Devra posted a heartfelt examination of her “Fear & Anxiety” over the gathering perfect storm of current world events. Jeralyn picked it up over at TalkLeft.
Part of Devra’s fears were based on the contradicition between a “…President who embraces Fundamentalist Christian theology as a guide to governing in Foreign Policy. And who rejects ‘Christian Charity’ as a guide to governing in Domestic Policy.” She continues:
But how is this any different from the many ‘Faith Based’ Muslim nations of the world? The Taliban does come to mind, here, as does Saudi Arabia.
Dean takes this as an example of “…the religious bigotry that seems to underlie Devra’s paranoia…” And this is where I wind up shaking my head in amazement.
Devra, I wouldn’t worry about Dean. He’s a very confused man.
The headline of his site says he’s “Defending the liberal tradition in history, politics, science and philosophy.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be all that clued in on the meaning of liberal. In his blog entry entitled “Who Is Dean?”, he tells us, “Politically, I do not like labeling myself…”, and then after a suitable semi-colon pause, he labels himself, saying: “I consider myself a conservative liberal.”
Some more head-shaking, so I follow his link to his “Are You a Liberal?” entry and I become more certain that he really doesn’t have much of a clue. He takes his definition of a liberal from the dictionary, without even acknowledging that the first definition he quotes for liberal: “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry” is almost directly contradicted by the same dictionary’s definition of conservative: “Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.”
He’s also very fond of the word “bigot” in all its forms, and he’s very quick to use it against any view which diverges from his. On the “Are You a Liberal?” page, he uses the word more than 20 times, twisting it around until it has lost whatever meaning it may have started with. When a commenter on the post says that the statement, “Homosexuality is a sin” is a bigoted statement, Dean calls him a religious bigot, followed by an immediate appeal to traditional, orthodox, authoritarian attitudes: “Does that mean you think Orthodox and Conservative Jews, the majority of Christians, and the majority of Muslims are all bigots?” If all those fine people believe homosexuality is a sin, then it must be bigotry to oppose them. (I think the Dean disease must be catching: I’ve used “bigot” more times in this article than I probably have in all my life.)
But we’re not done. Dean says that it’s bigoted to call someone a bigot. The proper response to an expression of bigotry is to say, “I respect your beliefs, even if I don’t agree with them.” Gosh. I’ll remember that the next time someone calls me a “cheap Jew bastard,” or my friend an “ass-fucking abomination who deserves to get AIDS.”
Of course his several posts on the main page where he calls the French and Germans “The Axis of Weasels”, then decides that weasels are too noble to be compared to the French — those aren’t bigotry, right? Or where he links to that broad-minded newspaper, The New York Post with its front page photo of the UN Security Council meeting with the French and German ambassadors Photoshopped into weasels– that’s not bigotry, either, right?. Those are free-thinking, liberal views. He has certainly come to his conclusion about the weaseltry of the “Old Europe” by careful analysis of the way things look from the French and German points of view. “I respect your beliefs, even if you are a bunch of cheese- and kraut-eaters.”
Of course this “liberal” is also for war against Iraq — sorry: he’s for the liberation of “the people” of Iraq. These are the same people we’ve starved for 12 years and who we will now proceed to “Shock and Awe” into little bitty smithereens, until we’ve conquered — sorry: “liberated” — their land, handed it over to the oil companies, and then neglected to include any aid for their country’s reconstruction in our budget. (Or was that Afghanistan?)
(Obligatory disclaimer: Saddam is a bad bad man and an illegitimate ruler. He was recently elected in a supposedly democratic manner, where, in fact, the voters had no choice in their input. As opposed to the US, where the majority of voters had no choice in the outcome.)
I don’t know why I’ve spent so much time on this oxy-moronic “conservative liberal” — maybe it’s because he’s abusing a fine philosophy. Or maybe it’s because I’m a bigot.
Or maybe it’s because I understand — truly and deeply — what Devra is talking about. I have taken to heart all the great qualities of this country, believed in them, believed that the deficiencies would be healed, and that one day we would truly be the ideal imagined by the nation’s founders and by every freedom-seeking individual in the world. But lately, the only word to describe my feelings about my country is “heartbroken.”
