Where the Thinking Goes Awry

I keep wondering how people on the far left can be so against the war in Iraq when so many of "their" issues were addressed as part of the accompishment. For example: the war stopped a massive abuse of human rights. I don't even need to go into it, but Saddam, his henchmen, and his incredibly sadistic sons were not only intimidating people, but actually abusing (like torturing, raping, maiming, and killing) people. The war and it's aftermath are having a very positive effect on women's rights. The war and its aftermath have the potential of creating a more liberal atmosphere that is more accepting of gays. There are massive numbers of people who, for the first time ever, have clean water and electricity. Wealth, rather than being completely concentrated in the hands of a tyrannical dictator and his cronies, will be dispersed down though the society and the resources of the land will benefit the people.

I would think that these types of results would generate an enthusiastic response. Yet, for the far left (not the more moderate Democrats), the war is seen as a horrible act by the administration, done as the result of lies, and for some motive other than our security and to benefit the Iraqi people. The cynical question is: "Who would Jesus Bomb?"

Without going into a whole metaphysical conversation, I have an quick answer (despite the rhetorical nature of the question). First, Jesus was operating out of a different consciousness, and he wouldn't need bombs to affect the change (I won't go deeply into this now). Second, in the absence of achieving the consciousness that Jesus possessed, Jesus would bomb those who were suppressing God's children; asserting their ego's dominion over other people, treating their "subjects" cruelly, killing them, causing them to live in FEAR, and, as a result of the ego-driven leader's actions, keeping the people from attaining higher consciousness and understanding of themselves. Jesus would stand up and say: "No more. You can NOT treat my brothers and sisters this way! You do it because you do not understand your true nature, but, despite my sympathy and understanding of that fact, I cannot allow you to cruelly be a cause in keeping others from their self-realization." As I said, Jesus would likely be able to impact Saddam's consciousness in ways we can't. But, the point would be to protect our "brothers and sisters" (which also includes people like the Iraq's neighbors--remember what they did when they invaded Kuwait city?--and others, including citizens of the U.S.).

So, I was wondering why liberals are upset when liberal goals are being acheived. I acknowledge that innocent people are killed in the war. No question about it, and it's a horrendous thing. However, that fact alone begs the question, do you save the lives of the innocent by not having the war, just to trade those lives and more that will be taken by the tyranical dictator, or, at best, to give those lives over to the life of fear and suppression they will live? Tough question, no doubt!

What I realized, thinking of my own views when I was a liberal Democrat, is this: In the liberal's mind, the government under which people live is invisible and has no impact. It is the individual, or even the whole of the PEOPLE that tug at the liberal heartstrings. And the people are, in liberal thinking, a wholly separate and unassociated thing from the government. I think this is the result of living in a place where the government is so benign that people can actually be thought of as separate from, and relatively unaffected by, the government under which they live. How we live, and where we take our lives and our consciousness and our personal expression IS up to us. In the liberal thinking I refer to, it's assumed that that is the case everywhere.

Here's how I arrived at that conclusion: Remember the height of the cold war, when the threat of nuclear war with the USSR seemed very real? There was a way of thinking that developed where we said, "The Soviets are just people like us. Let's let them be. Let's just get along. Who cares if they're communists? They love thier children just like we love OUR children. We're really the same." That kind of thinking was pervasive. It made its way into "Rocky IV" and Sting songs: "The Russians love their children too..."

The part about the Soviets being people just like us had the benefit of being true. The problem was, it DID ignore their government. It ignored the fact that our Soviet brothers and sisters were standing in line for bread and toilet paper because of their government. It ignored the fact that our Soviet brothers and sisters could not find their own individual expression in life, and become the person they want to be, because the government told them what they could be and punished any self-expression (recall that dissidents were jailed or killed). It ignored the fact that the "State" could jail or kill our Soviet brothers and sisters at its whim and there was no independent judiciary, or even an independent press to say anything about it. And, it ignored that the government of the Soviet Union wanted to SPREAD that wonderful way of life around the world. Including to US.

For the liberal mind, the totalitarianism that was being called Soviet style socialism was OK... whether it was OK with our Soviet brothers and sisters or not. They were in misery and had no hope, but somehow we liberals were being loving and compassionate by saying, "You're just like us, so we accept your style of government and see no reason to have that be a reason for anyone being killed!" No thought was being given to how much the PEOPLE wanted their style of government. No thought to whether or not THEY might want freedom and the same kinds of rights and ability to determine their own fate that we have.

Remember M*A*S*H? It was SO anti-war! The purpose of the war and the result of the war made no difference. The war itself was consistently referred to as stupid, or assinine, etc. The military people were fools, and the compassionate doctors who hated the war and thought only of the individual lives were the smart ones and the good guys. That was about the Korean war. Right now, North Korea is ruled by an insane dictator in an extremely oppressive regime. There's incredible poverty and starvation. Millions of people have no hope and live horrible lives. In South Korea, people are productive, wealth is being generated, and obesity is becoming a big problem (far different than starvation, huh?). Do you think the average North Korean wouldn't prefer that we, or someone, had kept fighting and had won so that they were living like the South Koreans? Hawkeye and BJ SEEMED so compassionate, but they were more than willing to leave millions to lives lived under Kim Jong Il. (Yeah... I know it's fiction, but it's typical "no war no matter what the cost" thinking).

That's where I believe the thinking of the far left goes awry. They have compassion for the people, but don't seem to have any concept that the government under which the people live makes a huge difference in the quality of those people's lives. As much as they criticize our government, it is our government's relatively benign nature that enables them to forget how truly horrible, how terrifying, how suppressing, how profound an effect a tyrannical government could have on lives. They can believe that compassion is protecting those lives as they are, and not see how compassion could be changing those conditions so people can flourish rather than mearly survive.

P.S. I just saw "Million Dollar Baby." I would bet the most liberals would look at the euthanasia and say, "It was the right thing to do. There was no quality of life! Nobody should have to live like that." But those same liberals would say that liberating Iraq and ultimately providing millions with a tremendously improved quality of life cost the lives of too many innocent Iraqis.