Response to Lieberman

Here are some of my thoughts about Lieberman's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.


A couple of overarching thoughts initially come to mind:

1) "Democrat" and "Republican" are simply labels describing a certain set of principles, which apparently are supposed to be both consistent and dichotomous (i.e. welfare state + secular public laws + over regulation of business + weak military = Democrats/Liberal, while economic individualism + strict moral laws + under regulation of business + enormous military = Republicans). Naturally we have a big country and times change, so these labels easily slide around based on the times. Why try and squeeze all of your favorite principles under the "Democrat" basket you loved in 1958 when really they fit so much better under the "Republican" basket of 2008? Lieberman seems nostalgic for Democrats of old who would most likely be Republicans today. Which, I guess, is his point.

2) Wow, was the world different 50 years ago! Since WWII (my time frame is roughly Lieberman's lifetime) nuclear weapons have been dropped, people have lived in space, the internet was invented, global airline travel has become the norm, a US president has resigned due to corruption, the US has experienced several energy/oil scares (including now), chemical weapons have been introduced, DNA testing in criminal cases has become norm and exonerated many people falsely-charged, and CNN was established.

All of these things (among others, I'm sure) have made today's world very different than 50 years ago, and the politics has had to change with it. During WWII and the first half of the cold war it was obvious who was "good" and who was "bad" and the entire country mobilized on behalf of the US military. The economy was good and the Cold War became more distant. Later on in the century things got a little more grey. Sen. McCarthy exaggerated the communist threat and damaged US government credibility. JFK was shot by a crazed individual. Nixon lied and stole, and suddenly the US government was not as angelic and trustworthy as we'd like to believe. In Vietnam the US sprayed civilians with chemicals and dropped bombs on Cambodians (who were being annihilated by Pol Pot anyway, another genocide the US government chose to selectively ignore).

Everyone agrees that the shift came with the Vietnam war. Who was to say that our patriotic "ideology" wasn't just as bad as "theirs", since we were committing atrocities as well? (Note: I totally reject the, "we weren't as bad as they were" excuse, and I think the Democrats of the 70s and today do as well.) We did not want to end up like the 1940s Germans, blindly following a secretive leader just because he says our cause is just. To protest injustice became the patriotic thing; just because the injustice was wearing an American flag does not make it somehow excusable.

The difference between today's news and news in the 1950s is that now everyone has it. CNN shows car bombs live. People blog real-time about what they are witnessing. The whole world hears rumors within a matter of seconds, and crimes at places like Abu Ghraib and Haditha cannot be covered up. US righteousness is tarnished, and to ignore our wrong-doings for causes of "freedom" and "patriotism" is to deny both.

George W. Bush's administration has done nothing but magnify the perception of government manipulation and control to an overwhelming level. To today's Democrats, Bush's actions are potentially just as dangerous as that of a terrorist organization; he has been systematically setting up rule by decree from disregarding the opinion of the international community to eavesdropping on US private calls and emails to setting up these unprecedented "signing statements", where he simply declares to Congress which parts of their laws he is not going to obey, before signing. Bombs have taken the place of words. "Ideology" obliterates any sense of the enemy's humanity and makes them monsters, unworthy to live. Essentially, the rigid, unyielding principles which drive Bush's agenda mimic nearly identically the wishes of the leaders of China and the Middle East. You are free to do whatever we want you to do.

With one major, major difference: the US still values American lives. Communist/totalitarian countries have little regard for the lives of their own civilians, let alone foreigners. But it's not a far jump from Guantanamo to holding US citizens without reason, to complete executive power. And that is what today's Democrats are fighting against.



Why Obama is the Man for the Job

Barack Obama is the Democrat of the future. He does not have a "blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet" like Lieberman exaggerates. Rather, I believe his policy is to be willing to meet with them, with standards. Obama is willing to concede the fact that Ahmadinejad and Chavez are human beings with brains and negotiable interests. Yes, perhaps Ahmadinejad's one goal in life is to clad women world-wide with burkas and build himself a personal nuclear arsenal, but if we unilaterally bomb his country, we're never going to find that out. Not talking is an ironclad way to eliminate any and all chance of understanding. Obama represents the only foreign policy that is going to work in the global auditorium: yes, he holds a stick behind his back, but he offers a basket of carrots. Hopefully the result being many more offered baskets and a room of well-fed leaders rather than bloodied, battered, and starving ones.

The reason Obama is going to work for the postmodern generation is because when he looks at the globe, he sees what every young American sees in their peer group: many colors, many faiths, many accents, many cultures with differing priorities, but all human beings who should be treated with dignity. Right and wrong "ideologies" isn't going to work these days. Fanaticism, crime, hate, bigotry, corruption: our "war" is against these vices, regardless of whether they are found under an American flag or any other.


Lieberman is nostalgic for the Democratic party of old. If he wishes to remain in a dualistic world view of good guys v. bad guys, patriots v. non-patriots, I think he will be very comfortable in the Republican party of today.