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Conservative film critic John Nolte has capped off his series on the “Top 25 Left-Wing films” with Oliver Stone’s JFK. In the preamble, explaining why he considers it a “liberal” film, Nolte writes: “Simply put, the Left cannot psychologically or emotionally reconcile their undying hatred of the Vietnam War with their undying love for the same president who escalated our involvement in that war.”

Well, I’m sure Nolte would consider me part of the “Left”, and I don’t believe in any of those conspiracy theories. In any event, however, whether Nolte’s claims are true or false is irrelevant for my purposes. What I want to discuss is the Republicans‘ peculiar attitude towards President Kennedy. For they too seem to have paradoxical feelings towards him. As in, for example, the conservative wiki Conservapedia’s analysis of him as “basically a conservative”.

Republicans have come lately to believe that his tax-cuts were the precursor to President Reagan’s supply-side, Laffer curve-based tax cutting program. (That Kennedy was in fact following the advice of Keynesian economics is strangely forgotten.)

They also seem to admire Kennedy for having a hawkish approach to foreign policy–and there is clearly some truth to this. After all, he had been a military man, and no doubt he certainly found himself in quite a few showdowns with Khrushchev. His anti-communism is hailed by the Republican party of today.

The Republican admiration for Kennedy isn’t complete, of course. There are still times when they find it useful to portray Kennedy as just another Liberal president, to be reviled like Woodrow Wilson and FDR. In what is perhaps the seminal work of the Tea-Party canon, Liberal Fascism, you can really see author Jonah Goldberg wrestling with this dilemma.

Goldberg doesn’t like a lot of Kennedy’s behavior in office, and draws upon it to further his “Liberalism resembles fascism” argument. But when, he gets right down to it, Goldberg can’t just lump JFK in with the rest of the supposedly “liberal fascists”, writing: “While not a modern liberal himself, JFK was turned after his death into a martyr to the religion of government.” Goldberg writes that Kennedy’s myth was “hijacked” by Lyndon Johnson to advance his own brand of (you know it) “liberal fascism”.

This is interesting because it illustrates just how complex the Republicans’ relationship to JFK’s legacy really is. Maybe they just think it would be too cruel to openly despise a man so tragically cut down, or maybe–as a cynic might put it–they are simply looking to do a bit of myth-hijacking for themselves.

Or maybe they feel compelled to offer gestures of bipartisanship, but cannot seriously claim that there was anything good about more recent Democratic Presidents for fear of implying that they were in fact legitimate politicians with reasonable ideas. Such an implication would no doubt draw a sharp rebuke from Rush Limbaugh. So, they are forced to reach back nearly a half-century to find some Democrat who they can like without risking much ideological ground.

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Rather unsurprising news:

“While 80 percent of Americans think that America “has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world,” more than a third say President Obama does not share that belief, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Dec. 10-12.”

It’s interesting to me that “American Exceptionalism” has lately become a Conservative catchphrase. As I’ve said many times on this blog, the reason for this is that American Exceptionalism is, in my opinion, a fancier word for Nationalism.

There are, admittedly, some attempts at non-Nationalistic definitions of American exceptionalism; such as this from Heritage Foundation:

“To really understand what sets America apart, we need to go beyond numbers to examine the heart and soul of the nation: the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Unlike other nations that derive their meaning and purpose from some unifying quality—an ethnic character, a common religion, a shared history, an ancestral land—America is a country dedicated to to the universal ideas of equality and liberty. The truths we hold to be self-evident apply to all men—not just all Americans.” 

There seems to me to be something paradoxical about the idea that one country (and its citizens) are “special” precisely because they believe that all people, regardless of nationality, are to endowed with equal opportunity and liberty. All non-Nationalist interpretations of Exceptionalism suffer from similar flaws.

Now, it is probably true that when Alexis de Tocqueville first expressed this idea, it was more accurate and more pronounced. I think that America was probably more different from Europe in 1800s than it is today. America and Europe have since grown more alike and, despite what Conservatives will tell you, the change has not only been in the direction of us becoming more like them. They also became more like us, in some ways.

Ironically, because of America’s standing in the world, it is inevitable that other countries would seek to emulate it, thus eroding our “exceptionalism”. And because America’s good qualities are indeed “the ideas of the Declaration of Independence” and not “an ethnic character, a common religion, a shared history, an ancestral land”, it is relatively easy to emulate them. If you learn English and can find a copy of the Declaration Independence, you are all set to begin copying America’s unique qualities.

But this argument would be unlikely to persuade those who speak most loudly of American Exceptionalism, because they do not really think it is only these ideas which make us exceptional. For them, while it may not be “an ethnic character”, it really is a “common religion”–see the so-called “War on Christmas”, a “shared history”–ask the Texas school board–and “an ancestral land”–which is why Republicans are always celebrating hunters and farmers and “small town values.”

I’m not accusing the Conservatives of lying, exactly. They want to think that their policies and philosophies are grounded in the simple logic of the Founding Documents, instead of resorting to quasi-mystical beliefs in “ancestral land” and so forth. But the trouble is, because such beliefs are what really motivate them, and since they cannot say it outright–and probably are not even consciously aware of it–they must resort to other, flawed arguments.

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Exile: “Kreia, what are you–are you a Jedi? A Sith?”

Kreia: “Does it matter? Of course it does. Such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark. Categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are: pieces of a whole.”–dialogue from Obsidian Entertainment‘s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, The Sith Lords. 2004.

“I often think it’s comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
                                Or else a little Conservative!” —Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe. Act II. 1882.

I think everybody knows that the two-party system has its flaws. It is obvious that a system in which two sides work in opposition to one another virtually all the time is bound to have flaws. And then of course, everybody knows that lots of people end up voting a party-line ticket without bothering to consider the specifics of a candidate or policy. No one wants to be guilty of voting without thinking.
Because of this, many people really want to find some sort of “common ground”, or at least a way outside the two party system. This takes two forms: either a centrist “let’s compromise” attitude or else a “a pox on both your houses” approach.
The current holy war between Republicans and Democrats is an irritating thing, to be sure.* But Centrism, in my opinion, does not actually break free of this divide; it merely mixes and matches elements of both in some sort of hope that somehow this will make the two sides dislike each other less. 
(Meanwhile, the “pox on both houses” idea manifests itself primarily as libertarianism, a somewhat noble idea which amounts essentially to leaving everyone alone to do whatever as long as it harms no one else, but which falls apart quite completely when faced with the complexities of actually governing.)
The end result is that the Centrists say “We want both of you.” Libertarians say “We want neither of you.” In this way, as I sort of touched on here, both of these ideas still define themselves in terms of Republicans and Democrats. By that I mean that they are not actual political philosophies, they are just philosophies for dealing with the existing political philosophies.
I suppose I’m writing this like I have some kind of answer or solution. I don’t. All I can say is that while I can understand and sympathize with the impulse of people like the “No Labels” group to break out of the traditional two-party mold and be really independent of “Partisanship”, it’s actually much harder than it seems.   
*One could also, by the way, make a very good argument that the Republicans bear much more responsibility than the Democrats for the current level of vitriolic polarization. This is the sort of detail that centrists are often willing to overlook in their quest for bipartisanship.

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The Republicans/Tea Partiers are really beginning to show their true beliefs on this WikiLeaks thing. You know, you’d think they would be worried about “too much government power”; but no, they’re calling for imprisonment (or more severe punishment) for Julian Assange.

In contrast to this, Ron Paul said: “In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.” (It’s good to have an actual libertarian around so people know what one is like, as opposed to the Tea Party crowd.)

Don’t get me wrong; I think these leaks pose a damned serious National security threat, and we ought to put a stop to it. But I also think that “WikiLeaks-must-be-destroyed, violently-if-need-be” is an odd stance to take for people who keep saying that “the government that governs best governs least”.

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George Monbiot writes in The Guardian:

“The Tea Party… is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting.”

To which Alex Knepper responds:

“Ideologues don’t see opposing ideas as possessing any real legitimacy. Instead of honest disagreement, they see men behind the curtain deceiving helpless fools. Anyone who disagrees with them is manipulated, conned. Dissent from the beliefs of an ideologue, and he doesn’t treat you as an opponent worthy of sparring with. Instead, he condescends; he treats you like a helpless sap who’s been suckered into furthering the villainous motives of malicious sociopaths. The ideologue is the hero, motivated by kindness, while his enemies are bad guys who obstruct virtue and goodness.” 

This is much the same phenomenon I examined in this post, and after reading these articles, I think it’s worth examining a bit more in depth. First, Monbiot’s claim that the Tea Party people are simply being tricked is not quite right; they may not be aware precisely of who the Koch brothers are, but I am sure that they wouldn’t care if they did. Monbiot is indeed oversimplifying the situation to fit his ideology.

To this extent, Knepper’s rebuttal is correct, but where it falls short is in deciding to simply treat this discrepancy between the philosophy of the party’s backers and its members like it is completely unimportant. The Koch brothers really do spend money on these things–which is hardly surprising when you think about it. After all, someone has to pay to fund all these efforts.

Knepper appears to prefer  to simply conclude that, for some reason, the small-government ideals resonate with people nowadays; Tea Party has diverse viewpoints, etc. etc. etc., end of story. I would prefer to think of it in a rather different way.

There are three major groups here: the Nationalist Conservatives, the Materialistic Libertarians and the Cosmopolitan (the philosophy, not the magazine) Liberals. The Tea Party rank-and-file is mostly Conservative, but it is funded mostly by Libertarians. I don’t think this is a case of the one manipulating the other; rather, it is simply a strategic alliance. The Libertarians say to the Conservatives: we will help you get the Liberals out of office if you’ll help us with our small government initiatives. It’s a compromise.

And, as I’ve said before, this seems to me to make intuitive sense because it’s the exact same alliance that has defined the Republican party for almost fifty years.

That’s how I see it, anyway. As always, if you disagree with my analysis, I encourage you to speak up.

(Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan)

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There’s an old story, probably apocryphal, that’s often told about Adlai Stevenson. Supposedly, at one of Stevenson’s campaign stops, a woman yelled to him “You have the vote of every thinking person!” To which, the story goes, Stevenson replied “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!“

It’s the sort of story that resonates with any one who has any interest whatsoever in politics, at least now that Stevenson is so far back in history that he has ceased to have any power to divide people politically. Everyone always feels like their side–right though it undoubtedly is–is also an oppressed minority, overwhelmed by hordes of uninformed imbeciles motivated only by the propaganda of shadowy elites.

This is the view that is held both by the members of the Tea Party and by most of the people who oppose them. And I suppose this is so because it is partially correct–and necessarily so, given the way politics works in this country.

The Tea-Party is, as I have said before, a re-branding of the Republican party to make it seem more fresh and exciting, but most of all to dissociate it from the unpopular George W. Bush and his administration.

Now, this does not mean the Tea Party is quite the same thing as the Republican Party; obviously, from day one they have sought to purge anyone who shows any signs of compromising with the Democrats from the party’s ranks. They appear to be insistent on ideological purity.

Many Democrats have tried to label the Tea Party as an “astroturf” (fake grass-roots) operation, citing Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization and the work of the Koch Brothers. And they are to some extent correct, though I suspect every large movement and every mass demonstration has some wealthy backers, if anyone cares to check.

But what does the Tea Party, as an organization, want? Most people who are sympathetic to them have said they are a sort of Libertarian movement, which claims to want smaller government. Those who oppose them say that they are racists. The Tea Partiers deny this, saying they only oppose “Big Government”.

Data about what the members of the Tea Party think about certain issues are at odds with the slogans they yell. As I noted earlier, a majority of Tea Partiers think free trade is bad for the country. This is not exactly a Libertarian position. Yet they continue to argue for capitalism, and despise governmental attempts at economic intervention.

So from all this we are to gather that they are clamoring for a free market, nothing more. Yet so often they are found not talking about this stuff at all, but about “restoring honor to the country” and “American exceptionalism” and “taking their country back”. They are always dressed in super-patriotic garb, always waving the flag and talking of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. This is all complemented by a dose of fundamentalist Christianity–often with the implication that the Christian God blessed America specifically as the “greatest nation”.

This is, as I’ve said many times, nationalism. Not necessarily ethnic nationalism, as so many will infer. It may well be a completely non-racist, non-ethnically prejudiced nationalism, but nationalism it is nevertheless. The “Restoring Honor” rally held by the Tea Party’s much-beloved Glenn Beck was a cry for a return to National Greatness. The American exceptionalism talk means just what it says.

And the hatred of Obama? I think that much of it is not racially motivated. If you listen to the Tea Partiers, a chief complaint of theirs about Obama is that he supposedly “apologizes for America”. They want a President who will speak only of the greatness of America, a view which focuses solely on the positive things it has done. (At this point, they usually make some reference to the phrase “Shining City upon a Hill“.)

I believe Obama damned himself completely in the eyes of these Nationalists when he said, in response to being asked if he believed in American exceptionalism: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” This type of subjective thinking is wholly, dare I say it, foreign to the religious nationalist’s worldview.

In his otherwise excellent article on the Tea Party, Matt Taibbi wrote:

“It’s a mistake to cast the Tea Party as anything like a unified, cohesive movement — which makes them easy prey for the very people they should be aiming their pitchforks at. A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.” 

The second sentence is accurate to an extent–though some would couch it differently–but the first part seems blind to the fact that virtually everything the Tea Party movement does is filled with symbols of Americanism and references to American history–not necessarily accurate history, of course, but some romanticized version of it. The underlying theme of it all is a longing for National Pride and National Greatness.

So, the rank-and-file Tea Partiers are nationalists. They want to protect American jobs through protectionist measures, punish illegal immigrants, deny any mistakes made by America through history, and above all restore “National Greatness”. This is the will of the majority of Tea Party participants.

But, it must be remembered, these are only the foot soldiers, not the generals. “Theirs not to reason why“, they simply are carrying out the strategy laid out by the other aspect of the Tea Party: the businessmen who finance the whole thing.

This is where the Libertarian strain comes from. The people who fund the Tea Party have no interest in “National Greatness” either for the United States or for any other nation. They just want to be able to make deals to do business with China, or to keep costs down by not having too many environmental standards to comply with at their factories.

This is not the sort of thing most people would get on board with–largely because, as often as not, capitalism works in opposition to nationalism. (For example: sending American jobs over to China? No American nationalist could ever sign off on that, even if an economist justified it with Ricardian comparative advantage.) 

Hence, the need to on the one hand spread the Capitalist system while on the other giving the Nationalistic streak in the party something to distract it from the details of how the system works. Much better that the Nationalists should be told the government that is regulating the capitalists is “anti-American” than to try to defend the decidedly non-nationalistic behaviors of capitalism itself.

The late Conservative political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote of the “Davos Man“. Named for the site of the World Economic Forum, Huntington said such people “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite’s global operations”.

This is, of course, exactly the sort of thing that Glenn Beck and his followers are always talking about, hinting at dark conspiracies to destroy the American way of life by international socialism. And, I suppose there is a kind of truth to it; though it isn’t really a secret conspiracy. (If it were, we wouldn’t hear about it.) The point, though, is that there are also international capitalists who have just as little interest in national loyalty, but who are willing to exploit it for their own sake.

This conclusion is somewhat unsatisfying, mostly because, as I said at the beginning of this post, it is precisely the kind of thing that everyone concludes about the opposing side, no matter who they are. And furthermore, it is because this is the sort of thing that naturally arises in our system of politics. The same sort of dynamic exists in the Democratic Party; and I’m sure if one looked one could find contradictions between the intellectuals at the top and the working-class rank-and-file.

If one is sympathetic to the overall goals of a party, one calls it a “compromise”, and hails the miraculous union of these viewpoints. But if one is unsympathetic, it is a “contradiction”, and a bizarre cabal with one side pulling the others’ strings.

In any case, however, this is my conclusion as to the structure and philosophy of the Tea Party. Feel free to critique it.

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Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio says:

“This race is not your traditional race… It is a referendum on our identity. This race forces us to answer a very simple question: Do we want our country to continue to be exceptional, or are we prepared for it to become just like everybody else?”

For Rubio, of course, American Exceptionalism means much emphasis on economic freedom and laissez-faire Capitalism. This is what he says the Democrats are trying to take away.

But wait a moment. According to the Conservative Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, the U.S. is not the most economically free country in the world, and haven’t been since at least 1995, when the index was started. That honor goes to Hong Kong.

This is where the materialism ends and the nationalism begins. With the Republicans, it is not merely a matter of allowing the materialistic interests of money to triumph; it is also a fervent belief in the God-given superiority of America to all other nations. They are not completely devoted to economic freedom; if they were, the cry would be: “let us be more like Hong Kong”, not “let us remain exceptional”.

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[NOTE: This post is sort of a follow-up to this one.]

There are two competing strains that run through the Republican party–they are sometimes called “fiscal conservatism” and “social conservatism”, “Christianity” and “Libertarianism”. I prefer to use the terms “materialism” and “nationalism”.

The nationalist strain, which is the one most people call socially conservative, sees America as declining, thanks largely to the decadent liberals who do not strive to preserve its greatness and who dissolve its culture. They believe the U.S. is, by Divine Providence, the greatest on the Earth, and it is their darkest fear that the godless liberals will bring it down into merely “another country”.

The nationalist strain seeks a return to national greatness, which they believe existed from roughly 1776 until the early 1900s. It was at that point, they seem to believe, that liberal decadence first emerged, though it only became really obvious in the 1960s, with the counterculture and anti-war movement.

The nationalist wish for national greatness means restoring the old institutions and social norms. They also wish to increase the role of Christianity in the country. (As an aside, it is fitting that one of the most beloved figures among the nationalists is the Mormon radio personality Glenn Beck. Mormonism neatly ties American nationalism in with Christian religious texts.)

Materialism, meanwhile, is more like what we call Libertarianism or even Objectivism. The materialistic world view cares little for the nation except insofar as it is able to enrich the individual. Materialism has no interest in social issues or the Religion in the country except as to how it relates to their profits.

These two strains coexist, ultimately, within each individual member of the Republican party. Oh, there are some who believe almost exclusively in nationalism, such as Pat Buchanan followers, and some who are purely materialist, such as Ayn Rand followers. But more often, a Republican will lean nationalist on one issue and materialist on another.

What are we to make of the Tea Party, then? It is, in my view, a movement whose rank-and-file members are largely motivated by a nationalist outlook, but primarily funded by behind-the-scenes materialists.

Now, this is in fact the same situation which has existed in the Republican party for decades. As such, it seems clear that the Tea Party is not a third party, as some think, but rather a rebranding of the Republican party.

These two strains are currently united against Democrats, but will probably come into conflict if they achieve victory in this year’s midterm elections. What remains to be seen is which force will prove stronger.

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“Pilate saith unto him, ‘What is truth?’…”–John 18:38 

Most people probably believe that of the two major political parties in the United States, it is the Democrats who are more prone to relativism. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that there are more intellectuals, who are always given over to questioning traditions, in the Democratic party. The second is that many years of conservative propaganda has told everyone so.

Most of this is the work of the religious Right, though the Atheist philosophy of Ayn Rand also rejects the idea of anything other than absolute Truth, and it is certainly more widely heard in “conservative”,or–if we must use the term–“right-wing” circles. And there is some truth to all this; after all, does not the word “Conservative” itself suggest a certain intellectual and philosophical rigidity?

But, of late, there have been signs of a creeping relativism among conservatives. For example, this column from paleo-conservative writer Patrick J. Buchanan. An excerpt:

““Naked reason,” pure rationalism… ignores that vast realm of sentiments, such as patriotism and love, that reside in the terrain between thought and feeling.” 

Buchanan, admittedly, is far from one of the major players in the Republican party, having been effectively ostracized years ago. But there is altogether something very “post-modern”, as Andrew Sullivan often says, about the behavior of the conservatives of late. Recall the odd incident early this year when Rudy Giuliani and other prominent conservatives appeared to have forgotten about the 9/11 attacks.

(As Henry Leland says to Mike Thorton in Alpha Protocol: “There are only so many coincidences that can happen before they stop being coincidences.”)

Of course, one could easily explain away such things by pointing out that it is merely the inevitable result of competing–nearly warring–political parties. A strategy, nothing more. Indeed, I suspect a credible case could be made that changes in the media and the education system have produced a general increase in the relativistic outlook, and we only notice it with conservatives because they are, historically, less susceptible to it.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that strategically speaking, the Republicans are moving more and more towards a relativistic approach to reporting and analyzing every issue. Much of their criticism of Obama is based on how he makes them feel, or the image he projects.

Perhaps Lee Atwater had some part in it. (On some sites, I have seen the phrase “Perception is reality” attributed to Atwater. I doubt he originated it, but it does encapsulate his worldview.) Still, from at least Edward Bernays onward, propagandists, strategists and ad men, or whatever name, must have at least a touch of relativism to carry out their duty.

Now, I cannot stress enough that it is mostly the conservative intellectuals and strategists who seem to think this way. All the examples I gave, with the partial exception of Giuliani, were very much the behind-the-scenes tactician sort, not the leaders, and not the rank and file. I don’t think we will ever see Sarah Palin, for example, engaging in anything other than black-and-white moral reasoning. (“We win, they lose…”)

That’s part of what’s so odd about it, in fact. On the one hand we have the traditional non-relativist view of the world characterized by most of the Republican politicians, but pull away the curtain and we find men like Karl Rove–heir to Atwater–and other such strategists. Buchanan, let us not forget, was a strategist for Richard M. Nixon. (Nixon, by the way, was interested in the works of Nietzsche.) Even Dick Cheney, in his role as an adviser to Gerald Ford, famously said: “Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn’t do any good if you lose.”

It is pointless to counter by saying that the same is true of Democrats. Of course it is. Carville, Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and the rest are all doubtless cut from the same cloth. But the Democrats as a whole are already supposed to be the party of relativists, to hear the Republicans tell it, and they’re kind of correct. Nothing reveals this more than the fact that Democrats in general will tend to attack Republicans for being too absolutist. Whereas, the Republicans pride themselves on seeing through the moral haziness in which the liberal intellectuals lose themselves by understanding the absolute, God-given differences between True and False, Right and Wrong.

Let me, as Obama would say, be clear:  the majority of the Republican party believes in a rigid, absolutist, traditional Christian morality–or wants to, anyway.  But many of their strategists are willing to do almost anything to achieve victory, and are more than happy to bend the truth in order to get what they want. And they are fairly open about it.

In short, their strategists appear to be using moral and factual relativism in order to justify the rank-and-file and their leaders behaving like moral and factual absolutists.

All comments are welcome, and disagreement is encouraged. 

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With the furor over the Islamic community center dying down slightly, it is apparently necessary to find some new front on which to facilitate Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations“. This arrived in the person of Pastor Terry Jones, who plans to burn Qurans in order to “send a message to radical Islam.”

General David Petraeus has said that this is a bad idea, as it will be used by Muslim extremists to justify more attacks.

On the one hand, you could make the argument, as made over at Private Buffoon, that Pastor Jones has the right to burn Qurans under the First Amendment, and that a government official like Petraeus condemning it is rather disturbing. The comparison with the old “the anti-war demonstrators encourage the enemy” argument is an interesting one.

To make matters worse, I see that Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Clinton have both weighed in on the issue. While their hearts are in the right place, I fear that this is, strategically speaking, a bad idea. The reason is that it now gives the Republicans the chance to complain that government officials are pressuring the guy; and make it into a First Amendment thing, as opposed to a open-and-shut case of radicalism run amok.

However, I don’t think the Republicans would dare say that to General Petraeus, because he is by far our most accomplished General, he salvaged something out of the Iraq invasion, and I think he might actually be a Republican. It wasn’t that long ago they were clamoring for him to run against President Obama in 2012, at any rate.

None of this, however, should distract us from the issue at hand, which is the sheer stupidity of Pastor Jones’s absurd plan.

Got some news for you, Pastor: radical Islam already hates us. That is why they commit acts of terrorism against us. Radical Islamists probably think that every child in America burns a Quran a day, if I know how propaganda works.

Therefore, the only possible outcome of this behavior will be to alienate other, non–radical Muslims. This cannot possibly be considered a good thing. It all goes back to what me and thingy (whose post on this matter you should definitely read) discussed on this post: “many Republicans, at some level, seem to equate ‘being Muslim’ with ‘being a terrorist’.” (Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “Conservatives” instead of “Republicans”.)

It may not be conscious, even, but it’s hard to explain this sort of behavior any other way.