Where Will It All End?

When we see someone get spanked (literally or figuratively), we oftentimes realize that we had better shape up, or we might get beat next, and of course the effect is (usually, mind you) even stronger when it is you that is getting beat down. Conversely, an environment of permissiveness is created when bad actions (whether implicitly or explicitly bad) are not punished or are encouraged, and this will naturally lead to an environment of permissiveness and wantonness, and to increasingly extreme behavior.

We saw this in Abu Ghraib, but from a legal standpoint we have little knowledge or even vocabulary to describe precisely where the point of culpability stands when ‘creating an environment of’ whatever is accomplished. This process is understood only as a slouch into insanity; there is no model of the pillars of civility and rationality that must be broken down to achieve such a horrible result.

Fortunately, according to the records we already have, I am quite sure a full and fair investigation will lead to criminal charges against top political figures utilizing existing law for creating such an environment with the knowledge if not actual intent that crimes would be committed there.

But this post is not about Cheney and the torturers at all. It about the cheerleaders of war, the Sullivans and Hitchens and McArdles and Friedmans, and all the others, down to the littlest ones over at Renew America or World Net Daily.

These are people who actively pleasured themselves with the prospects of violence and cruelty of war, with all of the attendant rape, pillage and murder fully realized (more than fully realized, probably) within their tiny skulls. These are people who were able to wrap anything in the entire world up within their need for power, even if it was just (in the case of some of the less well-compensated cheerleaders) power at a distance.

Now, I could go on and on as above, but that doesn’t seem to be particularly useful. Rather, I would like to focus on something that I think everyone left of center (which is a big portion of the US populace now) realizes: We have got a pox of these idiot war cheerleaders at present. There are just too many, I don’t know what adjective to use for the entire class, dumb or horribly mistaken or totally corrupt or worthless or slight psychotic, or whatever, but there are way way too many of them. Wrong. That’s it, people who are just wrong. And we should stop listening to people who have proven themselves to be just wrong. I don’t think that statement will shake the world.

I would suggest that if we are still reading the musings of Friedman and Sullivan and McArdle ten years from now, then I would expect almost nothing about our political culture to change within that time. We are framed by these people, we let their idiocies become the talking points of the day, and in many ways we let them choose the terms of debate. Even to have us all wasting time talking about the scratching of a butt.

That last part probably is more our fault than theirs, but their continued good-standing in our political discourse is effective death for any kind of real change. That must be realized. The reign of these people, as a class, must end before we will have any change in the political thinking of our nation.

Outcomes matter. People watch, and like the monkeys we all are, we (mostly) watch and learn. The next generation will find new smear merchants when the time comes, and they will operate without fear unless we change the nature of the game. Now.