Feminist patriotism

The conservative talk show host and film critic Michael Medved gave a talk at Hillsdale College in March on the anti-Americanism of Hollywood, particularly in connection with movies about war. It concluded like this:

People like the gentleman I had on my radio show today love to say that “Violence never solved anything.” But what solved Hitler? Was it a team of social workers? Was it putting daisies into the gun barrels of Nazi Panzer divisions? Was it a commission that tried to understand what made Hitler so angry? No. What solved Hitler was violence. And what will solve the problem of Islamo-fascist terrorism, I’m sorry to say, is not understanding, negotiation, conferences, social workers, daisies, or anything other than the heroic violence of brave men and women with guns, fighting selflessly for their country—this greatest nation on God’s green earth. [emphasis added.]

The only reason I quote this passage is Medved’s inclusion of the words, “and women,” in the phrase, “the heroic violence of brave men and women with guns, fighting selflessly for their country.” Let’s leave aside the fact that women do not serve and are forbidden by law from serving in combat positions, since the line between combat and non-combat is, to our horror (yet also inevitably, as a consequence of integrating women in the armed forces in the first place), being rapidly erased, and many women have been killed and wounded, some grievously, in Iraq. The point is this: to the extent that woman are now already serving in combat, Medved—a supposed conservative, addressing a conservative audience—endorses it. The perversion expressed here is thus two-fold: Medved approves of having women serve in combat, a practice that is perverted in itself; and, what is even more perverted, he seamlessly blends that perversion with his traditional-sounding, indeed shlocky, rhetoric about the “greatest nation on God’s green earth.” This perverted combination of traditionalism and leftism is neoconservatism.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 30, 2005 11:04 PM | Send