Pretty much agree with everything that Mr. Auster says, eloquently and incisively as usual, but, on a slight tangent, you know, I think it’s beginning to be plain that we *are* riven by class division and oppression, which is what makes something like Bush’s scheme for a global labor pool possible. Of course, when the Democrats refer to the class divide, what they really have in mind is to turn the lower classes against the middle; and the policies they advocate are merely those which have already opened a vast gulf between the middle and the elite, in order to open it still further. Objectively, they never really do a dang thing to bring the elite down a peg. Does anyone really believe that Edwards worries that trial lawyers or network anchors don’t pay enough taxes? That the Mexican invasion lowers the wages of American workers? Funny, I don’t think he mentioned that…musta forgot.

Seems like a lot of right-wing-type folks are starting to get into a class-conflict state of mind, e.g. this surprising comment I noticed at Little Green Footballs:

“An influx of workers who will fill millions of jobs at the lowest end of the pay scale will drive blue-collar wages down accross the board. This deal screws the very people who built this country. Sickening. At times like this I look at our elected leaders and I see them with a newfound clarity. Children of priveledge who were raised in an insular oasis of entitlement with no connection to the people upon whose backs this country was built. You know things are getting bad when a free-market capitalist (me) starts sounding like a freaking Marxist.”

And I was pleased to see that a majority of those who responded at LGF to the Hanson WSJ article, linked at the site, were strongly against Bush’s nation-dissolving scheme - albeit with a smattering of the usual supercilious twits, professing to be utterly baffled what all the fuss is about.

Mr. Auster is a shrewd analyst, as usual. And here I had nearly convinced myself that Edwards was acceptable!

I would also say re Tony Blair’s Rousseauianism: let’s not slander J-J Rousseau! The latter’s revolt against the Great Tradition of Christendom was at least a manly and vigorous one; Blair’s is merely debased and pathetic.

I was using “Rousseauian” as a shorthand for Blair’s reduction of our civilization to a notion of radical personal freedom. It was not the best choice of words.

Fred Barnes is typical in using all the PC buzzwards just like any other liberal. Is there anybody in the media-pundit class who doesn’t? They will say or write “African-American,” or “Latino” with a tone of reverance. Then they will say or write “whites” in a dismissive tone. When they write “white males,” they seem to be referring to low-lifes.

As Mr. Auster says, mainstream conservatives “drift with the prevailing liberal tide in terms of language and underlying assumptions.”

In fairness to Barnes, he wrote that Edwards “positioned himself” as the nice guy candidate. He did not describe Edwards as such. Experienced Washington people like Barnes simply regard the outrageous envy-mobilizing rhetoric standard among democrat politicians as something so utterly routine as to be unremarkable. Everybody knows that this is just red meat for the suckers, and if in power, they would content themselves with some token tax increases aimed at republican constituencies, while enabling their own business supporters to enrich themselves through government. Both republicans and democrats seem quite prepared to generously fund the welfare state, the public employees unions, and the army of social service providers and others at the trough. Under the circumstances, it would seem almost unfair to Edwards to begrudge him the usual empty rhetorical radicalism by saying this somehow should disqualify him from positioning himself as upbeat and hopeful. Like Dean’s anger, it is all a matter of style and packaging, to convince people to elect someone wholly unqualified to the office of president.

Thucydides suggests that it is “unfair to Edwards to begrudge him the usual empty rhetorical radicalism by saying this somehow should disqualify him from positioning himself as upbeat and hopeful.”

I don’t regard the speech I heard from Edwards on Monday night to be “the usual empty rhetorical radicalism.” I heard a candidate for president, who had just had the biggest success of his career making him a national figure, talking about America the way a Bolshevik would have talked about Russia in 1917. I was amazed, as I had thought that Edwards was supposed to be more moderate than some of the other candidates.

Thucydides seems to believe that political rhetoric doesn’t matter, since it’s just a tool used to gain votes. I strongly disagree. Rhetoric like Edwards’s plants poison in people’s minds against their country; that poison then festers and takes the form of further radicalism. Consider the long-term effect that the insane charges against Bush following the 2000 election have had in poisoning our politics.

It’s not that I think such poisonous rhetoric as emanates from the democrat candidates doesn’t matter, I was just pointing out that the Washington pundit class has become so inured to it that they pay it no attention. After all, it has been a democrat staple at least since Franklin Roosevelt. My view is that anyone who utters such words should never be considered for any public office. However, where is the democrat or republican who would criticize such class warfare? Anyone who did would immediately be portrayed as an “enemy of the people.”