From Shrinkwrapped:
[…]The problem for Liberalism is that by living as if their philosophy was not only better, but was true, we have effectively made international relations much more risky and made international disaster much more likely.
[…]
We cannot protect the people of Darfur. We must fight the members of one of our two political parties, along with a well funded media, academic, and legal elite, in order to most effectively protect ourselves. And the ever-present risk is that one attack of sufficient magnitude, if large enough to be considered a great victory by our enemies, would lead inexorably to a catastrophic response which would effectively destroy their people.
The very impulses and desires that are most admirable in Liberalism have inadvertently led to a situation where war has become extraordinarily difficult to wage in a limited manner, where the removal of the threat of limited war has ratcheted up the risks and stakes in any confrontation, and the least desired outcome, of catastrophic destruction, has become more likely when pressed to our limits. Dangerous, and sad times, indeed.
Notes Terry Hastings via email:
[…] emasculating our covert ops agencies like the CIA/NSA while also insisting that overt use of force be circumscribed by utopian rules, we have seriously compromised our ability to deal with harsh realities in the real world. The paradox being that liberalism ultimately forces us into a position of waging conventional unlimited war that leads to total anihilation of the enemy when lesser measures may have worked if the liberals would only allow it.
Well, that’s one way to look at it. Of course, the Cliffs Notes version would go something like this: “If you’re going to kill people, at least have the courtesy to do it to their faces, and then to apologize immediately afterward. Oh. And best to have Dr Phil at the ready. Because we need to learn to handle the guilt and grief of a thousand smart Dresdens that our idealism has forced us—reluctantly—into.”
So we’re back to where we started, and must act on the dictates of our national conscience as illuminated by the electorate.
TW: This is what comes of being too concerned with offense at the expense of harm.
Well, Andrew Jackson was quite the good liberal, wasn’t he? But seriously, the problem is defined more by progressivism and transnationalism more than liberalism. Heck, I think I’m a liberal, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to condemn my culture or abdicate the right of self defense. The usurpation of the term liberal by illiberal utopian statists is just the latest abuse of language that has become drearily commonplace.
Sorry, one too many mores. Can’t preview read my freakin’ mind? Or is Google working on that for China now?
If only Kurt Vonnegut hadn’t written Slaughterhouse-Five and unveiled the horrors of Dresden…
Yeah, Agi. Nobody had ever even heard of Dresden before that.
When one refuses to consider or to take lesser measures, then ‘Dresdens’ are inevitable.
Or is that the whole point of the refusal?
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
— R. A. Lafferty
Turing = nuclear, as in I kid you not, it’s nuclear!
There was something of a “Dresden” a few years back. Involved airplanes and a couple of tall buildings. It was in all the papers.