41 Comments

1. WillDoMathForFood:

I believe Smith is correct. Liberalism isn’t about trusting the little guy anymore, it’s about manipulating him.

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:14 pm 2. Lifeofthemind:

Everything old is new again. Reread Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Hame Again, especially the Credo at the end. We have dealt with fascists before, worse ones in fact, and faced them down. The Left has always had a soft spot for strong men, whether a Mussolini or a Castro. The interesting question to me is why did a small selection of dictators never make the grade and achieve popularity? Benito Mussolini before 1934 was popular in America. There are public monuments to fascist Italy in Chicago and New York. Hitler however was never seen as acceptable in America. Since WW-II the allegiances of the American left have become increasingly alienated from the nation it purports to lead or remodel. It has also become steadily more elitist in both its domestic organization and its external affinities.

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:16 pm 3. ledger:

Aside from the lofty rhetoric of “not meddling” in Iran’s affairs to the untrained eye it would appear that Obama is simply doing the easiest thing – nothing.

To add insult to injury upon the protesters being murdered in Iran, Obama‘s invitation to the Revolutionary Thugs to see the July 4 celebrations in the USA is still on.

http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/06/obama-says-invitations-to-iranian-diplomats-to-attend-4th-of-july-parties-still-on.html

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:36 pm 4. Posts about Barack Obama as of June 22, 2009 » The Daily Parr:

[...] 2009 in barack obama1630 Comments, last updated on Monday Jun 22 by JRobertTags: elesctions2008 The kiss of death – pajamasmedia.com 06/23/2009 The Associated Press reports that “Riot police cracked down anew on [...]

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:36 pm 5. Blindman:

There must be some notion that the US can actually have a chance of nudging the conversation in Iran in a way that would be positive for either the world or the US. Those holding to that notion are the same operatives that believe that in a crisis there is a wedge or lever that can push the outcome in a direction you desire.

They forget that just because you found your way to the poker table you might not win. They confuse the nature of the event. Game theory may sort of work in politics but I wouldn’t be to sure that going to the table and calling out the cheater is going to solve anything. You do however always have the option of standing on the sideline and loudly denouncing obvious cheaters especially if if there is any incontrovertible evidence that becomes apparent. Forget the idea of being an honest broker or dealer or player. At least be an honest witness. At least expose the charade to the light of day. And be sure that you are not wrong. (WMDs have to be found to be credible this time around.)

Jun 22, 2009 - 7:44 pm 6. BattleofthePyramids:

Interesting and insightful, Wretchard, as usual. I am interested in your opinion, however, as to how much of this tendency is due to a will to power, ie; do the Left think they can rule alongside Islam, or co-opt it, when it has done the hard work of creating the dictatorship they want to rule? Or, is it simply a matter of cowardice, of bowing to the strong to save their skins, a case of better dhimini than dead?

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:00 pm 7. cellec:

Help Me.

I’m trying to coin a phrase, something that sums up the stance of the Western Left, and so far the best I can come up with is:

“Cultrual Masochist”

Did anyone see “The DaVinci code”? Remember Paul Bettany’s character? The homicidal priest who walked around with a cilice strapped tightly to his thigh, to constantly cut him, to keep him in pain to remind him of his sins?

Someone who intentionally causes themselves pain (out of guilt, sexual arousal, etc.) is often termed a masochist. I believe that term applies to the Western Liberal mindset.

They tend to value regimes such as the Tyranny in Iran, the Lunocracy in North Korea, the Egocracy in Venezuela, as cilices strapped to the thigh of Western Civilization to remind us of our Original Sin: being born affluent Westerners.

Hence their cognitive dissonance with a situation such as Iran: Millions of people from a non-Western nation taking to the street, demanding their “rights” as the West conceives them (freedom of assembly, speech, religion, etc.). Millions of people essentially saying “The West is Right!”

And the guilt-ridden Western elites, afraid to forthrightly condemn the backward regime in Tehran, unwilling to lose the cilice of its’ existence.

Pathetic, and Pathological.

Just a thought…

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:07 pm 8. exhelodrvr:

Faith in democracy? I question if the “liberals” ever had that. In love with socialism, in many cases, communism. Not that big a jump fro there to fascism.

And who is closer to socialism/communism/fascism? Israel, or the Islamic nations? The America of Pres Bush, or Europe? ANy more questions on why they lean the way they do?

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:14 pm 9. Blindman:

#7

Post modern neo-pagan relativists with a twist.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:18 pm 10. Alexis:

wretchard:

This YouTube video has been flagged. One must sign in with a Google account in order to see it.

Call me paranoid if you like, but I’m getting increasingly suspicious about how Google is keeping track of people and its deals with China. If Google would betray dissidents in China, how can Google be trusted in Iran?

Whether Google claims to be taking sides or not, it is effectively taking sides with the censors. The very example of video you link shows very clearly how the Iranian government can manipulate the rules of internet providers to its own advantage.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:27 pm 11. ambisinistral:

“Obama has been laudably trying to refrain from counterproductive slips of the tongue.”

If your approach to diplomacy is trying to avoid making gaffes then you’re never going to be confused with Otto Von Bismark. The more I watch Obama’s foreign policy moves, the more I think he is in way over his head and is terrified of the open mike.

I think he had set up some sort of strategy where he intended on leaning on Israel, presuming he would gain credibility in the Arab world as a result (and he probably would have). From there he could have pitched Israel under the bus as the cost of improving relationships with the arab world.

Aside from the wisdom of such a position, the failure of it is that it requires the other state actors to play there role. Tehran has not. Eschewing his touchy-feely flapdoodle, they’re busting heads in the streets and not even bothering to give lip service to hope and change.

We’ve seen three crisis in his day. The first, pre-election, was the Georgia situation where he couldn’t even arrive at the boilerplate of deploring aggression. Instead he fumbled around for a day; then, forgetting Russia’s veto, he wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug of the Security Council. We’ll soon learn if North Korea blowing off nuclear bombs and flinging missiles towards Hawaii is on his radar or not.

At present we see him, dead protesters be damned, unable to give up his 4th of July hotdog diplomacy and worrying about committing gaffes.

The man is lead footed in a crisis.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:28 pm 12. cellec:

Christ, that’s supposed to be “Cultural Masochist”. And I had a whole ten minutes to edit the darned post! Cheers.

Jun 22, 2009 - 8:36 pm 13. Robohobo:

LOTM @ 2: “Hitler however was never seen as acceptable in America.”

Not so. My mother who was a Leftist radical all her life told me that many were sympathetic to the National Socialists until they were apprised of the evil they were doing. There was a period in the ’30’s where the Nazis were not exactly mainstream but they were admired. In fact, the National Socialists were pretty strong for a time.

From a conversation with some Israeli friends last summer. The subject was around Georgia and there was an Armenian, a Georgian, a Russian and others from the old Soviet bloc. I forget the exact context but the statement was made that just maybe some people want to follow the ’strongman’ type. Not that The Pantywaist pResident is one but there are others who are – Putin, the Mullahs, Ahmadinnerjacket, etc. I think you get the idea. When I asked why, they did agree that most people did not understand or want to do the hard work demanded by citizens of a Democratic Republic such as the old US. It makes sense. The Left has softened up and made lazy those who it holds dominion of. Once they are ’softened’ then it is easy to see them following the ’strongman’ who will tell them what is good for them. That is the situation we find ourselves in these days. So the ’soft’ admire the ’strong’ and will follow because it easier and there are rewards of the largess of the masters.

Where we find ourselves now is that we are too far gone because we appointed a ’soft’ one to lead us. The rest of the world sees that and laughs. The strongmen see that what they thought of us was true. We have become the weak horse. The only way to regain that lost stature will be long, violent and bloody.

cellec = Cultural Masochist

Not bad.

Jun 22, 2009 - 9:21 pm 14. fred:

It is awesome to contemplate the lunacy of these young Leftist “intellectuals” and activists. How did such hateful creatures come into being? I think they came into being when the followers of Gramsci and Alinsky destroyed the pillars of society: the family and religion (and by religion I mean in the broadest sense possible, encompassing both Biblical and humanistic values, because they often intersect). So many of these people come from broken families or merely single parent households from the get-go. Absent a loving and faithful father, and also an anchoring in a universe with a loving Father, these children of post-modern nihilism have a profound spiritual and psychological gap in their lives. Then, in school the crucial structuring myths of our Western Civilization that helped to impart the values that sustain family and community are torn down and stomped on systematically.

The embrace of collectivism took root in Europe sooner than it happened here. But it is happening here now, due to the cross-fertilization with European academia and also the very thorough demoralization of the society that Yuri Bezmenov describes.

Now, this coterie of nihilistic worshipers of power are gleefully at work trying to destroy what we cherish. Dare I say that we must stop them by all and any means necessary? They are at war with us and it gives them pleasure to be tearing it all down. Do we look on in horrified silence? Or do we dare to take increasingly bold steps to put a stop to it, even if we have to come to violence with these people? We cannot – we must not – stand on the sidelines and watch it all burn down in stupefied silence. We must try to stop this by political means. Failing that, then we may have to join together and pick up the rifle to defend liberty and civilization.

The alternative is unthinkable to me.

Jun 22, 2009 - 9:32 pm 15. trangbang68:

Did the left embrace Hitler and the Nazis? One did, Margaret Sanger.

Jun 22, 2009 - 9:40 pm 16. wretchard:

The video is flagged because it is very graphic. I can’t unflag it. But the long and the short of the video is that is shows a makeshift aid station of demonstrators.

Jun 22, 2009 - 9:58 pm 17. Andy from San Jose:

If it’s all about the Strong Horse then our liberal friends will no doubt love Netanyahu when he surprises us all and takes out the Iranian centrifuges. Right?

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:14 pm 18. fred:

I don’t think it’s all about the Strong Horse. It has to be a Strong Horse who promises to be a Destroyer of The Hated Western Civilization.

How else to account for the young Left elitists’ contempt for Christianity and Judaism, as well as conventional morality? Currently, one of their strategies to try to divide us conservatives and pick us off is to stoke the flames of an alleged rift between social conservatives and libertarian conservatives who supposedly hate religion.

There is a powerful stridency at the core of these people. They love the Superman who will burn away the Crucified One and set up something more appealing in his stead.

Jun 22, 2009 - 10:21 pm 19. blogstrop:

There have always been forces in the world (at least during most of the last 150 years) who would have a go at the USA or decry its nature. There have been too many in this world who decried colonialism (the logical outcome of 18th Century maritime Europe) while ignoring the organisation and skills passed on to many African, Asian and even some South American countries. They paved the way for communism to take over and create the horror that masquerades as various peoples’ republics, complete with child soldiers, black-on-black genocides, ruination of farming and productivity, shining paths that do not shine.
If the intrusion of western culture is the kiss of death, then the indigenous or laissez faire alternative is the full, violent rape and disfigurement, with death as the inevitable dessert.

Jun 23, 2009 - 12:38 am 20. Barry Meislin:

In the most august circles, hatred of Israel absolves one of all other (so-called?) sins.

(Though for Israel, you can, at the end of the day, substitute the USA.)

And hatred of Israel, etc., also has proven to be excellent politics in the most elevated progressive, humanist (and other) circles.

The Mullahcracy is the Left’s (allied with the more Godly?) Great White Hope to destroy Israel (or at least, to put it in its place?)…and the liberal, capitalist West, generally.

Their ace in the hole (Lord, how long have we waited for this day….)

Hence, the Mullahcracy must be supported to the hilt.

To the hilt. (Until, perhaps, it becomes a wee bit too uncomfortable to do so…. But are you a betting man?)

And what, really, is the death of a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand Iranians—and/or the virtual enslavement of millions of them, hostages to a totalitarian death cult—when weighed against the potential destruction of the Zionist Entity?

A pittance. There is no contest. Remember, we’re talking about the most elevated progressive, humanist (and other) circles.

And the Mullahcracy is almost, almost there. The plutonium is about to be enriched. Those missiles are in place. The nuclear sites have been scattered underground in a multitude of different locations, and within civilian populations (not a bad trick, eh? having worked so well for Hezbullah and Hamas).

All to be stymied by a few million (or more) enemies of God?

Almost, almost there. Inshallah….

Jun 23, 2009 - 12:43 am 21. dtmack:

Many of the problems we face in this country can be attributed to a simple fact: we have been living in an unprecedented era of prosperity, and relative peace, and most people in this country think of this as the natural state of affairs, something that just happens.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of history knows this is a ridiculous notion, and everyone else is getting ready to learn this lesson big time.

The leftists look to Western Europe as their model (although many would think they were too conservative), but that model is changing dramatically, and will be unrecognizable within the next decade, and probably sooner, as the full impact of our shared economic mistakes becomes apparent. I don’t know if we’ll like what we see, but I’m convinced we’re going to see it.

We’ve never seen how affluent societies deal with a semi-permanent reduction of the standard of living, or what allegience the people will give their government when it runs out of goodies to distribute. But we will.

How many rabid Obama supporters, greens, etc. will hold to their beliefs when they graduate from college and find there is no one to employ them, at least to the standard that they have a “right” to expect?

The next several years will represent a golden opportunity to rid the US of the cancer that is permeating our system. If the cards are played correctly, and we on the other side can agree to some basic principles, and have a political organization to push those, we can set the left back a couple of decades.

When the music stops the left will be without a chair, and that is the time to strike.

Jun 23, 2009 - 2:00 am 22. Reformed Trombonist:

> I’m trying to coin a phrase, something that sums up the stance of the Western Left, and so far the best I can come up with is:

> “Cultrual Masochist”

That’s pretty good. My take goes a little further. I think it was Joe Sobran who coined this phrase: “Behind every double standard lurks an unacknowledged single standard.” It is an apparent double standard that liberals condemn fundamentalist Christians in America for, among other things, their view of women and gays — and then, under the banner of multi-culturalism, tolerate the murderous inclinations of radical Islam and, ironically, their implacable hatred of women and gays. But there is an unacknowledged single standard: hatred of the Christian God. Western liberals and Islamic extremists are both on the same team, though I doubt they’re aware of it. That’s the only view that makes any sense. Liberals “love” America but only if they get to “change” it, while the rest of us believe that the kind of change they’re talking about will ruin America once and for all.

And it won’t do any good to argue with them. They’re not concerned that their changes may ruin America. They’re hoping their changes will ruin America — at least, the America they despise, the one with a Constitution, property rights, a strong military, gun ownership, unequal wealth distribution, and, most damning of all, churches. That is, everything that makes America different and special. They’ll remake it in their image, or it will come down.

The battle in the political sphere between liberals and conservatives is identical to the one that’s been fought in the church for the past hundred years or so, but just in a different arena. I’ve watched liberals come into a church and split it wide open on this or that cause of the day. They are warned repeatedly that the split will ruin the church, but that only encourages them — take over a church, or ruin it, it’s all the same to them. When the church is finally split and let in ruins, the liberals blithely move on, looking for other churches to ruin, while the conservatives forlornly deal with the destruction around them.

Jun 23, 2009 - 4:29 am 23. jjmurphy:

“…Obama’s quiet cannot be explained by the urge to neutral. Obama has no qualms about taking explicit sides, when he wants to.”

I think that quote hits it square on. Maybe I am becoming a conspiracy nut, but it seems Obama has no problem endorsing anything to do with government power, whether in Iran or here at home. He then is quiet about or against anything that has a whiff or freedom and individualism.

A side note on liberals and feminists. It is my belief that if islam ever gets a real toe hold in the USA the feminists and Hollywood “elite” will be the first to done the burkas and proclaim them liberating. I also believe liberals, like teenagers crave control while screaming against it.

Jun 23, 2009 - 4:34 am 24. jjmurphy:

ugh – “done the burkas” should be “don the burkas”.

Jun 23, 2009 - 5:06 am 25. Mark:

Cellec re. cultural masochism:

Perhaps two anthropological mechanisms are at work:

The first is mimetic desire, the attraction to the person/group that possesses what you want. The envy is not of the thing desired but of the very desire of the model person envied. Liberals (and this is true of all groups)cannot admit to themselves that they lack authenticity, which they think that the ‘other’ possesses, a la Foucault. But they desire authenticity, having long ago discarded God, and subscribing willingly as murderers of God (Nietzsche–we have killed Him! God is Dead!) We were murderers from the beginning. Nietzsche, ever the clear thinker, knows that God did not ‘die.’ We modern liberals killed him and willingly so.

The second is scapegoating, blaming the one for the group envy and self-hatred. A group or even civilization reaches a point of crisis as the result of external threat or internal contradictions. A scapegoat is identified, consciously or unconsciously. Israel, Bush, conservatives. But watch out. Conservatives will do the same thing.

Just parroting Girard here, and probably badly.

Jun 23, 2009 - 5:09 am 26. RWE:

Oh, I think the fascination with dictators is because the Left can never win with its views if it has to put them out there and let them be chosen. Even the merely competent will reject their ideas and the really successful will guffaw. That leaves them with an army of the soldiers rejected by F Troop.

So, they say “If only we could FORCE people to buy electric cars, eat vegetarian, dispense free health care and education, don’t heat and cool their homes comfortably, put wheelchair ramps everywhere, use public transit, don’t go to private school, give up their guns, etc.”

Their love for the totalitarian is based on simple necessity. Without Big Brother they lose, every time.

Jun 23, 2009 - 5:54 am 27. David W. Lincoln:

The arts have lessons for us, just like sports.

I conclude that the relationship between the Muslims with blood on their hands, and those whose politics are left of centre; the relationship is the same between Sauron and Saruman.

Sauron is calling the shots, and we see the driving force once again being, “Better Red than Dead”, albeit in different guise.

Jun 23, 2009 - 6:15 am 28. Jack Okie:

I have a friend who is personally very nice and kind-hearted – fostering animals, being very accommodating when her renters (she owns a couple of rental properties) have money problems, etc. Her mom is also very nice but somewhat detached: She didn’t understand why her grandson objected to Obamacare, since it would be “free”. My friend was 100% for Obama because she liked his words. When I tried to tell her about Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground and the planned bombing at Ft. Dix, her reply was “well, some people’s terrorists are another’s freedom fighters”.

But all that’s just background. What I have come to see is that my friend and most leftists I talk to or read share the same fundamental trait: They defer judgment to other, more “credentialed” people than themselves. She is convinced that AGW is a critical problem, that polar bears are indeed endangered – the whole nine yards, because she places her trust in the crowd who is pushing that stuff rather than do her own research and analysis. And it struck me that that may truly be the real divide between us and them: We trust our own judgment, and are willing (indeed feel compelled) to research and study for ourselves rather than taking someone else’ word for it. My friend, and I believe most leftists, do not feel comfortable, or weren’t taught how, or are just too lazy (certainly don’t seem to feel a moral imperative) to check things out for themselves.

Jun 23, 2009 - 6:30 am 29. Mongoose:

LotM: They have been anti-American elitists since FDR.

They are just more out in the open now. That, and media has become harder to control.

It is not a matter of progressive alienation. It is a matter of progressive consolidation of power.

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:04 am 30. Mongoose:

Cellec: Try “Traitor”.

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:05 am 31. Bohemond:

26 RWE: Well said. Amen.

_____________

In fact, much of the American Left, especially the CPUSA and SWP, enthusiastically supported Hitler (on Moscow’s orders) during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact 1939-41, and fiercely opposed any form of assistance to Poland, France or Britain.

Their vocal opposition to Hitler and Mussolini over the Spanish Civil War did an about-face on a dime. Amazing, really.

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:17 am 32. Typos_R_Us:

“I believe Smith is correct. Liberalism isn’t about trusting the little guy anymore, it’s about manipulating him.”

Anymore? Socialism (liberals, progressives, Communists, fascists, what ever you want to call them) has ALWAYS been a tool to control the masses and open the way to power for a despot. Always will be.
Some of us understand that, others don’t. The named coined for those that don’t is “useful fools”.
Useful fool is a very hazardous political position. Once the despot has seized power, the fool is no longer useful. The fool actually becomes a danger, since the newly minted tyrant has absolutely no intention of implementing the changes that the Mob listened to him promise. So they are the first put against the wall, to prevent their use by other wanna-be despots.
So Iran shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that isn’t a useful fool. After all, wasn’t it the students that brought down the Shah in ‘79? That generation of useful fools was exterminated. The more practicle students understood all along it was about power, with hte only change being who held it. Now it is they who hold power and they know what to do with this generation of useful fools.
The positive aspect of all this is that the delusion of soft power and non-violent revolution hopefully is done. It was never more then a re-write of history anyway.
Stray random thought; Do you suppose Chavez has a business card that say “Have murderous thugs. Will travel.”

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:52 am 33. gclarke:

Leftists from Rousseau to Robespierre to Marat to Karl Marx to Lenin-Stalin-Hitler-Mao-Kim Jung Il, Mussolini, Tojo, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Ming the Merciless, Castro, Hussein of Iraq, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and so many others have been called leftist because they love strong government and they all worked to promote it. Please just say “He is a leftist. He loves strong government, tyranny, a strong Gestapo, torture chambers, and repression because that is what leftism is.” Please don’t confuse leftism, the neo-Marxists and the Islam apologists with the traditional liberalism of Jefferson, Washington and Adams, Adam Smith, Voltaire, J. S. Mill, von Mises, Hayek, etc., as was defined by Wm F. Buckley in the pages of National Review, with modern neo-Marxist leftism. The two have nothing to do with each other.

So if a modern Leftist sympathizes like Obama with Khoumeini and Ahmadinejad concerning what they have to do like Bull Connor with their batons and fire hoses to retain their phony “sovereignty.” that illicitly grew out of the barrel of a gun, don’t be surprised. But you should join us liberals (of the traditional, conservative type) on the right who condemn leftists everywhere, always and forever. Freedom Now, Freedom Always and Freedom Forever.

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:57 am 34. Typos_R_Us:

“At least expose the charade to the light of day. And be sure that you are not wrong. (WMDs have to be found to be credible this time around.)”

They were found last time around. The left just closed their eyes and refused to see. I could post an URL to some of the many cases of WMD that were found, or to the many eyewitnesses that helped relocate WMD but if you won’t open your eyes, it would be a waste of my time.
Besides, the Media refused to publish any stories about WMD being located because they sae it as supporting the Bush administration. Since the Bush administration is gone, it will be up to the historians to decide. They will look at the evidence and say that there WAS WMD in Iraq up until February 2003. They will say that because that is what the evidence says. The evidence the left refuses to open their eyes and see.

Jun 23, 2009 - 8:16 am 35. LarryD:

What I have come to see is that my friend and most leftists I talk to or read share the same fundamental trait: They defer judgment to other, more “credentialed” people than themselves.

Narcissists are authortarian
“Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian. In other words, they are suck-ups. They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures. In their hearts, they know they can’t think well, have no judgment about what matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures –”

…

“Narcissists work for a goal, too, but it’s a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation. Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists don’t understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they think it’s all arbitrary, it’s all appearances, it’s all who you know. So they try to attach themselves to people who already have what they want, meanwhile making a great show of working hard. Narcissists can put in a shocking amount of time to very little effect. This is partly because they have so little empathy that they don’t know why some work is valued more highly than other work, why some people’s opinions carry more weight than others’.”

Jun 23, 2009 - 8:49 am 36. whiskey:

Obama is a Muslim, so of course he’s on the side of Nutjob.

That being said, it’s not Gramscian conspiracies, or Alinsky acolytes, who have somehow magically corrupted a “pure” democracy, or nation, or set of nations. Heck the whole West is like this, something else must be going on.

Which it is — women voters. Women, far more than men, LOVE a Big Man/Strong Man. A Castro, a Chavez, a Nutjob, an Obama. Single Women voted Obama 70-29. Gallup has a new white paper out with the Gender Gap being high, permanent, and a feature of women 18-80.

Men face risks with Big Men. A risk, bluntly, that the Big Man will be more a threat to opportunity, particularly among women, than he offers in patronage. This is why male-oriented Big Men like Pinochet, or Franco, are careful to restrict women’s roles and offer male patronage, to garner support. A man like Castro, or Obama, offers a cult of personality as a “Royal” personage, with often inherited rule passing through the family, and a leveling of most men and exaltation of women, with a few carefully selected “aristocracy” members elevated into the Royal Court. Call this the Royal Model.

Women are just hard-wired to desire and admire men with more power than themselves. It’s why Obama, posing and prancing as the Global First Rockstar, has women and hte female media (but I repeat myself) eating out of his hand. It’s why his Stimulus bill deliberately excludes male employment and is heavy on female employment in government. It’s why the more he prances around like a King of Cool, the more women love him. And men begin to hate him.

The Left is thoroughly feminized, look who calls the shots on campus, on think tanks, in the media. Look at the basis of consumerist society: women. Heck watch a half hour of TV, randomly, in Prime Time on broadcast TV, you’ll see all the commercials appealing to women.

The shift in Preference from an LBJ “Great Society” and male-oriented “stuff” ala physical works, programs to boost middle class numbers, etc. to feel-good utopianism and moral status building is the shift in power and control from a male-oriented society to a female oriented one. The West is mostly run by it’s women, and women being what they are, love powerful, controlling, dominant men. They prefer the violent, exciting, no-compromises, uber-macho, dangerous men like Castro, Chavez, Nutjob, over boring movements proclaiming Democracy.

Ironically, the non-Western women who live in these violent places find them intolerable, given the Big Man royal autocracy that makes them essentially “the Lives of Others” (ala the German film) plaything of whatever powerful man wants them. Or “the Stoning of Soraya M” which is the other side of the same coin of power and dominance.

Nevertheless, Women of the West have such comfortable, settled, “boring” lives that they can afford the pursuit of utopianism and Big Man excitement.

Pretty much all politics in the West flows from the Gender Gap and the unprecedented wealth, power, safety, and security that accrued to people in the West post 1945 and that people cannot handle.

Jun 23, 2009 - 12:48 pm 37. Mad Fiddler:

There are brain-skewering lessons to be learned in examining the establishment of the Guyana-based Jonestown – i.e., the People’s Temple Agricultural Mission– the emigration of the bulk of the California membership, the eventual revelations of Jones’ ruthless enslavement of his followers, and the final confrontation between Congressional delegation (headed by Representative Leo Ryan) and the Temple that led to the mass suicide of Jones and his followers in 1978.

My sense is that many of the world’s great bloodlettings seem to have occurred as a result of vast populations willfully giving their souls to a leadership that assured them that they were thus absolved of any sin. Although it’s not the initial rationale, they believe that giving their support to their exalted leaders legitimizes any act whatsoever the leaders do to consolidate and retain and exercise power in their name.

Look at this in the context of some of the monumental moral decisions presently contending in our culture. Abortion, for instance – however much compassion you feel for a scared unmarried pregnant teenager, however much you may despise the horrific alternatives of barbaric back-alley coat-hanger abortions, or clandestine butcheries done by drunken incompetents, of lives blighted from the disdain and shunning of smug self-righteous “proper” folk, things are still what they are. Calling a child in the womb “an undifferentiated bit of flesh” does not make it so.

AND YET, we have a huge population of people who have convinced themselves that if they really really really want something enough, the universe is obliged somehow to yield to their desire. If they can find a way to change the definition of words, or use different words to describe a thing in a way that is more to their liking, then reality has been changed by substituting those words for the former words.

This is magical thinking at its worst. It is wishful thinking replacing wholesale any rationale discourse.

These things comprise the conspicuous danger of ANY personality cult that idolizes and advances a single human, especially when that person’s ideology is murky, generic, vague, or worse HIDDEN and deliberately un-specified. Even if the person so celebrated were an actual saint, unsordid in every motive, untainted by any selfish aim, of only the highest morality and filled with compassion and love, such a person can not reside in a hermetically-sealed bubble of wholesomeness. There are always monsters about looking for opportunities to use and manipulate a well-intentioned rube to advance an agenda of their own.

Of course, I don’t mean any disrespect for any incumbent pResident. This description obviously couldn’t possibly apply to him and his followers…

Jun 23, 2009 - 12:49 pm 38. Roderick Reilly:

Darn that Whiskey, with his obsession about “women,” especially western women. Where does he get these ideas about the power and influence of man-weakening women?

It couldn’t possibly be from sources like this:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/659dkrod.asp

Nah. I don’t think so.

Jun 23, 2009 - 4:27 pm 39. fred:

David Solway has an article in today’s frontpagemag.com, “Robespierre & Co.” which I highly recommend to all of you, especially “whiskey.” By the way, I don’t doubt that some of the dynamics in “whiskey’s” view of things do not occur, but I think the feminists were first Marxized. I remain essentially eclectic and willing to look at many angles to this phenomenon, and I resist the temptations of reductionism.

http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35303

Jun 23, 2009 - 7:08 pm 40. Robohobo:

Roderick Reilly @ 38: “No Country for Burly Men – How feminist groups skewed the Obama stimulus plan towards women’s jobs.”

Pretty much tells it. Roderick – Many times I read whiskey’s posts and tell myself it is over the top but THEN!!!!! I see the evidence. Go look for a job in this market and you will find out that it is skewed to the soft skills not hard ones. Manufacturing, construction and science are damn near dead in this country.

Whatever is in store for this country, The 0bamanation has sold out the Iranians. His taking credit for the protests is just sickening. It makes me ashamed for this country.

Jun 23, 2009 - 8:39 pm 41. WillDoMathForFood:

Typos @ 32: I would respectfully disagree – though I am taking a long view here. “Classical” liberalism – the philosophy that grew out of the Enlightenment and led to the American Revolution – was all about trusting the little guy. The little guy was deemed smart enough to manage his own economic affairs in a free enterprise economic system, he was smart enough to decide when his country was under threat and to defend himself in his state militias, and he he was smart enough to make his own decisions about who to vote for to represent him in his various representative legislatures. Modern Liberalism holds to none of these classical positions. It’s about talking the little guy into believing that he is repressed by the Big Guys so he’ll vote for opportunistic thugs who will then enact punitive and self-serving measures against them. I think you and I would probably agree on the modern implementation of Liberal thought (such as it is).

Jun 23, 2009 - 9:27 pm

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