lol I'm sure you meant 12 of the last 24 years, but I found that really funny in such a serious post, I don't know why.
Hehe. It was funny because it was complete retardation on my part. I meant 24 in the last 36 years (meaning "12" years belonging to Democratic sponsership).
Bush Jr. = 8 years
Clinton = 8 years
Bush Sr. = 4 years
Reagan = 8 years
Carter = 4 years
Nixon/Ford = 4 years
What liberals are getting angry for conservatives using liberal ideas?
Look at the situation. A tragedy of our time (decades, but especially the last few years) is that the left has squandered the last of its moral capital by elevating rigid anti-Americanism above human rights and freedom. Campus theorists were able to hijack the left even in the U.S., thanks to a splendid paradox of history. In America, the workers of the world won. The traditional leftist program for which labor leaders struggled ended in a triumph for the working man and woman, thanks to the progress of capitalism, a system whose dynamism Marx and his followers never grasped. The America worker's priority shifted from a fight for economic justice to a desire to enjoy the gains achieved, leaving the left to ideologues who now disdain the worker as fully as they despise the government he or she chooses at the polls.
Human rights and freedom should not be polarizing issues in America. They should unite us. But our domestic ideologues, in slavish imitation of their foreign counterparts, would rather see a million black or brown human beings die than accord Washington the right to intervene. Instead they argue that all crisis be referred to the united Nations (and don't get me started on what the UN is anymore).
This is what I remind myself of when I see "liberals" who seem to detest foreign intervention into a situation where all have turned their backs on for far too long. It is not enough to preach on value and virtue. The 21st century, with all the unrest and devolution of old colonial powers enforced through select dictators (America's Cold War behavior not absolved), is going to be a century of liberating human effort. There will certainly be other aspects such as oil, corporate influencing, and other such inconveniences that have become the accepted norm, but human suffering and the terrorist result will be in focus. "Liberals" are behaving like our conservative isolationalist great grandfathers who turned their backs on mankind.
However, where our "conservative" group of intillectuals can't seem to grasp is that freedom and democracy do not mean the same thing. We have spent centuries learning democracy and we cannot expect third world nations (especially Islamic ones) to undo their century long prescriptions so easily and without struggle. Most humans desire a measure of freedom, but democracy is a cultural art. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into the trap of expecting that suffering people will grasp (or even want to) our definitions of freedom and democracy. We have to start understanding the world we live in with a greater degree of wisdom. Is it an impractical demand that we see Vermont in the Middle East? Of course it is. And this begs the question, "why does our left declare failure, because we haven't seen it?" It also begs the question, "why does our right insist that we can make it so?" In much of the world political freedom is a concern of small elites, while the general population attaches far greater importance to the simple freedom not to be annoyed too much by government. Social and economic freedom means more than a chance to decide who heads their state. While we should never stop advancing the cause of freedom on the broadest sense, we must also recognize that our priorities are not necessarily those of our neighbors. In the Middle East, Islam's prescriptive nature, it obsession with the details of daily behavior, created societies that value order over social freedoms. Middle Eastern societies fear too much freedom and equate public liberty with libertinism. In other words, the American insistence on freedom of choice is confounded by a civilization that desires that the right choice be made for them (dictators, religious zealots). In China, students may ponder democracy, but the masses dream of better jobs and material possessions. In Russia, Putin has pinched democracy while protecting social freedoms and improving the economy. In exchange, Russians will accept limits on political freedoms. Even in continental western Europe we find profoundly different priorities within the political culture from our own - The welfare of the group still trumps that of the individual. For Europeans, the essential freedoms are always
from something, from unemployment, form social disparities, from need, from war (unlikely). For Americans, freedom means the freedom to
do. Europeans choose security. Americans choose opportunity.
This is where the "NeoCon" is having trouble (and don't get me started on this either). The concept that the American model of Democracy and freedom is "best" for all is as irresponsible, irrational, and dangerous as the "Liberal's" will to turn its backs on the world. We have to start appreciating the limits that other cultures will place on their freedom and what their democracy will look like. And we have to stop this sophomoric thinking that only the mirror image of America means success and anything less is immediate failure. The 21st century will see the spread of democracy. But democracy will take an increasing number of forms as different civilizations and local cultures adapt it to their traditions and needs. Democracy will change the world, but the world is going to change democracy, and we may not always be happy with the results. We must overcome the American assumption that a thousand years or more of traditions and prejudices can be undone with one election. And we must turn away once and for all from our Cold War-era hypocracy, from preaching democracy, freedom, and human rights while looking away from the abuses of "our" dictators (something France and Germany still embrace as foreign policy). We do not need more "allies" like the House of Saud, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Manuel Noriega, or Fulgencio Batista (there are others in which our European "friends" love to throw in our faces). But as long as we strive to stand up for the little guy above the needs of the tyrant behind UN protected "soveriegn" borders and advocate democracy and championing basic freedoms we can get much of what we need strategically while doing the right thing.
I've seen it enough times right here on this site..."I want the old America back." "Liberals" still want the comfort of empty preaches while Conservatives turn their backs.
