Re: On being a noncombatant in the culture wars

At 09:50 AM 3/3/2006, Ted Davis wrote:

>[snip] "...I offer it as an apology (in the older meaning of that
>word) for staking out a middle position on ..." [snip]
>Harvard-Bound? Chin Up by David Brooks [snip]

## Those who stake out a "middle position" on the highway get no
respect and usually do wind up getting run over by those who have the
courage of their convictions who are "going somewhere" on the left or
the right of them.

Here's another great article David Brooks wrote over a year ago. He
talks about these "people who have the courage of their convictions"
on both sides. You may want to post it on the wall, too.

  ~ Janice ... who knows that David Brooks is definitely not viewed
as a "middle-of-the-road-moderate" by those going down the left side
of the road. :)

<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1325947/posts>Ideals and Reality
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1325947//^http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/opinion/22brooks.html?hp>NY
Times ^ | January 22, 2005 | DAVID BROOKS - OP-ED COLUMNIST
Posted on 01/22/2005 12:27:50 AM EST by
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1325947//~neverdem/>neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1325947/posts

If you want to understand America, I hope you were in Washington on
Thursday. I hope you heard the high ideals of President Bush's
inaugural address, and also saw the stretch Hummer limos heading to
the balls in the evening.

I hope you heard the president talk about freedom as "the permanent
hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul,"
and also saw the drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings
carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight.

What you saw in Washington that day is what you see in America so
often - this weird intermingling of high ideals with gross
materialism, the lofty and the vulgar cheek to cheek.

The people who detest America take a look at this odd conjunction and
assume the materialistic America is the real America; the ideals are
a sham. The real America, they insist, is the money-grubbing,
resource-wasting, TV-drenched, unreflective bimbo of the earth. The
high-toned language, the anti-Americans say, is just a cover for the
quest for oil, or the desire for riches, dominion and war.

But of course they've got it exactly backward. It's the ideals that are real.

Two years from now, no one will remember the spending or the
ostrich-skin cowboy boots. But Bush's speech, which is being derided
for its vagueness and its supposed detachment from the concrete
realities, will still be practical and present in the world, yielding
consequences every day.

With that speech, President Bush's foreign policy doctrine
transcended the war on terror. He laid down a standard against which
everything he and his successors do will be judged.

When he goes to China, he will not be able to ignore the political
prisoners there, because he called them the future leaders of their
free nation. When he meets with dictators around the world, as in
this flawed world he must, he will not be able to have warm relations
with them, because he said no relations with tyrants can be successful.

His words will be thrown back at him and at future presidents.
American diplomats have been sent a strong message. Political reform
will always be on the table. Liberation and democratization will be
the ghost present at every international meeting. Vladimir Putin will
never again be the possessor of that fine soul; he will be the menace
to democracy and rule of law.

Because of that speech, it will be harder for the U.S. government to
do what we did to Latin Americans for so many decades - support
strongmen to rule over them because they happened to be our
strongmen. It will be harder to frustrate the dreams of a captive
people, the way in the early 1990's we tried to frustrate the
independence dreams of Ukraine.

It will be harder for future diplomats to sit on couches flattering
dictators, the way we used to flatter Hafez al-Assad of Syria decade
after decade. From now on, the borders established by any peace
process will be less important than the character of the regimes in
that process.

The speech does not command us to go off on a global crusade,
instantaneously pushing democracy on one and all. The president vowed
merely to "encourage reform." He insisted that people must choose
freedom for themselves. The pace of progress will vary from nation to nation.

The speech does not mean that Bush will always live up to his
standard. But the bias in American foreign policy will shift away
from stability and toward reform. It will be harder to cozy up to
Arab dictators because they can supposedly help us in the war on
terror. It will be clearer that those dictators are not the antidotes
to terror; they're the disease.

Bush's inaugural ideals will also be real in the way they motivate
our troops in Iraq. Military Times magazine asked its readers if they
think the war in Iraq is worth it. Over 60 percent - and two-thirds
of Iraq combat vets - said it was. While many back home have lost
faith, our troops fight because their efforts are aligned with the
core ideals of this country, articulated by Jefferson, Walt Whitman,
Lincoln, F.D.R., Truman, J.F.K., Reagan and now Bush.

Americans are, as George Santayana observed, "idealists working on
matter." On Thursday in Washington, the ideal and the material were
on ample display. And we're reminded once again that this country has
grown rich, powerful and effective not because its citizens are
smarter or better, but because the ideals bequeathed by the founders
are practical and true.
Received on Fri Mar 3 10:38:43 2006