U.S. Liberals' war stance shows a fundamental disconnect

Yes, another Pit thread about the war, which is in the Pit not so much because of the ranting contained in the OP but for the ranting that will surely come later. Also, I use the term “liberals” here really just for lack of a better word to mean those who want the federal government to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and whatnot; I’m really not one of those who sees an eeeeevil “liberal” behind everything I disagree with.

Here’s my proposition: liberals’ anti-war stance is fundamentally at odds with other standard liberal positions, namely the desire for the federal government to provide social services to people who can’t provide (or obtain) those services for themselves.

While we can bicker about just how nasty Saddam is, I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that he’s a big cuddly huggy bear that has only the best interests of his people at heart. We’ve all heard that he may have killed thousands of his own people, and his use of Iraq civilians as human shields has also been well documented.

Also, the people of Iraq are so afraid of Saddam and are so lacking in power (both military and political) that they are unable to bring about regime change on their own. They are essentially forced to sit back and take whatever Saddam dishes out. Therefore, I think that the present war could be viewed as the US providing a “regime change service” to the people of Iraq. (There are undoubtedly several other reasons for the war that may fully justify it without even bringing up this one, but for purposes of this discussion this is the one I want to highlight).

The fundamental disconnect is therefore that liberals want the federal government to perform all manner of social services to folks in the U.S. who, for whatever reason, are unable (in the liberals’ view) to provide that service for themselves, but they get all upset when the U.S. performs the same service for citizens of another country.

If liberals think that the Iraqi people should be responsible for themselves if they want a regime change, then why don’t they also think that Joe Homeless should be responsible for himself if he wants a housing situation change?

Sure, there are differences in how the U.S. government relates to its own citizens and how the U.S. government should relate to citizens of another country, but I think that the fundamental disconnect I’m positing still stands: liberals think that poor Iraqis are able to (and should) help themselves while simultaneously thinking that poor Americans are unable to (and should not be expected to) help themselves.

Thanks for listening, and if the response rate is anything like the other threads I’ve started, then I’ll go ahead and thank both repliers in advance.

Oh boy.

I’ll go ahead and thank both repliers in advance.

You’re welcome.

I’ll provide the standard right wing explanation: The anti-war folks are being led by anti-Americans and anti-Republicans. E.g., ANSWER is a Stalinist, anti-America group. They organized many of the demonstrations, especially abroad. MoveOn was formed to support Bill Clinton against impeachment. They organized the New York City demonstration of a month ago. Since George Bush is the leader of the US and the leader of the Republican Party, he is the focus of opprobrium. Both sets of organizers are anti-Bush.

That, in my opinion, explains the apparent inconsistencies pointed out in the OP.

There is a third motiviation – fear of change or desire for stability. No doubt, many people would rather keep Saddam in power (“the devil we know”) than risk making a change for something that could be worse. Some people may be more comfortable with open-ended conclusions than definitive endings.

Yeeeesh, december, that is exactly the claim being made to explain why GHW Bush did not throw Hussein out after the first war–and it is being made by people who are more to the political Right on this MB.

December, lick my balls. If you honestly beleive that peace protesters are STALINIST, then you’re a way bigger asshole than I ever gave you credit for.

december, you threw me. How does the first paragraph “explain the apparent inconsistencies in the OP”?

I’m saying that the liberal philosophy of the government’s role in society seems to encourage the present war, while most liberals are actually against it. What does this have to do with who organized which events and whether people like Bush or not?

The last part makes sense, and I take it to mean that despite the inconsistency I point out, what you state is another reason to be opposed to the war. Point taken.

Does anyone besides me get the feeling that thems that are for it and thems that are against it could talk for a thousand years without making a dent in each other’s bulwarks?

Vast generalization, I know, but stereotypes exist for a reason.

Who is more disingenuous, though? My vote is for the right. I think the left has stayed pretty much on topic, i.e. the war is not what the administration says it is about, we are not the world’s police, we are doing this against the wishes of the U.N., war is wrong unless there is dire provocation and danger, etc., etc. I might be wrong about this, though, because I stay as far away from Great Debates and most war threads as I can.

But the right, the right is wiggling and grasping for any old handhold/chink in the armor/strawman they can find. The OP is a prime example of that. With a big dash of flag-waving anti-American bullshit, as exemplified by december. What a bunch of self-serving crap.

I just haven’t seen a great deal of coming together, and/or good old-fashioned agreeing to disagree. Most folks seem content to bark the same old rhetoric at each other, back and forth, over and over. This whole thing reminds me of the brouhaha that 9/11 brought to this place. Save your vitamins, people, you’re gonna need them.

In conclusion, I ask you, in a loving, all-encompassing way, what about them Giants? What about them Red Sox? This country needs baseball more than ever. And anyone who doesn’t like baseball is an anti-American commie pantywaist. I have spoken.

TaxGuy, the main premise of your argument is incorrect, that being anti-war equals being anti-involved in Iraq. Just because “liberals” don’t want to blow up every building in Baghdad doesn’t mean we all want to give Saddam a hug.

You have a fascinating worldview, december. Haven’t you been fed lately?

In reply to the OP, I don’t know if I’m sufficiently left of center to count as “liberal”, but it’s worth noting that there’s a lot of middle ground between the US effecting regime change virtually singlehandedly and leaving the Iraqi people to solve their own problems. A significant amount of the opposition that I’ve seen has less to do with “no war ever” and more to do with “This is a really stupid way to accomplish what we want”. The US could, with a little diplomatic effort, have achieved a much broader international consensus (even excluding all the UN waffling) and effected a regime change in Iraq without making it look like a gratuitous power grab. IOW, the Bush administration has dropped the diplomatic ball on this one, and a lot of people inside and outside the US are unhappy about it.

Certainly there are a lot of fringe groups involved in the anti-war protests (and there is a whole thread devoted to them: Why do peace protests attract all the loonies?) but don’t assume that they represent everyone protesting this war.

I must have missed the air campaign that preceded the war on poverty, followed by the infantry and armor invasion of the Appalachians.

Let me see if understand this: for liberals to be consistent, shouldn’t they support the US providing these “services” in every nation on the Earth where they aren’t currently provided?

Also, where is it that liberals are against the US providing humanitarian aid?

I agree. However, most of these right wingers learned from their mistake.

BTW there’s a fourth anti-war group that ought to be mentioned. Some Muslims and Arabs oppose this war as being against their groups. These people are not necessarily liberal or peace-loving.

Flymaster – this was discussed a few weeks ago. Many sources described A.N.S.W.E.R. as “Stalinist”, including the Washington Post. I’ll help you research the organization on a search engine. There are a bunch of cites on this page. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=A.N.S.W.E.R.+stalinist&btnG=Search+News

TaxGuy, my argument is that most of the so-called “anti-war” groups are not actually opposed to war in general. They are opposed to this war – some because it’s led by the US and some because it’s led by a Republican. That’s why they’re less concered with Saddam’s mistreatment of Iraqis and others or the possibility that the war may ultimately help Iraqs far more than it harms them.

essvee, I’m with you on longing for the baseball season to begin.

jr8 – you say, “it’s worth noting that there’s a lot of middle ground between the US effecting regime change virtually singlehandedly and leaving the Iraqi people to solve their own problems.” ISTM the US and the UN have been searching for this “middle ground” ever since 1991. Nobody has found it. I wish there were a peaceful means or a UN-led means to get a better government in Iraq, but frankly I just don’t see one.

TaxGuy, first off, what exactly is the reasoning that the Right applies to this war?. First it was against terrorism, then when that didn’t pan out, it was becuse of WMD, when that didn’t work out, it was for UN violations (missiles that go 10 miles over the limiits), now it’s for liberation/freedom. Once your side decides why it wanted to war, my side will be able to argue the point.

I’m all for the liberation. So far I don’t see a lot of evidence that these folks want to be liberated. Moreover, why didn’t we liberate Rwanda when they were all getting murdered. Why aren’t we liberating Cubans, North Koreans, etc. etc…? Why are we so concerned about Iraq’s humanitarian problems when Africa is in the midst of one of it’s worst famines in history?

If it’s a matter national security, then why aren’t we talking to North Korea, or Iran or making a bigger effort in Israel/Palestine peace talks? These are far greater threats to our national security.

My bottom line is I don’t think this is going to be an easy war, and even more difficult aftermath. I think it poorly conceived, and I don’t think that liberation is the motive at all. I’m not sure I believe that liberation is even necessarily going to be outcome at all, and I think we are actually making ourselves far less secure by waging this war.

Let me ask you and compatriots a question now. Why is it that you’re more than will to spend 10 billion dollars to liberate Iraqis, but not willing to give a couple million bucks to the poor and elderly in this country?

oh, good, I was low on “Other people distilling my world view into 10 second sound bites”.

And this has traditionally been a right wing, conservative position. I believe Edmund Burke mentioned that it was better to have stability than overthrow the system and get something worse.

It was also the US position during the Cold War, that stability was more important in the third world than democracy.

Yep, and even then, sometimes it’s a correct position. But I have yet to hear a war-hawk speculate on what will happen if a power vacuum in Iraq will lead to a fanatical Islamic state that will present a real danger to the free world. And I see that as a very real possibility.

Kabul McDonald’s: 0 Served

TaxGuy, you state that Liberals think that the Iraqis should liberate themselves. Can you cite even one liberal who has stated this? Being a liberal that tends to surround himself with liberals, I have not heard this opinion even once. I smell straw…

light strand, why can’t it be a combination of all of those reasons? Few important decisions are made based solely on one piece of information.

I’d say it is obvious that Saddam is a ‘bad man’ and has been in violation of the UN for a decade. In addition he is pursuing a program to develop WMD (I don’t think anyone seriously disputes this, not even the French). In addition he has shown a willingness to cooperate with terrorists (not necessarily Al Qaeda). If he decided to provide terrorist groups with WMD, they would show little compunction about using them. Why war? We’ve been using the sanctions and inspections route for a decade, it hasn’t worked.

Any one of these pieces alone may not justify armed conflict, but I believe that when they are taken as a whole, they do. I do understand that there are plenty of reasonable people who disagree.

The obvious answer to that is that there are better ways of helping people than dropping bombs on them. I don’t think anyone is arguing that Saddam isn’t a bad guy, but we as a country do not have the right to just unilaterally decide that we are going to invade countries because of human rights violations. If that were the case, we’d have to try to pick off about 1/2 the planet, including China, North Korea, and probably most of the African continent. That’s supposed to be what the U.N. is for; if we just disregard the U.N., it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? And as has already been pointed out, it’s pretty doubtful that the primary reason for invading Iraq is to help the Iraqi people. If it were, why would the Bush administration invest so much effort into making this tenous Al Qaeda link?

Oh, and North Korea is the obvious other nation that combines bad leader and immediate threat to the rest of the world. Honestly, I don’t really know much about the situation there. How exhaustive have our diplomatic attempts to keep a handle on things in North Korea been?

I’m pretty sure the Vietnam vet and the Episcopal priest I marched with this weekend were Stalinists.