Wall Street Opinion Journal JAMES Q. WILSON Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Can a polarized nation win a protracted war?
The 2004 election left our country deeply divided over whether our country is deeply divided. For some, America is indeed a polarized nation, perhaps more so today than at any time in living memory. In this view, yesterday’s split over Bill Clinton has given way to today’s even more acrimonious split between Americans who detest George Bush and Americans who detest John Kerry, and similar divisions will persist as long as angry liberals and angry conservatives continue to confront each other across the political abyss. Others, however, believe that most Americans are moderate centrists, who, although disagreeing over partisan issues in 2004, harbor no deep ideological hostility. I take the former view.
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Good article. There’s extremism on both ends of the spectrum, and I’d like to see it denounced by those whose feet are firmly in the middle. It doesn’t necessarily mean one must compromise one’s own values in one’s life. It’s just that, at least in America, reasonable people can disagree on political issues and be done with it.
How are we defining extremism, though? The article doesn’t say. It talks about what its effects are (such as ad hominem attacks and “wholesale slurs”) and which are often completely unfounded.
Perhaps when one no longer views one’s “side” as being capable of extremism, one’s already become one. If you can’t look at the CWFA (which is now publishing articles by members of Chalcedon.Org – a Christian Reconstructionist group) as being on (or at least moving towards) the outer right perimeter in terms of social policy, then you’re probably peeking with one eye shut. Likewise, if no press release put out by PETA makes you shudder, then you’ve probably closed your ears as well.
Most Americans are not ideologues, and though some consider this a weakness of intellect, I’m not sure there’s an alternative when we live in a society as diverse as ours.
Terrible article. In the last paragraph the author suggests that questioning the nation’s foreign policy is tantamount to treason and giving comfort to the enemy.
If that’s true then all the Republicans, like Tom DeLay, who opposed American military action to end the genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo, in 1995 and 1999, should have been branded as traitors.
Sometimes the reasons given for our nation’s foreign policy decisions seem so clear and indisputable that the public gives them their strong and widespread support. Very few Americans, for example, questioned the need to destroy the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Other times the justifications provided for our nation’s policy on certain issues seem weak, uncertain and nebulous, and we can see a corresponding reduction in popular support for those policies. Currently, 55% of the American public believe it was a mistake for the United States to have invaded Iraq.
In an advanced democracy we should have a little trust in the wisdom of the people. If they are questioning their nation’s foreign policy, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are unpatriotic. Thier continuing questions may signify that the answers they have been given thus far have not been satisfactory or credible.
Dean writes: “In the last paragraph the author suggests that questioning the nation’s foreign policy is tantamount to treason and giving comfort to the enemy.”
That’s one way of reading it. But there is another interpretation — before the U.S. goes to war we damn well better be sure that it’s a war that people will support. That includes basing the war on good information, having clear goals and realistic expectations, and going to war out of necessity, not choice. In other words, if you go to war without these prior requirements being present, it makes no sense to blame people who oppose the war.
I generally liked the article, though I disagree with it on a number of points. But to me the article’s major failing is that it looks only at polarization. It doesn’t look at recent situations where we have not been polarized. Stated differently, if you want to understand sickness you have to study both health and sickness.
When Bush won in 2000, people I knew were upset about the circumstances, but everyone basically said “well, maybe he’ll be ok. Maybe there is something to his compassionate conservatism.” Immediately post-9/11 there was no polarization. Virtually everyone supported the president, and frankly, the president was making all the right moves. When we invaded Afghanistan, people, even liberals, supported that. And at that time we had the overwhelming support of countries around the world. Even the French sent aid and military assistance.
So the interesting question is this: given that even liberals and people around the world have lined up behind the president in the past, what happened to change that?