Thank the Maker for Democrats.

First. The US electorate doesn’t fall into a neat left-right gaussian bell curve. Nor is there a communitive relationship between left-Democrat and right-Republican, as in the Jacksonian two party system that defines US federal electoral politics, the parties represent constantly changing umbrella coalitions of widely diverse regions and sectors and issue blocks. Yet because the voting electorate today identifies itself as 34% Republican, 26% Democrat, and 40% other, Independent, or issue specific, it has become possible for a vocal faction to gain control of a Party without any pretense whatsoever of representing a consensus view even within it’s own Party coalition.

This is exactly what’s happened to the Democrats. For various historical and organizational reasons, the New Left, or “Progressive” faction within the Democrat coalition was able gain, consolidate, and now retain control of the Party organization (by following a version of the old National Front strategy). This doesn’t mean “Democrats” are now dialectical materialists or New Left progressives… nor are most Democrats “leftists” or “anti-American”. Nor do I think it’s fair to Democrats to assume the “America Sucks” crowd uniformly votes the Democratic ticket.

Anyway…

On the other hand, risk accepance can lead to people who like risk for the sake of risk. Yeah, that’s scary.

And I’ve got to say that I’m not much good at talking to lefties because I’ve come to an understanding of what I feel/think relatively late in life & am on the defensive. Also, I can discuss ideas with people, but I become emotional when people argue Jews are better off in Arab countries than Arabs are in Israel, when they argue that anti-Semitism in Europe is exaggerated, when they say the local officer’s corps are fascists – you know, things like that. These are not people who have ever thought twice about anything. But, of course, I am most upset because I realize that not so long ago, I, too, had not thought twice. Coming back to my roots – in literature & life – led me to this place.

This is partially because in my social milieu the consequences were seldom visited upon the speakers. That is, no one remembered that last year they said that there would be massed evacuees at the border of Iraq or that a bloody door-to-door combat in Baghdad would decimate American forces – or before that, that we would be bogged down in Afghanistan like the Russians and God knows how many armies before. They didn’t even really have to face the fact that their insane “word only” reading pedagogy or their “multi-cultural math” was going to produce children who could neither read nor add. They just said they weren’t getting enough money.

Okay, so that’s why I’m not good at arguing with leftists – defensiveness, simplicity, and, well, I guess some anger at myself as well as at them.

http://www.mauinews.com/newssection.aspx?id=18

I didn’t say anything about delighting in America’s failures (nor has anyone else here.) I didn’t criticize anyone for anger, disappointment, or disagreement. I have not said these are bad things, either. Perhaps, in the spirit of reaching out and understanding, you should read what I and others have said more carefully.

The group I’m talking about is angry and disappointed about America’s failures. That doesn’t make them any different from me or Shannon or anyone else here. What makes them different from us is that they treat these failures as evidence that the whole system needs replaced — that liberal democracy itself is a failure and must be replaced with some sort of socialist, isolationist regime. This is a group that views each individual failure as evidence that the whole system has failed.

Now, some of them really DO react with delight (among other emotions — don’t ignore this!) as a result of America’s failures. I know several who had huge smiles on their faces when the Abu Ghraib photos and the fake Koran-in-a-commode story ran. They were angry and disappointed, but they *also* were delighted that they had more ammunition to use in their arguments. It’s kind of like how I take delight in hearing Howard Dean or Al Gore rant about something — yeah, I’m mad that we don’t have a sensible, viable, loyal opposition party, but at the same time, the faster they fail the sooner we’ll have a replacement for them.

Now, this crowd thinks every failure makes their argument stronger, but what they don’t realize is we all already recognize those failures. We just reject the model under which they view the failures. We see those failures and we think “we can do things better” and we set about doing so, while they see the failures and think “see! This proves AmeriKKKa is a KKKapitalist nation beholden to KKKorporations!” and set about trying to destroy capitalism and liberal democracy.

>>”*sigh* I hate to bring a note of realism into these magnificant phrased jeremiads, but, well, no. No as in “that isn’t the way it is”. Sorry.”

and then:

>>”The right hand cannot war against the left forever, we need to fix this, not overcome it. We need to reach out to them, not oppose them.”

Do you find that condescension, patronization, and intellectual arrogance are effective tools for “reaching out?” Just curious.

When did we forget that is a good thing? From the very beginnings of America, it’s citizens have been encouraged to disagree,it’s our greatest pride and strength.

Frankly, the whining attitude envied by your comment makes me want to vomit. I am so sick and tired of Leftist claiming that they are being criticized for “disagreeing.” Lose the martyrdom. Its a strawman argument and everyone who isn’t a Leftist knows it.

In fact, your are being criticized not for disagreeing but for not acting as a “loyal” opposition. The arguments against the war in Iraq by Leftist, for example, don’t dwell on the specifics of conditions associated with Iraq but are instead mostly about the imagined sins of America or the West in general. Look at the evolution of the Lefts opposition to US Policy in the region since 1991. The Left opposed the liberation of Kuwait, then they opposed arms inspections, then they opposed sanctions (fabricating a huge body of “evidence” that the sanctions were killing hundreds of thousands). When war threatened they suddenly decided that the sanctions were working great. The Left has consistently taken the side of the Fascists every single time. In fact, the behavior of most on the far Left is utterly indistinguishable from those paid agents of the enemies of liberal democracy. They have problem adopting these positions because they really truly believe that the ultimate cause of all the worlds problems resides in the worlds liberal democracies. In this or that case, they might be correct but they make the same argument every single time in every single instance. That is not a loyal opposition.

Even if you, personally, do not hold such extreme views you have demonstrated that you are perfectly willing to hold hands with people who do. For example, all the large anti-war rallies in the US were organized by ANSWER which is a front group for the Workers World Party which is an unrepentant Stalinist communist group. Leftist all the way to the center thought the anti-war protest were a grand thing.

If some group of Rightwing protesters found out they were going to a protest organized by the Klan they would bail so quick it would make your head spin. Yet there is virtually no extremity of viewpoint on the Left that even moderate Leftist will not associate themselves with.

Prior to the 1960′s the American Left projected an attitude of “American is the best, lets make it even better!” but now they have become “America is a pile of shit but lets try to salvage something from it.” Frankly, I just don’t trust people with that attitude to protect America and American values and I don’t think anyone else who isn’t Leftist does either.

And I still have seen no evidence for anti americanism in the mainstream progressive left; at least one commentator in the TPM blog I quoted is a former cabinet level secretary (Reed Hundt).

You might want to consider this. The mottos on the masthead of this (ChicagoBoyz) blog express a need for differing views as am integral American institution, if you marginalize any group as large as the progessive left, you are contrary to that spirit. More importantly, these are the beliefs that caused America to coalesce into a nation. Do you really want risk reversing that process?

American history is rife with examples of former enemies becoming allies, the British, Germans and Japanese, for example. The American civil war is still fresh in the minds of many Southerners, the confederate flag still flies in parts of the country, yet we still manage to interact.

veryretired: hehe, Your wishes are a bit belated; I am afraid my last semester tests were over three decades ago. I barely remember them. Crerar was still at IIT back then; I am well over a half century old.

However, I do find it interesting that you could conclude that. Was that assumption also in effect when forming your conclusions about the AS groups?

Lotharbot: Of course I will keep in mind the model you expressed. But please forgive me for not accepting the statements as fact, I am a trained scientist, I find it difficult to form conclusions without examinable evidence.

I too have interacted with a wide variety of Americans over the decades, often by living in their communities. Right now, In Chicago alone, I have lived on South King drive (one of the poorest neighborhoods), Schiller Park, Lisle and now I reside in West Rogers Park/Lincoln Bend area of Chicago, one of the most mixed ethnic neighborhoods in the country; All this in periods ranging from the 1950′s to the 2000′s.

And in my experiences, at least, almost none of the people I knew delighted in America’s failures. There often was anger and disappointment, and always a disagreement with policies…and always very strong feelings.

When did we forget that is a good thing? From the very beginnings of America, it’s citizens have been encouraged to disagree,it’s our greatest pride and strength.

And when did expressing good things about other countries become anti american? Supreme Court Justice Scalia recently appeared on CSPAN a couple of weeks ago to discuss international law and praising learning from other countries, I can hardly believe he is anti american.

So, as an alternative, I have presented a model which you can keep in mind as you gather your own evidence from interacting with these groups. That’s the best I can do.

I remember having that feeling my sophomore year also.

Good luck on your semester tests. The Junior year is harder, but I’m sure you’re up for it, since you’ve got everything all figured out and all.

Never try to teach a pig to sing — it wastes your time and annoys the pig. You have more faith than I do in the susceptibility of anti-American leftists to logical persuasion.

My experience in numerous discussions and arguments on ideological topics is that very few people change their minds about deeply held beliefs except in response to long, repeated and painful personal experience that contradicts their received views. Members of anti-American leftist groups who are capable of such personal growth tend eventually to leave. Those who remain tend to be insensitive to evidence. Anti-Americanism is a religion for them. Try to reason with them and they will deny the reality of your evidence or attack your motives. Arguing with such people is like trying to teach the pig to sing.

OTOH, as the anon commenter above (Lex?) pointed out, it’s much more effective practically (i.e., politically) to accept the anti-Americans for what they are and instead aim our persuasive efforts at the large number of ideologically uncommitted people, both here and abroad. A lot of people in this latter group will be receptive to education and pro-America arguments — without which, at the least, some of them would be swayed by the facile appeals of the anti-Americans.

VeryRetired: There are some of us who have received different responses than hatred from AS groups, even though we have strongly disagreed with them.

I have generally found accusations of mental illness (or even arrogance) not conducive to a free exchange of thoughts and ideas. You might consider a different approach.

Perhaps I ought to explain how I came to my conclusions. I study new institutional economics. Economics is the study of how we value things, and new instutional economics is the study of how institutions affect how we value things. It is a very legitimate area of economic studies, and has been for decades; look up New Institutional Economics on Google. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=new+institutional+economics&btnG=Search

I normally study Sino-American relations (expecially the guanxi networks) but I was struck by some similarities in American political groups such as your AS groups.

In this case, I was studying the costs that were acting as a barrier to members of the AS group expanding their influence outside their group by carefully introducing alternative ideas and observing thier reactions.

I have to admit, I confused their reactions for hatred at first. But they aren’t.

Here is an experiment you can try that will illustrate this point.

Choose any AS group that hasn’t had any previous contact with you (so you don’t bias the results) and discuss some issues with them. Be sure that you don’t give the slightest hint of an attack on the groups institutions, but do present another point of view. It is easy to do so, I have done it a number of times with a number of different groups.

Yes, there are a few hatred reactions, such things happen in any group. But if you persist on keeping the conversation at an adult level, if you don’t attack the institutions, but do disagree with the views and ideas, eventually, even the haters come around.

The important point I observed was that, as long as they don’t feel threatened, and understand how you think in terms of even alien (to them) institutions for the most part, they are capable of coherently considering even extremely different points of view without rancor. That isn’t a hatred reaction.

I also cannot claim to have seen anything indicating a guilt or self hatred attitude. Could you cite some expressions of this in mainstream progressive literature; it certainly would be a valuable insight if I could also present some tangible evidence to support it.

I agree there’s a void involved in this problem, but it’s not a void of “institutions”, a nice, vague, utterly meaningless word, it’s a void of internal cognitive mechanisms for recognizing and evaluating reality.

I agree there’s fear involved, but it is a fear that they don’t, in fact, deserve anything they have received as a gift from this “evil” society, such as health, education, living standards, etc., and that if they were on their own, they wouldn’t last a week.

The wellsprings of New Left angst are guilt and hatred.

Guilt because they know, down deep in their hearts and minds, that they are the priviledged heirs of centuries of intense mental, physical, and emotional effort, and they can’t match up.

Hatred because nothing is perfect enough, or even good enough, about the society and culture that has nurtured them, and, therefore, they must exert themselves in some way to improve it.

But, if you buy into the various myths of the leftist, collectivist worldview, then you realize there is no way to reform a society based on exploitive capitalist economics and liberal democratic fraud. It must be destroyed, overturned, transformed into something perfect, something like paradise, something utopian.

When you accept an ideology that tells you that you can achieve heaven on earth, if only you believe, and get everyone else to believe, that everything would be just fine if that terrible capitalism were gone, and that terrible profit motive was done away with, and if everyone would just do as they’re told, it would all turn out just great—then of course you hate the things that stand in your way.

If you want to call them institutions, go right ahead. A lot of people were on about “institutions” back in the 60′s and 70′s.

But if you add all those institutions up, the result is the US, warts and all. Some people hate it, and want it to go away. Some of us don’t.

I think there’s a little bit to the “institutions don’t exist” meme being a driving force for the “America sucks” people, but it’s not quite accurate. They think America sucks precisely because they don’t like the institutions that are currently in place. It’s not that they think those institutions don’t exist, it’s that they think of them as failed institutions. As I mentioned in the recent thread on overprotective parents in the workplace, these are people who view failure as an extreme evil, so if “the institution” fails to live up to perfection even once, they discard it as worthless.

That’s why they harp on things like slavery almost 150 years after it was abolished — it was a failure of the government institution, and in their eyes, that means the whole system of government is worthless, so they think we should throw out capitalism and states rights and the second amendment and so on. That’s why they harp on Abu Ghraib and intelligence failures about WMD and not finding Osama and so on… not because they want those specific things corrected, but because they think the mere presence of those failures makes the whole venture worthless.

In other words, they think America’s failures mean America sucks, and we have to completely replace America with a failure-free version. Of course, these are people who think it’s possible to create something that never fails, as long as white males are not in power. Many of the institutions they try to create are those that can’t “fail” in any meaningful sense of the word — “cultural studies” programs, welfare (an institution that masks the symptoms of failure), etc. The rest of us think America’s failures mean there is room for improvement, and we need to figure out how to do better next time. They’re interested in replacing America with some new America based on failure-proof institutions, while we’re interested in enhancing the pretty good but not perfect America we already have and fixing the pretty good but not perfect institutions we already have.

This also explains why they tend to be uncritical of people like Milosovic, Saddam, Arafat, etc. — they haven’t seen their institutions firsthand, so instead of thinking of them as running failed institutions, they think of them as being oppressed by OUR failed institutions.