Essentials

In this article, I will list several attitudes that I believe must be purged from the left and the Democratic Party in order for us to be a viable political entity again. However, I would argue that the reason to purge them is not on the grounds of utility. They should be purged because they are stupid, ignorant, arrogant, racist, sexist, and various other nasty things. However, I will argue on grounds, of both utility and principle.

White Men

Feminazism

Perhaps this heading disturbs you. Isn’t that a Rush Limbaugh word? Yes! The left brought Rush Limbaugh upon itself by coddling weak ideologies within its ranks. That is why the Democratic Party needs purging in the first place… because there are Feminazis, and we have not only tolerated them but actually allowed this extremist point of view to define us. You might not believe it if you are a garden variety feminist, but if you were a man who had spent much time in certain liberal arts departments, you would know all about Feminazis in powerful academic positions. Here is the remedy.

First of all, we must stop blaming white men for everything. This is actually a form of child abuse, because this attitude will certainly be transferred by mothers to their male children, leaving them scarred and conflicted about being who they are. On principle, nobody deserves to be blamed for something he did not do and get marked in the cradle as somehow morally deficient because of his or her sex and color. For those of you who argue that that is what minorities and women have been facing all along, you may be right, but two wrongs do not make a right… obviously, I might add.

Not only are negative stereotypes of males wrong in principle, they are counterproductive from a utilitarian point of view. If we set up a false binary, white males will mostly either grow up accepting the mantle of dominant oppressor or the mantle of self-flagellating, chastened, masochistic, wimp. Both are abominations. In this way, the left, if it does not purge this attitude, will continue to attract or cultivate the ineffectual spineless variety of male, while emasculating or driving away males with leadership skills and strong convictions.

Neo-Rousseauism

As a mirror of this attitude, the neo-Rousseauist point of view should also be purged. We must stop revering people for their skin color. It is necessary for us to face a few facts. For all the historically deserved flak white men take for the genocide of Native-Americans, it is not fair to paint Native Americans as uniformly respectful, spiritual, peaceful children of a benevolent Mother Nature. Native Americans developed some of the largest institutionalized cultures of ritual mass murder and blood sports history has recorded, not to mention centralized expansionist empires that oppressed much of the continent of North America. Cannibalism was not uncommon in the Americas before Europeans set foot on it. Moreover, recent archaeological evidence also proves that some of the diseases that were thought to have arrived with Europeans had already decimated some indigenous populations.

In Africa, the slave trade, itself, relied upon the willingness of African tribes to make war on each other and sell the captives to slave traders. It would not have made much logistical sense for white guys to go wandering around in the African bush with empty pairs of shackles as depicted in the movie Roots. Instances of war, slavery, and genocide in Africa among black Africans today are constant. Genocides like in Rawanda are, in the absence of guns, conducted with machetes, but it is too easy to get embroiled in arguments that maybe things would not be the way they are if the white boys had never entered the continent, so I will leave that alone. There is that slight, though farfetched and extremely conceited hypothesis that we in fact are responsible for every evil in the world. I don’t have the time or inclination to approach it, though, because arguing with retarded people is not much fun.

Also, we must not revere Arabs and Muslims. During the slave trade, slaves were mostly sold to the European slavers on the West coast of Africa by Muslim brokers, who spoke an Arabic language called Swahili. Muslims and Arabs have also, throughout their history, attacked the West, often with huge imperial armies. Arab countries have the largest problems with slavery today. Carthage sent elephants against Rome. Iraq sent an enormous invading land force against Greece on more than one occasion, and also a formidable navy. India, birthplace of Buddhism, has nuclear weapons. So does Pakistan. Pol Pot, dictator of Cambodia, slaughtered 1/3 of his country's population, percentage-wise a much greater slaughter than the Nazis pulled off. The Moors conquered Spain. North Korea has nukes. Constantinople, former seat of western civilization, is now called Istanbul. The Byzantines did not just hand it over, kids. The Chinese in their populist revolution managed to outdo the atrocities of the French Revolution, they maintain the second most powerful nuclear arsenal in the world, and they are notoriously undemocratic. They slaughtered about a thousand unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square with tanks fairly recently. The Japanese in World War II invaded Nanking, in what was later referred to as “The Rape of Nanking,” during which they raped and slaughtered the population, dumping their bodies into huge pits, on an almost unprecedented scale, taking young women as sex slaves, or “comfort girls” as the Japanese referred to them, for the military’s use. Japanese imperialism is well documented. Of course, there are plenty of examples of cannibalism and war in Oceana, head-hunting Mecca of the world. The list goes on and on. For now, let’s just let it suffice to say that, regardless of how much we want to woo minorities into our coalitions and no matter how progressive we think it makes us look to blame white men for everything and look to darker people as exemplars... ENOUGH ALREADY! PEOPLE OF ALL RACES ARE HOMICIDAL MANIACS! FACE IT!

A Way Out

This business is indeed soft racism, just like the Republicans say it is. Let’s admit our mistakes and move on. This kind of thing is killing the Democratic Party among the white majority. Remember them? The people we need to attract in order to stomp the Republicans so badly they will not recover for 30 years? No voter wants his candidate to insult him! Voters want candidates that will flatter them! That is all George Bush is able to do, flatter the ignorance of dumbasses, AND HE WON! AND THAT’S ALL HE’S GOT! We can do this, I might add, without insulting or denigrating people because of the color of their skin, and we can do it waving the flag all the way.

And, as far as males go, you should not believe “men are naturally violent” without being able to say “black men are naturally violent.” The one is an associated proposition with the other. Are you comfortable with saying that? Enough of this proportionalist approach that just looks like racism and sexism.

Other Items for Purge

Feminist Elitism

Let’s also examine how many women in political life and especially in the academy, at least in powerful and visible roles, tend to openly denigrate the profession of wife and mother. This is not to say they should be promoting it. I only suggest that if we expect every woman to have a successful career and family at the same time, this will leave many women disaffected. Many women can’t hack all of that pressure. Many others actually have to work, and some of them would actually prefer not to, believe it or not! But the point is, women in all of these circumstances should not be made to feel less than, and then be expected to vote for a political party that devalues their lifestyles, hopes, and dreams. Some women actually want to be married and love and respect their husbands openly. This is not the fault of inadequate education; it is a condition of domestic harmony that actually needs no adjustment. Admittedly, we have in a sense allowed ourselves to be defined by our extremes, because anti-family attitudes are not in any sense the attitudes of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. They are, however, the attitudes of some highly visible figures, and perhaps they need to be purged or upbraided by their fellow Democrats for allowing the right to paint us as the party for stuck-up, ugly bitches. We are the party of the Dixie Chicks, for crying out loud, and the Republicans are telling us Ann Coulter his hot! WTF? Also, while defining attitudes that denigrate traditional family roles and pushing professional ambition as the only respectable path for women, we also overlook a very important utilitarian concern. The most powerful determiner of political affiliation is birth. If you are born Republican, you are most likely just going to stay Republican, and it is the same for Democrats. We are just not making as many little Democrats as the Republicans are making little fascists.

Zionism

Another highly divisive issue is Zionism. Although I would not argue that the US needs to turn its back on Israel—after all, it is surrounded by people who want to drive the Jews into the sea—we should no longer cut a blank check of unconditional support for Israel. It has shown itself to be a brutal expansionist state in a fashion reserved only for religious states, and has often done so in a strikingly dismissive way of the people who give them their power: Democrats and Republicans. They routinely send spies against us, and have refused to accept any conditions on how they use the billions in military aid we give them annually. Bush’s administration, I believe, has shown brilliance in dealing with this situation, and this causes me no end of chagrin. He has outwardly backed most Israeli actions. However, we see Sharon unilaterally withdrawing settlements in the occupied territories. To the student of history, this makes no sense. Ariel Sharon is one of the most notorious expansionist hawks in the Israeli government. Do the algebra. What is the factor forcing Sharon to withdraw, since it goes against every one of his instincts and is not even politically popular in Israel? The answer is the Bush administration has threatened him with withdrawal of money. It is the only answer I can think of, and, to Bush’s credit, he is to my knowledge also the only US president to ever call for a Palestinian state.

When explaining ourselves to Jews, we must make sure, however, to distinguish between Jews, Zionism, and the idea of a continuing state of Israel. They are separable. Don’t let anyone tell you they aren’t. They are three different ideas. Jews can be thought of as a religion, as a cultural group, a tribe, or a race, and there is no consensus among those calling themselves Jews as to what Jewishness is. There is no mistake, however, as to what Zionism is. Zionism is the idea that Israel is for Jews. This idea has nothing to do with anything Americans should be supporting. We do not believe in religious/racial hegemony, as far as I can tell, right? We should support the Jews in Israel. Israel is a fact, and we should support its right to exist. We should not, however, support its Zionist tendencies and messianic expansionism, nor should we continue to turn a blind eye to the horrors of the illegal Israeli occupation of Arab land. We should call for an end to the idea of Israel as a religiously styled state, and openly push for a real democracy and a right of return for Palestinian refugees. On the other hand, we must remain mindful all the while that they are surrounded by ignorant people who would love to slit all of their throats.

However, the evil of Zionism is something the Democrats have never have the political courage to face for fear of losing more of the coalition that has held the party together since the new deal. But make no mistake, Democrats: By supporting what has turned into a brutal colonial racial/religious hegemony like Israel, shaped and placed as it is like a wedge in the middle of the Arab world, we Democrats have brought the hatred of America in the Arab world with our own dime as much if not more than the Republicans have. You cannot run around like you did after 9/11 asking, “Why do they hate us?” Don’t ask me. Ask them. Then listen to what they say. They hate us because we prop up the worst thorns in their side, like Zionist expansionism and Saudi despots. Voiceless people in Saudi Arabia will tell you, if you get them alone, what a nightmare it is to live under their US supported despots.

They hate us because we have our foot on their necks.

This is not to suggest that the Arab world has not brought a considerable amount of backwardness and chaos upon itself or that the criminals who have taken up the banner of Islamic revolution are nice guys. Far from it. But terrorists came from turf made fertile by oppression and violence, and it was not just tilled by Republicans, ladies and gentlemen. We Democrats, along with Republicans, picked these fights ourselves. The Republicans, at least, are honest enough to proudly display their hawkishness. The Democrats, on the other hand, have hidden behind a smokescreen of pacifism. We as Democrats must either denounce our unconditional support of Zionism and the Saudi royal family, or we must take responsibility for the wars and terrorism that our support creates and be honest about the lie of our supposed pacifism. We can’t have it both ways, I don’t think. We must also face another fact that many of us will not want to hear, which is that, even after both papa and baby Bush, Democratic administrations have still started more wars than Republican ones. I would argue that Democrats have always started better wars. That, however, is up for debate, but Democrats have never been pacifists! It is a historical fact. We must face it, or Yale cheerleaders will continue to be able to paint us as wimps for crying out loud.

Gun Control

Gun control is a debatable proposition… interminably, but even Michael Moore is a card-carrying NRA member. Canadians own more guns per capita than Americans, as he points out. Maybe our gun violence problem is not actually the fault of guns. Maybe we are just breeding a bunch of vicious thugs by having a society that lets them know that we do not care about their health, safety, dignity, and wellbeing, and then send them to government gay rape camps when they blow up. After a guy gets out of one of those jails, he will kill with his bare hands.

Maybe it’s just me, but I like guns. I would much prefer that I had been introduced to them by someone who knew how to handle them, though, not by the freaks I learned from. The fact is, Democrats, that you are unarmed and surrounded by psychotic Republican fascists with guns—lots of guns—and in my opinion you had better get some. In the final analysis, they don’t have to listen to us. They have the guns. The reason to protect a right to bear arms is that we may well have to fight a fascist takeover of the government at some point. No, this is not a farfetched scenario. It is the way the world works, historically, and our 200 years of freedom have truly been an aberration. The price of freedom really is eternal vigilance. While it is true that the so-called right to bear arms exists only in a constitutional penumbra, a constitutional penumbra is also where the so-called right to privacy resides. We should give a little to get a little. Right or wrong, there are plenty of Republicans who might switch to Democrat if we support a right to bear arms and welcome them in. There is no way to court these guys with the stars and bars in their pickup truck windows, as Howard Dean suggested, without supporting a right to bear arms! He is kidding himself if he thinks there is! Get real! It is easy for affluent liberals to talk about gun control, but be aware that the criminals who already have them don’t live in your neighborhoods, and, should they mess up and go to your neighborhoods, the cops come when you call. This is an opposite reality to that of many Americans. America has an entrenched gun culture. Reality. However, not all of it is bad. Democrats should embrace a right to bear even assault weapons in return for support on social policy so that the people who own them are educated enough not to shoot people with them. While we are at it, we should buy guns. The Kalashnikov is a good choice. Also, the Glock 9mm. On a budget, an inexpensive shotgun with a pistol grip and a short barrel packs a lot of power into a compact frame. Ammo, parts, and accessories, such as trigger locks, are readily available.

Extreme Pro-Choice Ideology

To hear some pro-choice activists tell it, a woman has a right to abort her pregnancy up until birth. That is, you can destroy a life that is capable of surviving outside the womb on its own already. This is just too easy to attack by the right as infanticide. We must convince people who will not back off from this extremist point of view that they are hurting not only the party, but are bringing down quite a backlash on ALL abortion rights. Indeed, often you will hear women saying that a pregnancy is part and parcel of a woman's body until birth, and men have no right to dictate what she does with her body. Funny how it is her body when she wants an abortion and half the father's when she wants child support. I don't see how a party that prides itself on the depth and complexity of its arguments can rely on stubborn insistance on unsupportable absolutes like a pregnancy is part of the woman's body. To be sure, it is inside her body. So was the father's penis, but that doesn't give her the right to cut it off. The baby shares about half the father's DNA, so how can the woman say it is part of her body and not the man's? Imagine this scenario. An 8.5 months pregnant woman and her husband are happily making plans and decorating the nursery, when they attend the funeral of the husband's grandmother. There, they find out the secret that the father's grandmother was half Jewish. When the husband gets home from work the next day, he finds his wife has had an abortion because she says she "will not bring a kike baby into the world." Remember, we are only deciding upon whether she has a right to terminate the pregnancy, not for which reasons she can do it, but shouldn't the father have something to say about it at this point? If so, how far can we realistically back the date up to give a woman the opportunity to have an abortion, but not the opportunity to be wishy-washy for 9 months. I mean, how many months do you realistically need to choose? Let's back it up a little, maybe even before viability, because extremist pro-choice rhetoric is KILLING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY at the polls. We look like the party of infanticide. I believe a woman should have the right to choose, but not the leisure to sit around letting her belly get big and her fetus get cute so there will be plenty of messy horrifying pictures for the right to exploit. Plus, it makes me sick, too. Seriously. It's disgusting, and looks more murderous the more developed the fetus becomes. If she doesn't want to have a baby, she can bloody well decide soon after she finds out she is pregnant. Maybe it doesn't make you sick, but at least having the Republicans kill us at the polls should.

Religion

I don’t know if I can actually deal with this, as I am having a hard time not throttling fundamentalists since the election. Someone else has to figure out how to manipulate these pea brained fundamentalists, since they obviously prefer to be manipulated. I, however, can’t bring myself to hide my contempt.

Political Correctness

I have written a whole article on this one. Read it here.