NASCAR Man Hits a Chicane
Peter Beinart -- whose new book I will read as soon as I finish Orhan Pamuk's Snow -- has a funny, observant but ultimately weird column in The New Republic this week. It starts out as an "anthropology of one's own tribe" -- liberals at conferences about liberalism, progressivism, whatever you want to call it, blah, blah. Beinart complains that at these conferences, everyone is too nice to each other (hence, apparently, the odd title of the column -- "Nice Ass," as in, Democrats=donkeys, which another word for is "ass" and they're too nice, thus "Nice Ass." Very clever, in a Hasty Pudding Club sort of way.) , but what he really proves about such conferences is that almost everyone is half-engaged, if they are there at all. "Name tags lie on tables, seats remain unfilled. ...Someone gets a cell phone call, checks the number, and heads for the exit. Someone else fishes a BlackBerry from his suitcase and begins to tap. The condition of American liberalism is grave, we all agree, but evidently not grave enough to put our cell phones on mute."
(An accurate description, although at the last such conclave I attended, only one name tag was unclaimed, Beinart’s, which sat on a side table serving as a silent rebuke lest any of us lapse into mushy, soft-on-terror thinking.)
Beinart points out that every such meeting is then dominated by someone who makes a long and pointless point, even admitting frequently that "maybe this doesn’t make any sense," but that everyone’s too nice, or too distracted by the Blackberry to stop him or her. (I admit that I’m the Blackberry -- Treo, actually -- guy -- I hope I’m not that other guy also.)
But at least I know I’m not the guy Beinart pays most attention to
...if liberals must eradicate self-indulgent niceness, they must also confront an even bigger scourge. Let's call him nascar Man. Nascar Man hovers over every discussion I've ever attended. You don't always notice him at first, but, sooner or later, someone invites him into the room, and he proceeds to suck out all the air. Nascar Man is the guy liberals need to win, but usually don't. He loves guns, pickup trucks, chewing tobacco, and church on Sunday. He thinks liberals are high-taxing, culturally libertine, quasi-pacifist wimps. And, once liberals have conjured him up, they no longer say what they really believe--even to one another.
The problem starts with the failure to draw a basic distinction: between what liberals believe and what Democrats should say to get elected. Inevitably, in my experience, the two are conflated, and, inevitably, the latter tramples the former. Should liberals invest more power in the United Nations? Should they spend large new sums on the poor? Should they support gay marriage? The propositions are not refuted; they are rarely even raised, because no one wants to incite nascar Man’s wrath. Nascar Man inhibits intellectual inquiry. He’s the bully everyone wants to appease.
That’s very cleverly put. Indeed, the invocation of Nascar Man, or Dobson Man, is a ritual of such discussions, invariably invoked most often by someone who knows the least about the world beyond the Upper West Side. And Beinart is himself too "nice" to point out that it often occurs within moments of the ritual of pointing out that the group sitting around the table is too white, too straight, too old, too secular, etc., which always must be observed as if noting something obvious allows everyone to move forward, "so noted." Thus one can sometimes have, almost side by side, two "America is..." statements: one, implicit, that America Is like us, but more multicultural; the other that America Is totally unlike us, hates us, loves God, Guns and Guts, and we either need to trick them or go home.
And of course the only "America Is" statement that makes sense is that America is a complicated, hugely diverse place with all kinds of attitudes and constituencies, some of which will be open to progressive ideas and others of which will not. And that in such a place, majorities, political power, and public consensus can all be crafted in multiple ways. Beinart is also right that these assumptions of an America that is overwhelmingly hostile to ideas of justice, rights, and international cooperation lead to a stilted conversation in which people easily lose sight of their own moral touchstones -- they convince themselves that what they themselves believe is something that most other Americans don’t -- in favor of electoral strategizing. That’s particularly disturbing in conversation among people who aren’t actually doing anyone’s electoral strategy.
That said, what’s striking about this passage is it’s lack of self-awareness. Hello? Isn’t Peter Beinart himself the original NASCAR man?? Or at least the one who made the most lucrative go of it. What the hell was the point of "A Fighting Faith," his controversial post-Kerry essay, if not to point out that Americans think liberals/Democrats are "quasi-pacifist wimps"?? Or that they are perceived as quasi-pacifist wimps, and need to do all in their power to combat that perception.
At that time, I argued that the essay might have made internal sense (which is not to say that it would have been correct) had it made a defense of the Iraq war -- that is, if he could argue, as the likes of Christopher Hitchens still do, that Democrats were on the wrong side of history for opposing the war. But although Beinart hadn't yet said, "We Were Wrong,", he couldn't defend the war either. So the essay ended up basically saying that moveon.org (his main target) might or might not be right about the war but must not be too outspoken in saying so, because America Is a country that thinks liberals are wimpy and we mustn't do anything to encourage that perception. In other words, forget reality, say what it takes to get elected, including visibly purging those who might also be right about the war but who might -- in theory -- go too far in their pacifism, opposing other, hypothetisized, wiser wars.
My understanding is that Beinart has toned down the attack in his book. And that he now fully acknowledges that he and his colleagues were wrong to support the war. So I’m surprised by the lack of self-awareness in his otherwise very funny satire of the invokers of "Nascar Man." I hope the book resolves the paradox.
Comments (85)
He loves guns, pickup trucks, chewing tobacco, and church on Sunday.
This isn't really accurate-- NASCAR man is more likely to be hunting on Sunday (or watching sports) while his mom and maybe his wife are at church with the kids. The fact that these guys often have an "it ain't right/the Bible says" attitude about abortion & gays doesn't mean they're particularly devout on a personal level; they just are well steeped in a fundamentalist Protestant tradition and think that church is a good thing in general, even if they don't go themselves. "Dobson man" is a different specimen altogether, IME-- the softer, somewhat nerdier version, that relies on a biblical model of domestic hierarchy (Promise Keepers, anyone?) to maintain his sense of masculinity in lieu of higher-testosterone activities.
Anyway, this is a big mistake liberals often make about rural culture... the churches' influence goes way beyond the pews, even though those pews aren't always as full as one might think. Yeah, the clergy has a disproportionate influence on political thought, but it's more of a ripple effect than mass brainwashing.
May 19, 2006 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beinart does an excellent job informing us (unintentionally) about the framing and talking points of the opposition.
TNR is The New Republicans and have been irrelevant for many years (a nameless and shameless editor made it so.) Only the beltway insiders (of which they are members) would consider TNR writers as reflecting the interests and thoughts of real Democratic voters. High priced political consultants from DC are so yesterday, even if From and Friends can't face this fact yet. Had they won elections (you know, by actually being connected to the Dems instead of to the framing and talking points of the opposition) it might not be so.
May 19, 2006 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This completely misses the point of Beinart's essay. The point of the essay was not to defend or condemn the Iraq War. It was to make a larger point that liberalism needs to make a historic choice about whether it wants to confront or accomodate the forces of medieval darkness gathering strength around the world in the name of Islam.
The fear is that confrontation with jihadist Islam will increase, both in terms of our relations with the Islamic world and in our relations with Muslims here in the West. Many of these people hold views that are 100% antithetical to what any liberal believes. The subjugation of speech, minority rights, religious freedom, sexual freedom are all things liberals should fight, whether the opponent is a theocratic Christian or a theocratic Muslim. Yet many liberals shy away from such confrontation and are far more worried about anti-Muslim prejudice. They make excuses for the intolerance in Islam or else they just ignore it, preferring to concentrate all their energies on fighting the Bush Administration
So Beinart is indeed saying we should appeal to NASCAR man, because NASCAR man, like the vast majority of the population as a whole, is worried about the rise of radical Islam. But the point is that such an appeal is entirely consistent with liberalism, just as liberalism was entirely consistent with anti-communism.
In his NY Times essay of a few weeks ago, Beinart makes the case even stronger by bringing in the philosophy of Reinhold Neibuhr, among others, who argued that only liberalism, as a modest creed, could successfully confront communism. Only by not pressing our advantage with allies could we convince them to join us in opposing the Soviet Union. He argues a similar dynamic could hold today. The Bushies' unilateral, bull-in-a-china-shop approach has alienated the very people we need to fight the real enemy. Only a liberal anti-jihadist would have a chance of defeating that enemy. But in order for that to happen, liberalism has to embrace anti-jihadism, which is far from the case right now. Liberals need to get over the trauma of the Iraq War, which too many see as the alpha and omega of the war on Islamic radicalism, and embrace the anti-jihadist cause even as they hammer home how misguided the Iraq advanture has been.
May 19, 2006 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was raised in that pickup world or rural America - I even watch an occasional car race from time to time. I daresay I'm the best shot with a rifle at TPM (TPM member AmberJane might give me a run for my money). I also marched against the Iraq war - twice. I can't really be counted as a hick since I now live in Chicago - then again, the trend is toward cities, while rural areas are rapidly depopulating.
I'm not a cliche - to myself anyway. Does anyone really think "I'm this stereotype - I'm totally over-determined!"
Speaking for "dumb" people is akin to attempting to "out-think idiots." I watched this process give us John Kerry instead of Howard Dean in the Iowa caucus. Dean excited the voters, but Kerry became this default 'safe' guy that some dumb Republican might just vote for.
I understand this is inside baseball stuff, but this navel gazing often is just a reaction to GOP agitprop. Here's an idea, instead of mulling over Democratic party weaknesses, why not focus on framing the GOP as the crooks and liars they are?
May 19, 2006 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
He seems to figure that, while one can't justify the war on grounds of justifiable means or ends, pointless warmongering shows some voters that we're willing to kick ass. There's an argument to be made that, for some voters, foreign policy actually became subordinate to the Culture Wars; an article on "the stab in the back" theories now in Harper's makes that point.
However, first, one should be careful of conflating appeals to a relatively small, right-wing base (like the ones who feel antiwar protesters lost Vietnam) with the broader numbers of voters for whom Bush's war on terrorism played more to fears than to convictions. Second, one should be wary of a strategy that basically accepts the right-wing spin on both war and culture, the very things we need to change. Third, obviously the war ain't very popular. Fourth, I've some doubts on whether anyone who doesn't already accept Bush foreign policy could stomach the "compromise" of accepting it on political grounds. Last, would such an acceptance convince anyone? I thought Kerry did a great job at the Democratic convention and in the debates of putting Bush on the defensive on foreign policy as well as sounding tough, and we on the left easily forget that polls agreed! Yet the spinmeisters won out in the end, as media control always does.
Nope, liberals don't have to agree that they're soft on Communism, Hussein, bin Laden, or whoever the GOP enemy of the week happens to be. But Beinart warps that into Bushism.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
May 19, 2006 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are we too angry or too nice? The centrists seem to offer conflicting pieces of advise.
May 19, 2006 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I remember a party the UAW threw for David Dinkins back in the mid 80's. My girlfriend at the time was on the executive committee of a local. She was a curatorial assistant at the Whitney, but grew up a Catholic Jersey girl. No big deal. All the NYC pols were there; and Michael Harrington and his DSA crowd. Major Owens was good. It was a riot. We got a lift there from another member of the committee who worked at Potamkin. Loud little woman from PR. She was married but her husband wasn't her date. I forget both their names but we had fun. Mention the name Victor Potamkin and she would start to curse. We all got very drunk.
I remember passing by the DSA "youth" table full of pamphlets and literature, and which I discovered was manned by someone I knew from my Quaker prep school. Matthew had written a piece for the school paper interviewing Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, who'd been his baby sitters on a few occasions. Our parents knew each other too, through various movement conectections. Here he is. I just googled him. It was all very earnest and sincere and Yale-y.
The room was a swirl of the hard-core politicking, the lazy and politically stagnant but friendly and drunken solidarity, across all racial and cultural lines, of the union members, and the earnest insecurity and fear of those who were there just to do the right thing. Call it the nebbish factor. I remember one plump little upper west side putz looking up to us nervously and saying: "Hi... I'm from the Democratic Socialists of America." I cringed as people almost spit up their beers in laughter.
May 19, 2006 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"liberalism needs to make a historic choice about whether it wants to confront or accomodate the forces of medieval darkness gathering strength around the world in the name of Islam.
The fear is that confrontation with jihadist Islam will increase, both in terms of our relations with the Islamic world and in our relations with Muslims here in the West. Many of these people hold views that are 100% antithetical to what any liberal believes. The subjugation of speech, minority rights, religious freedom, sexual freedom are all things liberals should fight, whether the opponent is a theocratic Christian or a theocratic Muslim. Yet many liberals shy away from such confrontation and are far more worried about anti-Muslim prejudice. They make excuses for the intolerance in Islam or else they just ignore it, preferring to concentrate all their energies on fighting the Bush Administration"
Wrong, wrong wrong. What this liberal believes is that radical Islam was not the focus of America's foreign policy, either by conservative or liberals, until 9/11 happened. If you remember, the Bush administration was busy blowing off the efforts at diplomacy in North Korea and picking fights with the Chinese in the early days of 2001.
Now that our attention is focused on the threat that radical Islam presents, the Bush administration, Peter Beinart and yourself make two fundamental errors. You all think that it is an existential threat to the very existence of Western civilization, and that the most effective way to combat it is through military force.
First of all, no rational threat analysis could lead one to the conclusion that the Islamic world, with its internal divisions (between the rulers and the ruled, as well as the various strains of religious sectarianism), its poverty, and its lack of military infrastructure poses a legitmate military threat to the United States' primacy in world affairs. The only scenarios offered supporting such a threat are totally hypothetical (e.g., Iran w/nukes in 10 years). Furthermore, the most effective ways to deal with nuclear proliferation are to regulate and monitor nuclear activity around the world, notably including the securing of "loose nukes" in Russia, a policy which the Bush administration has underfunded or ignored, and a policy for which the various hawks in American politics derided Kerry for advocating in 2004.
Secondly, our criticism of Bush is not in recognizing that radical Islam is a world political problem which must be addressed. Rather, it is in his failure to recognize that this is a war of ideas which must be fought through diplomacy and political engagement with the Islamic world. Full-scale military intervention will serve only to further radicalize the Islamic world, and make the "Clash of Civilizations" you hawks so ardently desire a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beinart's thesis, ultimately, is about perception and human nature. The faction eager and willing to go to war in our country will always be viewed in the short term as more willing to defend our "national security," regardless of whether that war will actually contribute to or harm our security. If Beinart was willing to treat this as a perception problem, he might find a sympathetic hearing from this liberal. As it is, the anti-war folks were right, and the policy prescriptions Beinart advocates are short-sighted and counter-productive.
Finally, as to your comment that liberals would rather criticize Bush than militant Islam, my response is that, as a citizen in a democracy, I feel I have more influence in combatting Islamic extremism by opposing the failing policies of my government than by joining it in those policies. To say nothing of the excesses and politicial exploitation that have also been hallmarks of the Bush war on terror.
May 19, 2006 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beinart's third paragraph seems to be right on the money. The Village Independent Democrats (the Greenwich Village political club), invited Mario Cuomo well before he became governor, to discuss the compromise he talked about compromise he worked out over a public housing project to be built in Rego Park Queens, New York, Besides making it smaller part of the deal included a screening process so that the poor law abiding tenants did not have to reside with drug dealers and other criminals. You would have thought from the reaction of the VID that Cuomo had proposed a Gestopo like regime for the place. It was amazing.
The VID also opposed participating in forums about crime because it was not a "liberal" thing to do. How real people lived did not seem to be an issue for liberals.
However, as Beinart also says Liberals don't have confidence in the power of their ideas. If not every liberal has an idea worthy of promoting ideas need to be debated and argued for even if NASCAR man won't like them.
This is the point of Beinart's article. Liberals need to sort out the ideas that really matter and then stand behind them.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 19, 2006 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
. . . NASCAR man, like the vast majority of the population as a whole, is worried about the rise of radical Islam.
Talk about hyperbole!
But seriously, "NASCAR man" is always "worried" about something: Reds under the bed, uppity black folks, welfare queens, gays, satanic cults, pedophiles on the internet, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Demagoguing his latest irrational "fear" by "embrac[ing] the anti-jihadist cause" -- whatever that's supposed to mean -- at the cost of engaging the voters in a mature, intelligent conversation is to abandon liberalism to -- as BradtheDad would have it -- "the forces of medieval darkness gathering strength around the world."
May 19, 2006 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is precisely this attitude of lumping in radical Islam with manufactured right-wing bogeyman such as gays and "welfare queens" that Beinart is rigth to call out and fight against. Radical Islam murdered thousands of Americans on American soil and intends to murder more in the future. Just because conservative have exploited this threat for partisan gain does not make it illusory. Liberals can and should question the efficacies of certain tactics in the struggle against radical Islam, but to deny the importance of that struggle is utter folly.
May 19, 2006 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I could not agree more. The party of authoritarianism could theoretically come to an accomodation with radical Islam. The party of liberty, if it means what says, never can.
Nor do I read you to suggest that struggle against jihadism must necessarily take an adventurous military form, as some posters imply.
May 19, 2006 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly so KingElvis. What I was saying but from another angle. BTW, I'm damn good with a sidearm!
May 19, 2006 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Beinart's distinction between what liberal principles and Democratic positions is is an important one to make. The difficult questions arise, however, where liberal principles plainly do come into conflict with political reality.
Gay marriage is the perfect example. There isn't a principled liberal argument against full marital equality for gays - certainly not if civil marriage is granted through the democratic process. So when NASCAR man is put out of the equation, full marital equality for gays should be the liberal benchmark for progress.
However, even with the progress made in recent years, gay marriage is political loser (especially with NASCAR man) until demographics change (or to put it more bluntly, a sufficient number of homophobic voters die off). So, what should the liberal response be to Democrats, who take a position against gay marriage to get elected in swing and red states?
Beinart says in the same essay that Democrats shouldn't have to be political martyrs. This suggests that liberals to some extent need to hold their cannon fire at certain Democrats who take the non-liberal positions in elections. (Just as disciplined conservatives have until recently tolerated pro-choice northeastern senators like Snowe and Specter). What liberals need to do however, is attempt to create a political environment in which Democrats do not have to shy away from liberal positions to win.
May 19, 2006 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, "struggle" away! I'm all aquiver awaiting the release of those pictures of NASCAR man wannabes, their manly chests "glowing with dew" as they "struggle against radical Islam."
May 19, 2006 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very succint rejoinders.
To put one point in current news terms, the Bushies have made immigration the new terrorism.
Should we respond in agreement with them to every created "emergency" Rove can invent to divert attention? Reactive, as Beinart's way would engender, is incorrect. We must set the agenda and not let Rove do it for us. Waiting for the opposition to hit you before reacting is bad strategy. Momma said "If you don't decide who you are, someone will do it for you."
May 19, 2006 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This brings up a tangental point. I value my gun as a way to defend myself, if necessary, as well as for the sport of shooting, and I feel that I have a right to own it regardless of whether the Constitution says I have that right or not. I'm glad that it is, so far, legal but if it's ownership became illegal I would still keep it. I think it is time foe the Democrats to tell the world that the NRA has been right all along. Yes, I believe in slippery slopes as related to guns as well as to surveilance. A strong and smart Democratic candidate would scream that the stripping of our civil liberties is one of the very things that the founding fathers meant to protect us from by guaranteeing us the right to bear arms. Guns aren't going away, lets stop losing so many people to the other side because we are percieved as the side that would take guns away if we could.
May 19, 2006 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I don't see ANY evidence of this particular Rovian bit of genius, to me, this is a narrative people on the left are creating based on the fact that lots of people do see border security and terrorism as related. Bush doesn't want people thinking that, never did.
(Matter of fact, one of the main arguments of the whole Neo-Con Iraq thing is that one can never achieve security with defensive measures like controlling borders and immigration, that one must go to the source and make them all America-friendly democracies.)
I see lots of evidence that they were blindsided by the large protests putting the topic the top of the national dialogue, pushing it up and out of Minuteman territory. Whoever is behind organizing those protests one-upped "the Bushies," out-Rove'd Rove. Bush did not want to make this a hot issue, he had no reason to do so; it is causing him a great deal of trouble. What the Bushies did know is poll numbers on this, that lots of people would not like what he would like to see getting done. This in the midst of the GOP trying to raise funds for 2006 was not the divisive issue they wanted to deal with.
May 19, 2006 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I agree that the Democrats' attempt to impose, federally, an interstate compact to ban and/or control Saturday night specials and military assault rifles is subject to an honestly held "slippery slope" argument, I'm not so sure that a loudly voiced abandonment of that policy -- it's been pretty quiescent, lately -- will woo NRA members.
Isn't their opposition based more upon defending cultural status than upon opposing restrictions? Aren't they angrier about the implied dishonoring of their lifestyle than they are about the specific policies or programs?
May 19, 2006 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
WTF does this post have to do with anything being discussed on this thread, other than to provide you with another opportunity to bash "the Left?"
The point of Beinart's piece in TNR (I haven't, and won't, read the book) is that until liberals/democrats develop a reputation for toughness on national security, they will not be taken seriously on the national poltical stage. Your comments, as sequiturs go, is non.
May 19, 2006 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, King Elvis. I'm now inhabiting the world you left behind -- Nascar dads and all. Mostly I feel akin to my pickup-driving, conservative neighbors while recognizing that they grew up with their snobby little biases (the gun, the cant about libruls) just the way I did in the NE (the Crimson, classic films, the cant about "the red states.") Fortunately,, we don't make a big deal about our cultural differences because our shared interests are so much more engaging and gratifying. Given the intensity of the battle in the media and here in the blogosphere, there's a surprising amount of mutual respect in life as lived in a rural red state.
Depends on what level you choose to live your life. There's a win-lose thing going on. If you're heavily dependent on the media, we can't just win; they have to lose (and "lose big, after what they've done to us and our country"). I often feel that way but I try not to act that way if I can help it. Maybe they started it. But not if you go far enough back...! I sometimes think they use "Christianity" (the cult, not the religion) as a hidey-hole from the value we put on liberal education, the truth being that many of them are no more really Christian than many of us are really educated and experienced. Face it: there are plenty on both sides who regularly attend The Church of The Self.
May 19, 2006 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've definitely been making the most of your time in the trashy Romance section of the local Barnes & Noble. You do have a point - the Democrats could sell mory copies of their wonky national security manifestos with more exciting cover pictures.
The substance behind your snark, however, is disturbing. How many skyscrapers have to fall before liberals should consider the people knocking them down to be a genuine threat? Yes, it is irrational to fear that the Des Moines public library is going to be the next Al Qaeda target. But it would be equally irrational not to worry about the vulnerability of the port of Newark or LAX. You shouldn't have to think that watching cars speeding around in circles until one of them crashes is entertainment to think that protecting Americans from people who want to kill us is a good idea.
May 19, 2006 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It doesn't make it illusory, but it also doesn't make it a greater threat than the GOP who to date have done far more damage in terms of weakening this country ecnomically, infrastructurally and militarily than the forces of violent extremism.
So yes, I'm putting a struggle against radical islam in the context of struggling against extremism generally but I'm not denying its obvious importance. I'm saying we need to get our own house in order before we have even a hope of puting someone else's house in order and that means defeating the GOP.
May 19, 2006 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, now; "snark" is in the eye of the beholder. Did I accuse you of deploying tired, fearmongering purple prose? Well, did I?
May 19, 2006 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are many wisecracks one can make about learning from the mistakes in history. One of my favorites is the coralary to the old cliche; "And those who learn from the mistakes in history are doomed to repeat them."
I mention it because Beinart and his allies remind me a lot of Jean Kirkpatrick and all the other Jackson (that's "Scoop", the Wash. senator, not Jesse)war dems in the 60s and 70s, who ended up having to invent a new ideology to cover their tracks after being proven to be profoundly wrong about Viet Nam. According to them, it wasn't the dumb ass policy, the blood drenched cynicism, or the constant lying to us, and even worse, to themselves that made us look bad - it was our willingness to say it was stupid, and that we should stop it.
Much the same is taking place now. Afghanistan made sense, and in my opinion, was a proper response. Iraq was not just dumb, not just dumber than Viet Nam, it was crimanally irresponsible.It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that this war would drive a wedge between us and the rest of the world, but dad-gummit, the hick from Texas and the pond scum surrounding him knew better. Of course, a good many dems got dragged along with stupid crap, and now, rather than have the decency say, damn, I was wrong as hell about that one, a bunch of them are suggesting that we continue acting stupid in some similar way, or the NASCAR Dads, or whatever version of southern or rural white men, or the Peggy Noonans of the world will see us for the pussies we are (sorry about that, but that's word these guys really want to use, but don't have the guts to say it).
Well, I'm an old fat white guy who served in Viet Nam, knows how to shoot a rifle, and didn't graduate from college, and I think the Beinarts of the world are full of crap. And I think that any elected dem official who knows they were wrong on their vote on the war (Kerry and Hillary, are you listening?), and refuse to apologize, deserves no place on the national stage. I think that anyone who thinks you can go around talking swaggeringly about "stamping out Islamic tyranny" and thinks that such wise ass remarks will solve our problems, is an idiot.
But hey, what do I know? I'm not a NASCAR Pop
May 19, 2006 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the level of principle, it makes little sense that venal rich crooks would be considered a greater evil than mass murderers. Even so, you are setting up a false choice. Liberalism can and should condemn both the evils of estate tax repeal and Islamist terror.
On the level of politics, you seem to be arguing that in acknowledging the evil of Islamism, Democrats are less likely to defeat the GOP. That the Democrats are more likely to convince swing voters that Islamist terror is not a serious threat than that Democrats are serious about combatting the threat. This seems to run in the face of the reality of 9/11, and human nature (which is likely to overvalue a dramatic, catastrophic event over smaller events that aggregate to greater damage). In other words, denying the truth that radical Islamism is a threat to American lives and liberal values does not gain any political advantage.
May 19, 2006 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The issue isn't are they a threat. It is how much of one are they.
This isn't the USSR that was a first world industrial economy capable of putting men in space and building a military industrial complex.
Some perspective is in order.
May 19, 2006 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . the decency [to] say, damn, I was wrong as hell about that one . . . .
Or, in the alternative: I never believed in the war in the first place, but I was so anxious to maintain control of the Senate post-2002 elections that, with a nod to Chris Matthews, I would have licked the bathroom floor if that's what it took to retain the Democratic majority.
May 19, 2006 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Complete drivel.
There is no "clash of civilizations" and bin Laden could be reduced to a non-entity (at least with regards to the US if not some ME countries) in a year by simply changing US policies in the Middle East to stop supporting everything Israel does and stop supporting the Saudis and the rest of the corrupt regimes - not to mention engaging Iran instead of bombing it.
All this hyperbole about how "radical Islamists want to kill us all and we have to rise to the occasion" is unmitigated bullshit.
Islamists are literally NO threat to the survival of the United States. Killing a few thousand New Yorkers, much as it may disturb you to know, is NO threat to the United States.
You don't want them to NUKE New York? Then stop pushing them to get nukes with your lousy policies.
Why do I bother? You're a rightwing nutcase. Anybody with any sense would ignore anything you write.
May 19, 2006 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think so. My father was a lifetime NRA member and we had a 50-foot shooting range on our property. While I never considered my father particularly philosophically sophisticated, I'd say he wasn't that concerned about his "lifestyle" as guns were just a personal issue with him. I doubt he understood the entire arguments about the Second Amendment, but he certainly opposed the notion of restricting possession of firearms.
For me, weapons are tools - just like computers, nothing more. In my current legal status, I can't possess any, but I still can identify the rational reasons why the Second Amendment was put into the Constitution.
And it's irrelevant to separate out "dangerous" weapons like assault rifles, fully automatic weapons, or cheap handguns. While these weapons do get into criminal hands, the facts of the matter are that most of them get into non-criminal hands and criminals will get them regardless of whether they are "banned" from possession by non-criminals. And most of the time, they end up being used by criminals against criminals, not against other citizens.
Banning anything just results in an effective black market for the item banned. Guns or drugs or cigarettes or kiddie porn, it doesn't matter what the item is - the economics always works the same. The only way to remove dangerous items is to remove the motivations to possess them.
Gutting the Second Amendment is a very dangerous thing to do, even more so today when the state is aggressively pushing its power and reduction of civil liberties to even greater extents than ever before.
The First Amendment - and all subsequent Amendments - depend on the Second, whether people believe that or not. That's why the Second IS the Second. The First is freedom of mind - the Second is freedom of body. The Founders understood that both must be protected.
People who believe that just because the US has a massive military and nuclear weapons that the Second Amendment is no longer relevant because "no citizen uprising could defeat the state" should look at Iraq.
Any guerrilla knows that as long as you have a weapon - any kind of weapon, even an improvised one - you can get any OTHER weapons you need from your enemies. It's just a question of tactics.
And tanks and jet fighters don't fly so well when the pilots have been shot in the head before they get into them, or the fuel tanks have been shot up.
The reality is that no state can survive an armed uprising of a significant part of the citizenry. That has always been true and will always be true (with the possible exception, as K. Eric Drexler has warned, about nanotechnology.)
Therefore the Second Amendment today is even more relevant than it was when the US didn't have an international superpower as a central government.
I agree, however, that unless Dems suddenly became clear and enthusiastic supporters of the Second Amendment, they can forget about wooing current NRA Republican supporters. It's just not happening.
May 19, 2006 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure Bush has made immigration the new terrorism except in the sense that the Republicans are trying to defuse the criticism of Bush's approach to terrorism by raising a "new" issue of immigration.
SOME Republicans clearly ARE linking border security to terrorist threats. But most of them are simply trying to fracture the country between the "legal citizens" and the "illegal citizens."
And yes I'd say they got blindsided by the immediate and massive response of those "illegal citizens." It derailed the Republican attempt to criminalize twenty million people in one fell swoop. Even the Republicans realized that if they actually did that, those twenty million would be on the streets in a heartbeat.
And these bozos are REALLY afraid of some serious resistance in the streets - which is why they're pushing the surveillance programs and giving contracts to companies to build "emergency camps".
Their basic bad intentions towards the citizens of the US - which has absolutely nothing to do with "stopping terrorism" - is an inescapable conclusion.
The only "terrorism" the government is afraid of is from its own citizens opposing its policies.
May 19, 2006 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Well, I'm an old fat white guy who served in Viet Nam, knows how to shoot a rifle, and didn't graduate from college..."
Welcome to the club, brother!
Right on post. Hit every nail dead on.
And you know the worst of it?
The Dems are gonna do it all over again in Iran. They're gonna (like the guy in the movie, "Guide for the Married Man") "deny...deny...deny...deny it!", then when Bush launches the war, they're gonna scramble onto the war wagon like it's the last chopper out of Saigon.
And five or ten years later, they'll be screaming, "But we didn't know! We were lied to!" (Like Han Solo, "It's not my fault!")
I tell you, I'm starting to feel clairvoyant since the way it's going to go is so obvious.
May 19, 2006 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Mark Schmitt has it wrong. He may have used some politically utilitarian argument's in favor of his positions, but Beinart was not of the "Democrats need to take the war on terror seriously in order to regain political power" argument the DLC types were putting out. He truly thinks the "war on terror/jihadism" is an important issue, that was every bit as important to liberalism as the liberal anti-communism of the post-war era, and the party had to "purge" the softs. I don't know whether the idea that Beinart's ideas are borne out of sincerity rather than political strategizing makes them more or less respectable though.
May 19, 2006 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, no one's saying that we shouldn't make efforts to protect ourselves against any future (and probably unrelated to aviation) attacks-- however, the best ways of doing so are, well, not very exciting, like better port security. It's kinda similar to locking one's doors at home as a burglary deterrent being preferable to taking out a few teenagers with a semiautomatic rifle... the latter will be all over the local news & puff up one's ego, but the former is still cheaper & more sensible.
May 19, 2006 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine theory, but the reality is that we're not fighting any of those things in Afghanistan or Iraq. Islamic culture is stronger than our hubris. Maybe we should have listened to a few Muslims before we starting bombing them.
And speaking of listening -- the NASCAR Dad myth is a creation of over educated, over paid, insular, inside-the-beltway wonks. The real problem is their inability to conduct a civil conversation with the vast populace of flyoverland - man, woman, left or right, Unitarian or Baptist. They don't have jihadis under their beds, in their closets or peaking in their windows. But the Maytag plant is closing in Newton, Iowa. The Ford plant is closing in St. Paul. The policy wonks don't give a damn. And flyoverland is not too stupid to notice.
May 19, 2006 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Bushies and the Beinerts have the same message: FEAR. They don't play to liberalism they play to paranoia. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned, American self confidence. The confidence that believed that people could be lead by example not by missiles, bombs, tanks, walls, cameras, wire taps, torture, gulags, and the growing list of anti-liberal tactics we are embracing. The world looks at us and liberalism is not what they see.
May 19, 2006 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wish I could rate you a 10.
May 19, 2006 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are right it is drivel. There is most certainly a clash of civilizations except for the apologists and bigots. The did kill us. It is not all Muslims but since the late 1960s the greatest cause of political murder has been radical Muslims. From the hijacking of planes in the desert of the Middle East to the murder of Israeli athletes in Munich to tossing the wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer into the sea to the murder of Marines in Lebanon, embassy personnel in Africa, Americans in the Kobar Towers, 3,000 Americans in New York and Washington, British in London, Spanish in Madrid, Australians and others in Bali all perpetrated by Muslims and probably Sunni Muslims.
There is also the problem of Muslim terrorism in India, Turkey and ArgentinaDaniel A. Greenbaum
May 19, 2006 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point of Beinart's piece is about how liberals make no distinction between principals that should be promoted and argued for and what Democrats need to do to get elected. He then looks at two issues. The first is that liberals accept all ideas as equal as long as they promoted by those on the left. He rejects this and seems to be calling for a culling of ideas. He also does not believe everyone should be allowed to speak for liberals.
The NASCAR Man theme is about liberals being too clever by half. When liberals get anxious about winning elections there is the fear that liberal ideas will not only not win over the NASCAR Man but actively opposed by such people. Beinart is urging an intellectual promotion of liberal ideas separate from the desire to win elections in the near turn. The whole point of the Buckley reference is that he was a believer in conservative ideas when most people thought those ideas were dead even Republicans.
You seem neither Mark Schmitt's original post nor the Beinart article.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 19, 2006 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, yes and no, given that you're referring primarily to "security".
Things like "port security" and the like aren't terribly effective. Burglar alarms and locked doors only keep out the "riff-raff" of criminals - important to do, but if you are seriously dealing with "enemies" - rather than opportunistic criminals - you need to go further.
As the ninjas like to say, the best way of dealing with your enemies is to make them your friends - and then, if they still have to be enemies because of circumstances, poison them first, before they are even aware that they are your enemies.
Which means, in the case of Islam, we stop pissing them off with our foreign policies.
Then for the (very) few remaining extremists who really DON'T like us for who we are, we find them, infiltrate them and kill them - if in fact they are a threat, which is likely not to be the case once we've removed their support for attacking us from the larger body of Islam.
Anybody who has analyzed bin Laden seriously knows that we could get him to ignore the US in a heartbeat just by changing our foreign policies.
I agree that charging all over the world trying to stamp out "militant Islam" is just idiotic. Islam has been around for a couple thousand years and while it and the West have had their wars, it's usually been over religious excuses for "Crusades" for gold and power. Abandon the Crusades, the Muslims couldn't care less about us, since we're just "infidels". But they'll sell oil to infidels, so who cares what they think?
We don't have to like each other to deal with each other. That was one of the Founding Fathers principles about foreign relations for the US. No "entanglements" (think: Israel-Palestine) and fair dealing with all comers (think: no supporting corrupt monarchies for cheap oil - and especially no invading other countries for cheap - or expensive - oil.)
May 19, 2006 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the greatest cause of murder has been the United States.
The facts are that the United States has killed more civilians in the last ten or fifteen years than ALL the terrorist incidents over the last thirty years. The Iraq sanctions alone are estimated to have killed half a million or more Iraqis. The attack on Iran has killed over a hundred thousand civilians, MOST of which was done with US bombing and overreacting US soldiers.
Look it up.
There is no "clash of civilizations" - the only clash is between fanatical Zionists and Christians on the one hand, and a tiny handful of fanatical Muslims on the other. And bin Laden is not really in the latter group, as his complaints against the US could be addressed by changing US foreign policy to something more in our interests in the first place.
Your rant is drivel.
May 19, 2006 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
mhpine, it was that third NYC skyscraper that fell at 5PM on 9/11, WTC #7 (40 story steel structure dropped in seconds), that I wonder about.
It was not hit by a plane.
What about the dead troops, how many dead troops will it take before 'conservative' 'christians' consider Bush and his neo-con jihadists a threat to America?
May 19, 2006 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
What nonsense.
There's no clash of civilizations and there wouldn't be a War against Terrorism
if we weren't ourselves creating our opponent.
For 30 years the Brits were bombed in their
pubs and office building but they never thought they were at war with Militant Irishism . They were fighting some Irish Catholic killers and also talking from time to time to some particular Irish Catholic
killers who were willing to talk.
As Cobra II describes Bush and the neo
cons came into office intending to remove
Saddam , not as part of a War against Terror
which had not yet been invented. But Wars require slogans like Remember the Maine
and when needed Rove would have concocted one. 9/11 saved him that small effort by
allowing Bush to slap the label War on Terror on what he'd always intended to do.
As a consequence of our Iraq caper we have
temporarily created something that can be decribed as a radical Islam enemy. It consists of the same couple of thousand OBLites who already existed plus
some millions of adolescent males looking for a cause.
If we were to try behaving non foolishly
for a year or two those killer kids would marry and settle down to watching soccer and
our "Clash" would once again be with a couple of thousand OBLites.
That might not be the cause by which
liberals could define themselves so we'd have to think of something of value instead.
But Lord knows we shouldn't dream up a "War" in a futile effort to win the Nascar votes.
May 19, 2006 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
we're too left.
May 20, 2006 5:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
"This is the point of Beinart's article. Liberals need to sort out the ideas that really matter and then stand behind them."
Wow. I hadn't realized he was making such a deep point. It is fortunate that right wing Dems like you and Beinart and the other centrists/moderates/Bushlites have the ideas thing behind you ...that way you don't really have to spend time "sorting out ideas that really matter and then stand behind them."
May 20, 2006 5:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure she did, Ellen said the fear was irrational, so the threat must be manufactured, this sounds alot like the same thing the great TPM terrorism expert Larry Johnson claimed in a NYtimes oped 2 months before 9-11.
May 20, 2006 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
mhpine, it was that third NYC skyscraper that fell at 5PM on 9/11, WTC #7 (40 story steel structure dropped in seconds), that I wonder about. It was not hit by a plane. What about the dead troops, how many dead troops will it take before 'conservative' 'christians' consider Bush and his neo-con jihadists a threat to America?
Why Dem's lose #242: You keep forgetting who the real enemy of America is.
May 20, 2006 5:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
The facts are that the United States has killed more civilians in the last ten or fifteen years than ALL the terrorist incidents over the last thirty years. The Iraq sanctions alone are estimated to have killed half a million or more Iraqis. The attack on Iran has killed over a hundred thousand civilians, MOST of which was done with US bombing and overreacting US soldiers. Look it up.
Bullshit! To blame the death of Iraqi civilians on the US because Annan and his boys at the UN were stealing oil for food money and selling substandard goods to Iraq, with the assistance of Sadam, who somehow managed to stay pretty well fed is why you guys lose elections. You blame America for everything in the world. If we don't act we are uncaring racist, if we do act we are the imperialist invaders. The only conspirasies in the world are within our government and the only evil is purpitrated by us. How you can manage to funtion in this society and even to contribute to such a destructive force as we have been is beyond me. How can you live with yourself knowing that your tax dollars starve babies and lead to genocide? You guys on the "wacko left" (and this is waaaaay over there that I'm speaking of , so only take offense if you are a complete nut) crack me up. You talk big about the evils of America, it's time to do the right thing, put your money where your mouth is and leave! Go to one of your "Islamic utopias" and see how long you keep your head attatched to your shoulders while complaining about the evils of your government.
May 20, 2006 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Iranians and Iraqis have killed a million people between them. Your comment about Bin Laden, I didn not realize you were an apologist for mass murder, is ridiculous.
You may have changed your name but not your bigotted fanaticism. Your recept here at TPMCafe only reenforces Peter Beinart's point. It a decent society you would not be tolerated. There should be no room for bigots.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 20, 2006 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
That was the point of Beinart's reference to both Bill Buckely and Paul Weyrich. They founded magazines and organizations to promote ideas that at the time had no chance of being supported by any party but over time they convinced lots of Americans that they were right and the Republican Party reorganized itself to be the champion of those ideas. It took about 40 years.
His point is that ideas, that I gather you support, have very little chance of being useful in real elections. That Democratic officeholders fortunately do not pay attention to those sort of ideas put forward here. That is the point of the NASCAR Man. Whatever label you want to give the various groups on the Left, know that a majority of men, at least, hate your ideas. If you want to gain success you have to both acknowledge that Leftwing ideas, are not Democratic Party ideas, and work to change that by convincing White men, metaphorically, that those ideas are worthy of support.
If TPMCafe is any indiciation people are more interested in being rude and smug.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
May 20, 2006 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Q: When did the Supreme Court hold that the Second Amendment protects the individual's right to own firearms?
A: It never has.
The popular idea about what this Amendment means is at best debatable. The stronger legal argument is that the Amendment authorizes state militias only.
If we liberals want to be more politically courageous, we could argue that there is not constitutional bar to any form of gun control, right up to a ban.
That kind of goes under the Peter Beinart NASCAR-man category, I think. Things we believe (many of us), but are afraid to say to voters south of Philadelphia.
May 20, 2006 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
SFC-hey, I think America deserves more unadulterated Republican rule. The heck with the Democrats. Lets stay the course with Bush and Republicans. No matter how high the pile of dead Americans, or how long the list of convicted felons. Bush has done so much good for America.
But, you never told us what he did for you, or how 'getting Saddam' made your life in Georgia much better. It has killed over 2,500 Americans so it must have had a very big, direct impact on daily life in Georgia. In some way. Tell us all the good things Bush has done for you, other than creating an enemy list!
SFC, As you haven't answered before, I have a set of questions to make it easier for you:
When Sadddam was caught I was again free to ___________.
Without Saddam in Iraq I no longer had to ___________.
Even though over 2,500 Americans have died in Iraq, it was worth it to me to get Saddam because_______ .
May 20, 2006 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now here's a real joker...
What, the Iranian "dress code" story didn't pan out, so they sent you back over here...?
May 20, 2006 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's it, rant.
Establish your bona fides as a Zionist fanatic.
The Iranians and Iraqis killed each other in a war, by the way. An ACTUAL war. Not just gunning down people at checkpoints and bombing civilian neighborhoods.
Am I a bigot? Sure - an "equal-opportunity bigot" - I dislike everybody (well, except for The Corrs, Salma Hayek, and a lot of other babes - and of course Linus Torvalds.)
You're just a "classic" Zionist bigot - you hate everybody who isn't Jewish.
May 20, 2006 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Historians have argued over the exact meaning of the phrase "militia" in the Second Amendment.
Most have come down on the side that it refers to "every able-bodied man in the country."
Plus if you look at the quotes from the Founding Fathers such as Patrick Henry, who clearly said, "The great object is that every man be armed", it makes it clear what their intentions were.
The NRA has a fact sheet of appropriate quotes:
Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Jefferson`s "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
George Mason, of Virginia:
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.". . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." -- Virginia`s U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788
"That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free state." -- Within Mason`s declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People," -- later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention, 1788
Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts:
"The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." -- Massachusetts` U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788
Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia:
"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." -- Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788
James Madison, of Virginia:
The Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- The Federalist, No. 46
Tench Coxe, of Pennsylvania:
"The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them." -- An American Citizen, Oct. 21, 1787
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
"As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms." -- Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
Noah Webster, of Pennsylvania:
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power." -- An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787
Alexander Hamilton, of New York:
"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens." -- The Federalist, No. 29
Thomas Paine, of Pennsylvania:
"[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." -- Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775
Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts:
"The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people." -- Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789
Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789
The notion that the Second Amendment refers only to the National Guard is historically ludicrous because there was no such thing at the time. And trying to transfer the "militia" concept to the National Guard is merely intellectually dishonest.
Check the NRA Fact Sheets on US Supreme Court decisions:
U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). This is the only case in which the Supreme Court has had the opportunity to apply the Second Amendment to a federal firearms statute. The Court, however, carefully avoided making an unconditional decision regarding the statute`s constitutionality; it instead devised a test by which to measure the constitutionality of statutes relating to firearms and remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing (the trial court had held that Section 11 of the National Firearms Act was unconstitutional). The Court remanded the case because it had concluded that:
* In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Thus, for the keeping and bearing of a firearm to be constitutionally protected, the firearm should be a militia-type arm.1
The case also made clear that the militia consisted of "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense" and that "when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."2 In setting forth this definition of the militia, the Court implicitly rejected the view that the Second Amendment guarantees a right only to those individuals who are members of the militia. Had the Court viewed the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms only to "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense," it would certainly have discussed whether, on remand, there should also be evidence that the defendants met the qualifications for inclusion in the militia, much as it did with regard to the militia use of a short-barrelled shotgun.
Another case decided the meaning of the phrase, "the people":
United States v. Verdugo-Urquirdez, 110 S. Ct. 3039 (1990). This case involved the meaning of the term "the people" in the Fourth Amendment. The Court unanimously held that the term "the people" in the Second Amendment had the same meaning as in the Preamble to the Constitution and in the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, i.e., that "the people" means at least all citizens and legal aliens while in the United States. This case thus resolves any doubt that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right.
Another case:
U.S. Courts of Appeals Cases 3
U.S. v. Emerson, No. 99-10331 (Fifth Circuit, 1999) Emerson had been indicted for possessing a firearm while under a certain kind of restraining order, a violation of federal law [18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8)]. The trial court quashed the indictment on Second and Fifth Amendment grounds, finding that Emerson`s right to arms had been restricted by a mere "boilerplate state court divorce order" and "an obscure, highly technical statute with no mens rea (criminal intent) requirement."
The appeals court disagreed with those particular findings and stated that prohibitions such as affected Emerson are permissable when they are "limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions or restrictions for particular cases that are reasonable and not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms as historically understood in this country."
The court agreed with the trial court that the right to arms is an individually-held right, however. "All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans," the court stated. "We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain meaning of its text, namely that it protects individual Americans in their right to keep and bear arms....We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment.
As I said, you can probably find court cases where specific courts or justices rejected these conclusions.
Nonetheless, it is clear that your statement about the Supreme Court historical opinion is entirely incorrect.
May 20, 2006 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If TPMCafe is any indiciation people are more interested in being rude and smug."
And if you don't agree with that, you're an "anti-Semite."
Which appears to be one of the ideas Greenbaum has decided is the "most important" and should be emphasized by the Dems.
Not to worry, Lieberman is already there...
Meanwhile, the Dems will lose over Iran, as Josh Bolton said. Apparently opposing the Iran war is an "idea with very little chance of being useful in a real election."
Gotta agree with that - unfortunately.
May 20, 2006 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, sometimes things are a little more important than what effects you personally. Did stopping Hitler have an effect on daily life in America? How does helping the starving in the Sudan make things better in Georgia?... Sometimes getting the bad guys is just the right thing to do. You and I just have a different view of who the bad guys are. So you spend your time cheering on those who are after Bush, and I'll cheer for the guys out to stop terrorists. Isn't America wonderful? (that's a rhetorical question, I already know your answer).
May 20, 2006 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Dress code story"? Dude, I think you have me cofused with somebody else.
May 20, 2006 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is truly amazing about Greenbaum is just how inflated his view of himself is. He throws around insults a dime a dozen; anyone who replies in kind is rude,or smug, or immature. The ideas that agree with his are deep and require endless analysis and explanation; the others are dismissed out of hand. He is so above it all (and everyone) that it is nearly impossible to discuss a political point with him. Yet he incessantly whines about the left with no awareness about how his comments apply to his centrist views (in spades) . I believe Greenbaum is well-read; he just proves the adage about a little learning.
May 20, 2006 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep on cheering SFC.
Bush and his bloody fiasco of an unecessary war based on lies, has been a gift to and has empowered Islamic fundamentalism. Hurrah.
Iraq is now a base, a 'candy store' (since the US didn't guard the munitions depots) and a training ground for urban terrorists. Even Mubarak spoke out today against what the US has done under Bush and the neo-cons. Bush has put the bin Laden bunch on steroids.
I would not cheer an administration that has done nothing but harm to America. The bad news is the worst outcomes of this incompetence may be ahead.
May 20, 2006 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'll cheer for the guys out to stop terrorists."
So why are you cheering for Bush?
Just a rhetorical question - I already know your answer...
You want bin Laden?
Pay me one billion in advance, I'll have him dead or alive for you in ninety days.
Let's see Bush beat that.
May 20, 2006 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You didn't get it, did you?
Why am I not surprised?
May 20, 2006 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually what interests me about Greenbaum is that he seems perfectly reasonable when discussing social issues or the destructive actions of Bush and the neocons - unless it involves Israel.
When it comes to Israel - or anything related to the Middle East which concerns the Zionists - it's fanaticism time.
I suppose it would be reasonable to cut him some slack due to his obvious emotional bias - but then I remember I never get cut any slack, so that idea goes out the window.
Anarchists - left and right - aren't noted for taking rhetorical crap from anybody.
Actually, rereading your description of Greenbaum, a lot of it could conceivably be applied to my posts as well! The difference in MY "humble opinion" is that I try to produce a well-reasoned, logical argument based on what I believe to the facts on the ground.
The problem with the way I am perceived is that I'm coming from a philosophical and political background that is 180 degrees away from the usual left-right political spectrum and even further away from the average person's notions of reality, morality, social interaction, etc. It's not like I've invented all this myself, however. There IS a philosophical and spiritual lineage to everything I say and much of that lineage goes back a couple thousand years, coming from both the West and the East - as well as good old-fashioned Nineteenth Century American anarchism like Lysander Spooner and the like, as well as more modern individuals like William S. Burroughs, Dr. Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Noam Chomsky, Alan Harrington and many more.
What I've done is boil a lot of this down to a specific set of basic principles and aphorisms which pretty much enable me to quickly comprehend the motivations and purposes and methods of most of the situations and actors in the world today. I had plenty of time to do this while spending eight years in the Federal joint.
It just looks strange from the outside.
It's like Mr. Spock in some of those original Star Trek episodes where he appears to be acting like a renegade. In reality, there is always a logical reason and purpose for his actions - they just aren't understood by the humans around him.
May 20, 2006 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink