| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"dpr" |
| Date: |
21 Sep 2003 03:42:30 PM |
| Object: |
HOWARD DEAN, MORAL IDIOT |
http://www.politicsus.com/PoliticsUS%20Pascoe.htm
HOWARD DEAN, MORAL IDIOT
By Bill Pascoe
Howard Dean, the still surging former Governor of Vermont, candidly
acknowledges that "I do have a mouth on me -- that is, I generally say what
I think, so I get in trouble," and nowhere has this been more evident than
in the simmering controversy over his recent comments regarding U.S. support
for the state of Israel. But no matter how hard he tries to shrug off the
growing controversies that result from his poorly-worded statements, the
real problem for Dean isn't simply that he often times fails to choose
wisely in his selection of language; it's that no matter what his choice of
words, the underlying message itself reveals a potentially crippling failure
to understand some rather basic axioms of long-standing U.S. foreign and
national security policy -- and that, unfortunately for Dean, plays to one
of his critics' central arguments against him: that as a former Governor of
a small state, he doesn't have the foreign policy/national security
expertise necessary to serve as Commander in Chief in time of war. But
perhaps even more importantly, his recent statements indicate a world view
that can only be described properly as morally idiotic.
Consider: The current controversy began last week, when, before the
Democratic debate in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Democratic activist asked Dean
his views on the Middle East. "I don't believe stopping the terror has to be
a prerequisite for talking, you always talk," Dean answered. "I don't find
it convenient to blame people. Nobody should have violence, ever. But they
do, and it's not our place to take sides." He went on to say that "We all
know that enormous numbers of the settlements are going to have to come
out."
Joe Lieberman -- his own campaign struggling to gain traction -- saw Dean's
comments in news reports, and showed up at Tuesday evening's Baltimore
Democratic debate loaded for bear. Following a Dean response to a question
asking him to clarify his remarks, Lieberman jumped: "Let me say to Governor
Dean, he has said he wouldn't take sides, but then he has said Israel ought
to get out of the West Bank and an enormous number of their settlements
ought to be broken down. That's up to the parties in their negotiations, not
for us to tell them." Lieberman continued, "I will simply say that Howard
Dean's statements break a 50-year record in which presidents, Republican and
Democrats, members of Congress of both parties have supported our
relationship with Israel based on shared values and common strategic
interests."
Lieberman wasn't the only supporter of Israel to blast Dean for his original
remarks. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League,
ripped Dean thusly: "For this serious person -- and he is a serious
person -- to tell Americans we shouldn't 'take sides' is either ignorant or
naive."
Dean, scrambling to put the issue behind him, appeared yesterday on CNN's
"Wolf Blitzer Reports" for an interview, wherein he tried to dismiss the
matter as nothing more than a poor choice of words: referring to his
comments about the need for the U.S. to take what he called an "evenhanded"
approach, he averred, "I've since learned that is a very sensitive word to
use in certain communities, so perhaps I could have used a different
euphemism." But almost immediately thereafter, he compounded his latest bout
of foot-in-mouth disease by referring to the Hamas terrorists who target
innocent civilians as "soldiers in the war," seemingly implying again that
they are merely combatants, no better or worse than the Israeli soldiers who
try to defend innocent life.
And this is the crux of the problem for Dean: no matter how he chooses to
express himself, what he is expressing is wrong, on several counts.
To begin, the civilized world does not recognize those who commit acts of
terrorism against innocent civilians as "soldiers in the war" -- the
civilized world recognizes them as "terrorists." There is a huge difference,
and Dean should be embarrassed for not knowing it. "Soldiers" are afforded
the full protections of the Geneva Convention; "terrorists" are not -- those
who deliberately target innocent civilians for the purposes of inspiring
terror are not deserving of such protections. Rather, they are deserving of
being hunted down and incapacitated themselves, preferably on the business
end of a Bowie knife.
For instance, Nelson Mandela -- hero of the International Left for three
decades for his role in leading the African National Congress's opposition
to the hated apartheid regime of South Africa -- was never considered a
political prisoner, even by Amnesty International. Why? Because he wasn't
sentenced to life in prison for opposing apartheid; he was sentenced to life
in prison for bombing and murdering innocent civilians. If even Amnesty
International can understand the difference between "soldiers" and
"terrorists," shouldn't Howard Dean?
But it's not just Dean's misunderstanding of this crucial difference that's
troubling; more so are his stated views on violence itself. "Nobody should
have violence, ever," he says. What poppycock. Should there not have been
violence inflicted by U.S. forces against the Taliban, for harboring the al
Queda terrorists who helped bring down the Twin Towers and murder nearly
3,000 innocent civilians? Against Nazi Germany? Against the Japanese who
inflicted death and mayhem at Pearl Harbor?
Dean's statement on violence is truly revealing, and truly troubling: he
simply doesn't understand the moral aspects of the use of force in the
international realm -- or, apparently, in the personal realm, either. Dean
would have us believe that the off-duty police offer who pulls his gun on an
armed robber at the 7-11 at 2 AM is no different from the armed robber who
pulls his gun on the innocent 7-11 clerk -- because after all, they're both
just guys who like to pull guns on people. To put it another way, Dean would
have us believe that the Boy Scout who pushes a little old lady out of the
way of an oncoming bus is no different from the psycho who pushes a little
old lady into the path of an oncoming bus -- because both are, at heart,
just guys who like to push around little old ladies.
The fact of the matter, of course, is that the off-duty cop and the Boy
Scout ARE morally superior -- yes, they are using force ("violence," in
Dean's terminology), but they are doing so for moral purposes -- and only a
nitwit cannot see that.
So the real problem for Dean, then, isn't simply that his stated views on
the Middle East reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of U.S. policy
and strategic imperatives in a critical region of the world; no, the real
problem for Dean is that his stated views reveal him to be a moral idiot.
As our nation commemorates today the nearly 3,000 fellow Americans who
perished at the hands of terrorists committed to the deaths of innocent
civilians and sworn to the violent destruction of America, it would be wise
for Governor Dean to reflect on whether or not he really believes "nobody
should have violence, ever." Because I'm betting huge majorities of the
American population would strongly disagree with him.
--
Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.
.
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| User: "Sean" |
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| Title: Re: HOWARD DEAN, MORAL IDIOT |
21 Sep 2003 04:48:35 PM |
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"dpr" <%%%**&&@dems.com> wrote in
news:vms2t62voqc30b@corp.supernews.com:
To begin, the civilized world does not recognize those who commit acts
of terrorism against innocent civilians as "soldiers in the war" --
the civilized world recognizes them as "terrorists." There is a huge
difference, and Dean should be embarrassed for not knowing it.
"Soldiers" are afforded the full protections of the Geneva Convention;
"terrorists" are not -- those who deliberately target innocent
civilians for the purposes of inspiring terror are not deserving of
such protections. Rather, they are deserving of being hunted down and
incapacitated themselves, preferably on the business end of a Bowie
knife.
Too bad the author took the quote out of context to make it appear that
Dean is somehow "soft" on terrorism when he was in fact defending Israel's
policy of targetted killings of Hamas members. How intellectually
dishonest - but we have come to expect that from the lying right wing.
Here's the full quote in context:
Asked if he would oppose the Israeli policy of selectively killing leaders
of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, Dean said, "I think no one
likes to see violence of any kind."
But he also said that "there is a war going on in the Middle East, and
members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me
that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/10/elec04.prez.dean.mideast/index.ht
ml
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