But the way Kerry’s campaigning on cultural issues gives you the real clue to the dominant forces in American life: he talks up his Catholicism; on abortion, he says he ‘personally believes’ life begins at conception, it’s just that as a Democrat he can’t find it in him to legislate according to his principles; everywhere he goes he gets photographed brandishing guns, even guns that he, as an effete Massachusetts panty-waist, has voted to ban; he boasts to hunting magazines about his favourite assault rifle — at least until the legality of his ownership of such a weapon is called into question. This is how a big-government, anti-globalisation, socialised-healthcare, Francophiliac Democrat has to campaign in America: pro-guns, pro-God, deeply evasive on abortion. In almost any other Western nation, none of these things would matter.And the closer:
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The real divide is between the neocons (for want of a better term) and the ‘assertive nationalists’ — that’s to say, those who think we ought to bomb rogue states, smash their regimes and rebuild them as democratic societies, and those who think we ought to bomb rogue states, smash their regimes, and then leave them to stew in their own juices, with a reminder that if the next thug is foolish enough to catch Washington’s eye, then (as Arnie says) ‘Ah’ll be back!’ This difference can seem like a big deal — those who think we need to win their hearts and minds vs those who think they’re mostly heartless and mindless, so who cares? But in truth it’s only a difference of degree.
If I wasn’t a conservative before 9/11, I’d certainly be one now. On one side I see decayed, self-absorbed passivity: citizens reduced to junkies with government as the pusher. On the other stand the gun-crazies, the religious Right, the home-schoolers, the flat-taxers and all the rest: you don’t have to agree with them on everything to appreciate that, in a new war which not all of the West will survive, they have an advantage over the Swedes and Belgians. A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state.In which not all of the West will survive? Yikes. Steyn certainly anticipates the present war with Islamic Facism to be a long term conflict lasting decades. And for the most part I agree with him. Any form of totalitarianism ceases to exist only after it has been unquestionably defeated and discredited. I simply believe that 'the West', outside of conservative circles, doesn't have the stomach to apply this remedy. The alternative to the conservative position it to lay low, play defense, and hope this new form of totalitarianism burns itself out.
Who is right? Well only time will tell. History though suggests a betting man would put his money on the conservative position. People who oppose the conservative position have to convince me that either history is wrong or that this present conflict is profoundly different with past conflicts with totalitarians. I haven't been convinced yet.
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