that was teriffic. America never countered it except at the government to government levels.
Eventually as the American missiles went into production with a pledge of European basing the Soviets backed down.
You will note of course that the current peace movement makes no refrence to that era.
My point? Nothing wrong with ignoring the Euro man on the street. In general they are ignorant fools. Have been for quite some time. It is inbread. The smart ones come to northern North America. As long as they do not cause too much trouble with their governments I'd say they are not worth bothering over.
You see the one great thing we have in our favor is that eventually our enemies will attack even those sympathetic to their cause. Not even the Soviets were so consistiently stupid.
So I'd say our best bet is to do nothing. Events unpredictable as they may be are running in our favor.
No matter how just the war there will always be 10% anti. Going after them is a waste. Better to win the war and let that fact be it's own rebuke to them.
If we just stick to facts and some deeper moral values -- and avoid political labelling and bashing and generalizations -- we might very well beable to start some sort of transatlantic connections within the blogosphere and a dialogue on the major issues of world politics.
[EU/nl]
prakitake,
Lend lease was not hugely popular in America. In any case giving a man a sword is not the same as holding one by his side.
As to Germany? The people of Germany are not too happy about our little Iraqi adventure. No matter what their government is doing in Afghanistan.
Governments not following the popular will of teir people happens all the time. In America even. The medical marijuana issue fer instance. Don't get me started.
So tell me: If the Poles and Italians are in what is wrong with France and Germany? Perhaps they now fear what has happened to the Italians. An attack on their troops has increased backing for the war.
To put my act where my mouth is -- some facts.
I read (only) about Poles and Italians in some of the above comments. Just take some time to look at this info:
Re: France
The French are not a practical people. Whereas the World functions over the long term, they tend to think in the short term. Witness their inability to reform their pension system. In the U.S., "saving social security" was a huge issue as far back as the 1980s and was possibly the main issue (with reducing the budget deficit) in the 1992 presidential campaign. In 2003 in France, with far worse demographics than in the U.S., the government finally gets around to proposing a timid and grossly inadequate pension reform, which is met by riots in the street shutting much of the country down. The common refrain in U.S. politics "for our children" is unheard of in France, since people are more focussed on whether they will get a 2% or 3% raise at the end of the current year than with a future they barely want to envision. Do we want these people actually running the World?
The French are now too intellectually and politically invested in Anti-Americanism to expect them to come around to the U.S. position. The French establishment has increased its pandering to the Mid East sewers forsaken by the U.S. (Syria, Iran, Sudan...) and the Third World generally by taking an overtly hostile position vis-à-vis the U.S. Just study de Villepin's itinerary since the end of the (main) Iraq war in April: Syria, Iran, Lybia, Palestinian territories, Sudan, etc. The French are catering to Third World anti-Americanism in the hopes of resurrecting their own glory as well as the flow of infrastructure and defense contracts that their businesses (and state-employed functionaries) compete with the U.S. for. French defense industries, mostly state-controlled, are close to bankruptcy and are now bribing their way towards defense contracts in the Mid-East and elsewhere, which are concluded at a loss, the shortfall being picked up by the taxpayers. Basically, the country will sell arms to virtually anybody to maintain its defense industries - and avoid mass layoffs of unnecessary workers who would otherwise increase unemployment. This sounds a lot like the North Korean rogue arms sales.
At the Anti-Globalization European Social Forum, Chirac gave a demagogic speech in which he voiced support for a "tax on globalization" and virtually invited the "explosion of violence" to be expected from the youth of the Third World in the future unless the West makes greater efforts to "share the fruits" of globalization. This is the French version of fighting terrorism.
Interestingly, I wonder whether it had to be that way. Back in December of last year, the French actually sent their aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to the Persian Gulf with the stated intention of being ready for war. Also, in early January, Chirac advised the military to prepare to engage in military action in Iraq. (These actions were met with some hostility from the political opposition.) The Chirac/De Villepin double-cross did not occur until mid-January. It might sound crazy to speculate on France's participation in the Iraq War. But that track was being prepared until mid-January. One should also keep in mind that the French have no deep foreign policy principles, other than naked self-interest, and the people, like sheep (De Gaulle called them "calves") will tend to defer to the State in matters of foreign policy.
The current position of the government (and the media, and all of the political parties, and the sheep, etc.) is incoherent: The official line is simultaneously that the U.S. is an evil empire (together with Israel, of course) bent on hegemony, conquest, occupation and oppression at the world's expense (and the French, of course, are opposed to that) and that Americans are a bunch of naive cowboys who don't realize, like the French do, that the Arabs (and the rest of the Third World) are not capable of democracy and need to be held down by repressive regimes. A combination of anti-globalist "idealism" and brutal realpolitik. I think it impossible at this point to alter this worldview, given the emotional and political investment the French have placed in it.
Re: Italy and Spain-
I also wonder to what extent our alliance with Italy and Spain is not purely Aznar/Berlusconi-based. These are both conservative governments willing to take a principled stand against their own populations. It's great to cultivate what willingness they currently show to cooperate with the U.S. in Iraq/War on Terror. I think for the longer term that the steadier allies are bound to be the Northern countries (Scandinavia, Holland), Eastern Europe (where leadership is still plentiful) and even Germany. We would not have the current Franco-German counter-axis if Helmut Kohl were prime minister. Italy and Spain may over time succumb to French-like hysteria.
Praktike makes a very good point about European concern about climate change. Basically, the Europeans whine about the ICC and Kyoto. In France, it is gospel that the temperature of the planet will increase by 6-7° Celsius in the current century (and it's all the U.S.'s fault!). I hear these figures on French news reports all the time: not even presented as speculative or the upper end of a range. When it's hot in France, it's global warming run wild. (When it's freezing, it's just, well, freezing.)
Frankly, the U.S. - and the Bush administration in particular - has shown zero leadership or concern about international environmental issues. These are long-term issues of planetary scope that the U.S. has to confront, lest it lose credibility.
>The burden of power is that we're supposed to be
>the grownups.
praktike, that has never been true of the French.
What you miss is that post 9/11/2001 it is no longer in America's interest to make accommodate itself to foreign government's domestic considerations.
It is America's interest in making foreign governments accommodate themselves to America's war aims.
Those that don't and actively go out of their way to oppose American war aims are on the American strategic regime change list.
What you miss is that post 9/11/2001 it is no longer in America's interest to make accommodate itself to foreign government's domestic considerations.
OK, so Bush was in Britain just to hang out? Seems like a big waste of his time to me, if that's the case. And I'm not missing anything. I get it, but I disagree.
It is America's interest in making foreign governments accommodate themselves to America's war aims.
OK, then I submit that there are multiple ways to get foreign governments to accomodate themselves to "America's war aims," one of which is to reward our friends by helping with their domestic political situations. Axiomatic, and a fundamental tool of diplomacy.
Those that don't and actively go out of their way to oppose American war aims are on the American strategic regime change list.
We're aiming to topple Chirac, now? How do you propose we go about this? What are the tools at our disposal?
"The burden of power is that we're supposed to be the grownups." — fair enough, but sometimes "being the grownup" means insisting that the spoiled child eats his spinach.
Riyadh delenda est
In A.L.'s original thread I made the point that those on the wrong side of a paradigm shift cannot be communicated with, they could only be ignored and sentanced to irrelevance by events.
Here is an example via a link published over on Andrew Sullivan's blog:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=10932
"Jamie, you look at Soviet history and see the Gulag, the executions of the Terror, the pervasive oppression, and the economic failure. Psychologically, the leftists you speak of see little of that. They see a Communist state that articulated their vision of the future and which sought to destroy the societies and institutions they hated. They cannot see the horror that communism actually created. They look on that horror and see something else because they cannot admit to themselves that their vision is beyond human grasp. The German Communist playwright Bertolt Brecht, when challenged that thousands of innocents had been sent to the Gulag by Stalin, replied, "the more innocent they are, the more they deserve to die." To you or I this remark is disgusting, but to the hard left it reflects their eager willingness to kill any number of persons without concern for innocence or guilt if it might assist in bringing about the socialist future.
The idealized future that has not happened is more real and more important to them than the past that really did happen. Because the imagined future is more real and important to them, they seek to remold history (human understanding of the real past) to the service of the future. In his distopia 1984, George Orwell gives the Ministry of Truth of his totalitarian state the task of rewriting history. Orwell's point was that those who control the politics of the past (history) also control the politics of the present and thereby the future. The academic left, like the Orwell's Engsoc ideologists, believe that history is malleable and can assist in legitimating current politics and bringing about the utopian future.
You will get few mea culpas from hard left academics because they feel no guilt. You think they should regret getting the facts of history wrong. They care not at all about the facts of history, only about the politics of the future. They feel they got the politics right and so no mea culpa is due."
There is ZERO possibility of dialog with such people. They love socialism/communism and they hate America because it is the successful, living, dynamic negation of their beliefs.
These are the same people at the heart of Armed Liberal's post 9/11 discontent with the Left and the only thing you need to know about such people is how to beat them.
praktike,
I think Trent was going for a slightly different point--it's not that we don't care about other countries' domestic political situation (Bush in Britain, as you point out), it's that we see those political situations as means, rather than ends. It's no longer good enough to justify an action by how well it will play in a foreign domestic context (uh...I hope it was clear what I mean there). There also has to be an evaluation of how the domestic context in another country affects our strategic goals.
More concretely, you could say that Bush went to Britain to help boost domestic support for Blair, but that doesn't go far enough down the logical path. He went to Britain because it is in American strategic interests for Blair to have enough domestic political capital to continue to strongly support joint U.S./U.K. policies.
Diplomacy is valuable, and should be used wherever it can produce results. Obviously it is good to reward friends and punish enemies--that's one of the perks of power. I don't think there's any disagreement here.
Sure, I'd put Chirac on the list of world "leaders" that need regime-changing. All right, all right, he's low on the list, and including him mostly amounts to wishful thinking, but there is a certain value to reminding yourself who can't be trusted with sharp objects while your back is turned.
Trent's last post actually got us back on track to the issue of dialogue and its usefulness. For the record, I think Trent is generally right about the Left: dripping in blood, always has been, could care less.
But most registered Democrats don't fit that profile. Yet. So, how to deal with that dichotomy through dialogue, and perhaps create a better outcome?
Let's stay there, and close discussion on the future or nature of Europe in this thread. It will get its own thread soon enough.
Thanks, Sam. I agree with this restatement.
But let's be honest--we haven't been serious about diplomacy. Before Gulf War I, Baker was everywhere. Powell seems to think a phone call or an email is good enough. It doesn't help him when other senior Administration officials are cutting the rug out from under him, either.
If we really want to win this thing, we need to be serious not only about our willingness to use force, but also our willingness to use diplomacy and to do nation-building right. Otherwise, we may be doing more harm than good, in the long run.
Praktike, diplomacy is much easier, when the other guy knows you will fight, if you don't get an acceptable deal. Once you establish that reputation, all the other guy has to do, is ask himself "Can I win?" and "How much will it cost me, if I lose?". If the answer to #1 is "no", and the answer to #2 is "more than the deal", the only rational thing for him to do, is take the deal.
If the military and politicians make sure the other guy can't win, and the diplomats make sure they ask for less than losing the war would cost him, a peaceful settlement becomes likely, and reasonably easy to achieve.
If we'd made Saddam believe that fighting would cost him his life, and that of his sons, no matter how long it took us to find all of them; that he would spend the rest of his life hiding in basements, in short, that resistance is fatal, we could probably have convinced him to accept exile. When we finally catch and kill him (and we will, most Iraqis don't like him, and we're offering considerably more than 30 pieces of silver), the next tyrant we offer exile or death will probably go quietly into exile.
There was never any question that we'd rout the Saddamites. The question to be answered in Iraq, is whether America has the fortitude to finish what it started. Victory in Iraq, defined as a reasonably stable, free, and prosperous Iraq, will give our diplomats tremendous leverage, the next time we deal with a tyrant.
Riyadh delenda est!
praktike writes: "But let's be honest--we haven't been serious about diplomacy. Before Gulf War I, Baker was everywhere. Powell seems to think a phone call or an email is good enough. It doesn't help him when other senior Administration officials are cutting the rug out from under him, either."
You aren't being honest, praktike. There simply isn't any basis for your claim that we are not being "serious" about diplomacy.
praktike,
I can't really compare Powell's style with Baker's, because I was a lot younger when Gulf War 1 happened, and paid less attention to the details of such things then. Based on his more recent associations with the Saudis, though, I'd be a little hesitant to encourage Powell to take too many pages from Baker's playbook. As far as suggesting that Powell take more trips abroad, I don't know. I do think that the most valuable thing Powell could do is whip State into shape--maybe he is working on that behind the scenes (and maybe that too is wishful thinking).
I have a different take on the relationship between Powell and Rumsfeld, if that's who you meant. I think the two of them are playing a very public game of good cop/bad cop, and both men are quite comfortable with their respective roles. When other countries refuse the carrot, though, they get Rumsfeld.
There was a year-long runup to the war in Iraq that involved a whole lot of action (well, diplomatic action, aka "talking") at the U.N. There were numerous acts of diplomacy committed, resolutions passed, meetings held, but such things cannot be an end in themselves, and some of the other negotiators were not participating in good faith. Real diplomacy was tried, and it failed to resolve the issue without military action. I think our future actions in the diplomatic realm must take into account the lessons of recent history, as well as the maxim that diplomacy is only useful when it moves us towards our strategic goals. Diplomacy is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end.
Robin, I think there is in fact plenty of basis to my assertion that we weren't serious about diplomacy.
How about the speech Cheney gave to the VFW Convention in August 2002, in which he basically announced that inspections could never work and that we were invading Iraq no matter what (The speech is rife with delusions, by the way).
Apparently, Powell had no clue this speech was going to happen, and he nearly shit his pants when he heard about it. Meanwhile, Powell was making the rounds with our allies in order to drum up support for inspections. It made Powell look like a complete idiot.
I can provide more examples if necessary.
Joe,
The problem isn't simply "the left."
The problem is hate as a tool of power, married with modern media and information techniques, and used for decades.
Phyllis Chesler says the following in an interview about her book on Anti-Semitism published over on NRO today:
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/chesler200311250905.asp
"Today, what's new about anti-Semitism is its extraordinary global reach. Jew hatred is being mass-produced. The Internet, films, and the media have the power to circulate these virulent opinions around the globe, 24/7. The most illiterate of peoples have "seen" the Israelis commit a "massacre" in Jenin, something Israelis did not do — even the United Nations finally admitted this. But no matter: A false picture is more powerful than a thousand words.
What's new is that Jew-hatred has reached a surreal level in the Islamic world. The Arab Islamic Middle East is almost entirely judenrein (free of Jews), except for Israel, which remains under profound and almost permanent siege. Christians still remain endangered in Muslim lands. Historic Islamic and Koranic views portray Jews as "pigs and monkeys," to be segregated, impoverished, jailed, tortured, exiled, and massacred.
What's new is that these ideas and practices, which are native to Islam, gathered additional force over an 80-year period in which Arab Muslims collaborated — literally — with Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s, and with Stalinists from the 1950s until the fall of the Soviet Union. Islamic Jew-hatred, anti-Americanism, and totalitarianism now fuse both East and West.
What's new is that this hatred has, incredibly, been embraced and romanticized by Western liberals, public intellectuals, Nobel Prize winners, all manner of so-called progressives and activists and, to a great extent, by the presumably objective media. The educated elites claim that they do not in fact hate Jews. How can they — the noblest among the "politically correct" — be racists? They loathe racism — except, of course, where Jews are concerned.
What's new is that Jew-hatred (disguised as anti-Zionism) has itself become "politically correct" among these so-called intellectuals. They have one standard for Israel: an impossibly high one. Meanwhile, they set a much lower standard for every other country, even for nations in which tyranny, torture, honor killings, genocide, and every other human rights abuse go unchallenged.
Today anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. Israel has increasingly come to represent the Jews of the world, and is treated as they have been treated for thousands of years. She is demonized, isolated, and attacked while the world either actively rejoices, or simply does nothing to stop it. Israel has also become the symbolic scapegoat for America and for Western values such as democracy, religious freedom, and individual and women's rights.
The intellectuals control the masses with linguistic distortions that would make George Orwell weep. The way language is being used to misrepresent both the truth and Jews is relatively new. The intelligentsia tell us that Israelis are the "new Nazis" and "worse than Nazis." This is a new form of Holocaust denial. It lets Europeans off the hook: they no longer must wrestle with their own formidable colonial pasts and their persecutory-collaborationist-bystander roles in the Holocaust."
There are no 'commons grounds' here for 'meaningful dialog' unless it is a dialog of armed combat.
In a way that our American political elites are completely clueless about. Anti-Semitism is becoming how the American people identify their enemies. This is because Anti-Semitism is just another form of Anti-Americanism.
In the end, this development and America's Jacksonian tradition will prove Huntington's clash of cultures thesis was right.
Gabriel Gonzalez,
Temperatures have yet to fully recover from the little ice age of the 1500s and America with all it's CO2 production is responsible? Yah. Right.
H2O is a much stronger green house gas than CO2 by a factor of 3 or 5. No doubt it is America's fault that the oceans are fuul of it.
Sattelite instruments show a global cooling not warming. Even the latest studies that do find global warming find that it is the neighborhood of .1 deg C per decade. Or 1 deg C per century. At that rate it will take about 2 1/2 centuries to reach the Midevil optimum.
At the current rate of technological advance humans will be pretty much done with fossil fuels by 2100 at the latest. Possibly as soon as 2065.
America need to act because?
Oh yeah. Because a carbon tax will cripple it economically.
Cry me a river.
Just remember Nazism and Soviet Socialism, and French socialism. Europeans are prone to believe anything. Some times it takes a while for stupidity to take effect. We need to be patient with Europe.
didn't mean to get into a ghg debate, but quickly to m. simon, because I can't let this go unrefuted--
Scientific consensus has already been coalesced around the idea that anthropogenic warming is a reality. Natural causes have already been taken into account in the models, and they don't explain it.
Speaking of being on the wrong end of a paradigm shift...
OK, folks, one more time. Let's get back to the subject of this article, which is dialogue... not US foreign policy. If you must combine both, Trent's post is once again the model for doing so.
Your reflections yesterday on Is, i's, and IIs, and on Armed Liberal’s sense of alienation from his interlocutors, really hits home.
I have felt just that same way for most of the post- 9/11 period, but increasingly so as time went on. I live in Massachusetts, and while I know I’m not the only disaffected liberal who lives here, I think we’re definitely dwarfed by those who think that reading the Boston Globe and maybe the NY Times, and listening to NPR makes for an educated, correctly-informed citizen.
I attend a Unitarian Universalist church here, most of whose members are much of a feather with those I describe above, and whose loathing and contempt for Bush far surpass any consideration they appear to give to the merits of his administration’s actions, be it Afghanistan, Iraq, here at home. I’m one of those liberals who voted for Gore but thank God he didn’t win. Anyway, apropos of AL and your article, it brought to mind a moment from last spring when our pastor at church opened up the floor for comments and shared feelings. War felt imminent, and she knew people were upset at the situation. One woman dressed in a bright flowing robe of sorts walked to the front of the church to face everyone else (most spoke from their seats, this being a rather small church) and exhorted us all to “live peace, pray peace, wish peace, make peace,” or something much along those lines. Having spent months reading about all those “peace” activists and reading with bewilderment the arguments they put forward, this woman might as well have talked about living and praying “peas” for all the sense she made to me. Just like w/ AL: understood the English, completely not in-sync with the argument.
Anyway, just moments later, after listening to the fifth or sixth person stand to denounce Bush and the war, including one person who pointedly said he did NOT support our soldiers, I overcame my reluctance to brook the tide and stood up and announced why I considered the war necessary and supported it. I was still fairly new in this church and, being aware of the ethos of the place somewhat nervous about having my say, but I managed to articulate my brief argument much the way I wanted. The happy outcome: one person told me afterwards that I captured perfectly how she felt about the war, and a number more said they disagreed with my position but thanked me for sharing my viewpoint.
From which I conclude that while we’ve got perhaps some Is amongst us, there’s probably enough IIs and i's to merit sticking with this place. I feel in my bones the same jaundiced skepticism you describe in terms of the probability of success, yet nonetheless feel compelled to move the dialogue forward. I’ve long been contemplating how just to prepare a lay led sermon that addresses the issues at stake without being overtly political and alienating my audience before I begin. Maybe the Commentary article will be informative in this respect.
Thanks again for the article.
sorry, joe.
I think dealing with left-wing friends is simpler, and harder. The simple part: affirm shared values: a world with a minimum of violence, a minimum of poverty.
Simple.
BIG honest question, are results or theory more important? Usually simple; results. But, if not, then theories, or motivations, become more important and you can speculate on possibile alt. realities, dreaming on, but mention it as dreams.
If results, (then Hard) where gets the best results & why? Result evaluation itself is tough, and reasons more so.
At the kid's mass I often attend, there are often prayers for "peace". At night, as my family prays, I started (this week!) praying:
for a world without dictators.
Only this week, for the first time in my life, have I thought such a world might genuinely come to be, in my own lifetime. So I thought I'd share this dream, maybe your liberal friends might like it.
A world without dictators.
I've had my own problems in talking with the Left. I think it is because the world is in flux and neither the Left nor the Right has adjusted yet.
It's been hard to assign a proper priority to current events; which is important and which is urgent? What will come around and bite us in the end if we don't deal with it now? Is it the war on terror? Or our problems with the European Union? Or is it our country's ongoing struggle with Leftist ideas? Well-- It's all three, but some things are more important than others.
I would guess I'd say that the war on terror is urgent; it's the sort of thing that gave me sleepless nights after 9/11. "Where would the terrorists strike next? Would it be better to take the fight to the enemy or buy them off? Could they be bought off? What price would we be willing to pay?"
Osama bin Laden's price seemed too high; would the west actually apologize for defensive acts such as the Battle of Tours or the Crusades? Would we abandon our allies in the middle east: Israel and Saudi Arabia? Would we place the lifeline of our economy, the oil supply, in terrorist hands?
Would those on the Left agree to the above demands? Sadly, yes. Why? Because many on the left think that America is the problem, not the solution. This thinking is a relic of the Cold War; the anti-war movement tried unsuccessfully to re-enact the Vietnam War Protests. Can you discuss current events with someone who's mind is stuck back in the 1960's? No.
What about the European Union or the UN? Are they important? No. They are an irritant, but they effect nothing long term. We have to deal with them because a political realignment is taking place. The war on terror will take decades; we will gather long term allies in the fight. Many countries will try to remain neutral, but will be dragged into the war.
This war will take decades because the enemy is intractable, because this war is over the soul of Islam. We will hand to the terrorists defeat after defeat, but this will end nothing. The war ends when the Muslims give up the belief that they are destined to rule mankind; when they accept being just another religion in Western Civilization; when they give up Islamic Law.
Do you see the problem in speaking about this to a Leftist who believes in multi culturalism? You immediately get accused of cultural imperialism. "The Arabs have a right to their culture. You have no right to make them change." You may reply, "But, they're the ones who won't leave us in peace." The Leftist will say, "it doesn't matter. They have rights." As if we don't.
A Leftist won't listen to an argument which says, "it's us or them." Because, the multi culturalist is basically anti-West; he wants the Arabs to win. Can you discuss issues with someone who insists that you lose? No.
Most of the other issues in the war are just smokescreens. We will win or lose in Iraq; we will either have secular representaive government there or not. Does it Matter? A little, but Iraq is just one battle. It would be nice if freedom comes to the middle east, but it isn't necessary so long as the Muslims give up terror.
The war will hasten our country's progress toward the right just as the Great Depression did toward the left. The Democratic Party will fight this movement tooth and nail-- and lose. Leftist ideas, Socialism, Fascism and Social Democracy, have been tried in a dozen places-- and failed.
The current hatred against President Bush is a symptom of the Left's despair. Their hysteria will magnify until it completely alienates the voters. Your ability to speak sensibly to a Democrat will depend on his ability to learn from experience. It's no fun talking to robots. So, you stop trying.
The Republican Party will eventually become corrupted by being in power too long and the Democratic party will discard its nonsense and once again become the party of freedom and the common man. But, not for a long time will you get sense out of a democrat.
It is also possible that the wacko fringe in the Democratic party will drive the classic liberals into the Republican party and/or the Libertarians. A bit of such a movement has already happened. If so, we will have a period where the Republican party will be dominant, but it will not truly be conservative. (It will have a conservative wing, but it's policies will be somewhat of a mishmash--see war on terror versus Medicare bill, for a taste of an example.)
If that happens, it's not a given that the Democratic party will survive. I think we will eventually revert back to two dominant parties. Those could be Republican/Libertarian. Or a dominant, and thus eventually lazy and corrupt Republican party could split. It's not a given that this split would be along conservative/classical liberal lines. I think the chances of the Democrats completely disappearing is slim. But I'm also sure the Whigs thought the same.
The problem I keep running into when attempting to have genuine dialogue with leftists these days is that, on a fundamental level, they think the world operates under a completely different set of rules than the rest of us do. It's almost as if they live in a parallel universe where maybe black isn't always white, but white is always at least charcoal.
It's hard to have a dialogue with this sort of person, because you can't even agree on "background" issues, much less "so, what should we do now?" Usually, the worldview seems to derive from some unstated first-cause principle like "The Evil Oil Companies run the United States through their evil and stupid minions." So any non-Leftist American action, current or historical, is viewed with an irrebuttable presumption that the actor is Evil, and that whatever he did must be in the furtherance of some Evil goal."
If you actually try point-by-point argument with this sort of person, you'll spend hours and hours disputing what seem to you obvious (and I mean obvious) facts, probably going back to the Magna Carta or something if you let it. It's like presenting a detailed, nuanced argument about what NASA's space exploration strategy for the 21st century should be with the president of the Flat Earth Society. There are so few common assumptions that it's almost impossible to have genuine debate.
The only tactic I've found to be even marginally useful with these sorts of people starts something like "OK, let's assume for the sake of argument that everything you say is true. Even then, shouldn't the evil Halliburton plan to steal Iraq's oil have some sort of tangible beneficial result for Halliburton's evil masters, beyond what they'd get from using their evil stupid Republican puppets to give them some massive handout through the legislative process?"
To be honest, it doesn't help much, but it does defuse about 95% of the avenues for further shrieking denunciation.
Hi Steven,
The two party system is too useful to our country for it to end, and it seems unlikely that a third party will take over from the Dems, so I imagine that we will get a replay of the Democratic Party after the civil war. In certain areas-- the north east-- and locations-- inner cities-- the Dems will hang onto power, but they won't effect much. The Democratic Party leadership is acting in ways designed to alienate the voter for decades. Their issues are either leftist, old, solved, nonsensical or irrelevant. After a while the Dems will get tired of losing national elections, so they will ask themselves "What can I sell to the voters?" I'm assuming that Socialism will have become passe' by then. A new generation of leaders must arise to make the Dems viable again, but how corrupt the Republicans get in the meantime matters. The Libertarians may get angry at Republican Party dealmaking and bolt, thus returning the Dems to the "Party of the common Man." Stranger things have happened.
Hi David,
I run across the same issues. Motives seem more important to a Liberal than methods. That is, they have a single method that they insist compulsively be used-- government. It doesn't help to point out how often this method has been used and failed.
If you suggest to them other methods (markets, competition, rewards for results, etc) then they question your motives. They can't seem to connect that people can create systems that foster win-win situations. Competition is always murderous to them, even when the goal is in pleasing others. And for the person most pleasing to be rewarded for their efforts? Horrors. Then they totally ignore the harm done by their governmental programs.
The Liberals are not results oriented at all. That is the problem-- they are relativists. They think they can bend life's rules. They think that if they were King Knute then the tides would obey them. They are life's rejects in some ways. In an earlier age, they would have killed themselves off before they could reproduce.
See? It's all our fault; we competent ones. We created an economy that allows the irrational to survive, and the incompetents soon out number us. Worse yet, they vote.
Maybe, we need a test. First class citizens have to know how to think. Nah, that wouldn't work; where would we get politicians and bureaucrats then?