America’s bizarre bifurcation

Powerline quotes Georgia columnist Laura Armstrong on the two Americas. The first America, she says, is that of John Kerry, who tosses off cheap, treasonous accusations about U.S. troops “terrorizing Iraqi women and children in the middle of the night.” The second America is that of the people who brought a three-month-old baby from Iraq to Georgia for life-saving surgery—even as the second America ignores that heart-warming story and only talks about the evil and disaster of what we’re doing in Iraq. Armstrong continues:

If Baby Noor’s touching story isn’t proof enough for them of why we should be in Iraq and of the evil we’re fighting, then I’m resigned to the fact they’re hopelessly stuck in a quagmire of their own—the inability to see that for which we fight. [emphasis added.]

So, the first America thinks that our forces are fighting and dying and democracy-building in order to terrorize and harm people. The second America thinks our forces are fighting and dying and democracy-building in order to have the opportunity to transport sick infants from the Third World to America for extraordinary medical procedures. It’s funny how, in the year-long debate leading up to the invasion of Iraq, which I supported, I never heard this particular argument being made, that we were invading and occupying another country and sacrificing our men’s lives so as to demonstrate our goodness toward people on the other side of the world, people of an entirely alien religion and culture who will never like us or share our principles.

Today’s “liberals” are angry, anti-American leftists who side with our enemies. Today’s “conservatives” are beneficent, soft-hearted leftists (also called “Christian conservatives”) who see America’s defining purpose as altruistic sacrifice on behalf of foreign peoples who can never, in the nature of things, be our friends. The anti-American leftists think the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy is harming people. The soft-hearted leftists think the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy is helping people. Neither side thinks the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy is national self-preservation. That’s mainstream politics in today’s America. What a choice.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 05, 2006 08:02 PM | Send