This page was last updated on September 12, 2011.
Ten years after; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 11, 2011.
Below is a critique of the subject editorial.
“Let today, the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists [sic] attacks on America, be a day of reassessment.
“Please, take time to mourn the victims and their families. Think about the sacrifices that the men and women in the U.S. military and their families have made over the last decade in fighting extended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Contemplate the acts of heroism that took place on Sept. 11, 2001, and in in [sic] the days since then. Be thankful that there have been no more major attacks on U.S. soil by foreign terrorists.”
[RWC] To see what the BCT really “think[s] about the sacrifices that the men and women in the U.S. military … have made,” please read my critique of “Stress fractures.”
The last sentence in the paragraph should have read, “Be thankful that there have been no more SUCCESSFUL major attacks on U.S. soil by foreign terrorists.”
“But also take the time to reassess where we are heading as a people and a nation 10 years after 9/11.
“Contrary to what some — mainly politicians and ideologues — would have you believe, there are no simple solutions to the problems our nation faces.”
[RWC] As a heads-up, “politicians and ideologues,” “political hardliners and ideologues,” “extremes” don’t include leftists. The BCT routinely publishes this sentiment yet, except for throwaway criticism on minor points, reserves its criticism for the right.
Yes, there are “simple solutions to the problems our nation faces.” The solution is a return to limited government. That said, returning to limited government is a tad more complicated because we made so many of our fellow citizens dependent on things like Medicare and Socialist Security. As I’ve written elsewhere, it would not be right to pull the rug out from under people we made dependent on Medicare and SS. To be fair to the most people (both taxpayers and beneficiaries), it would likely take a few decades to phase out these programs. It’s not a coincidence it’s this hard to eliminate programs like these, and if you think the Ponzi-scheme design of Medicare and SS was an accident or an honest mistake, think again. FDR addressed this in response to payroll tax critic Luther Gulick in 1941. FDR said, “I guess you’re right on the economics, but those taxes were never a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.” The quote was cited by Arthur M. Schlesinger in “The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal,” Houghton Mifflin, 1988 American Heritage Library edition, pages 308-309. In effect, the Ponzi/pyramid scheme was FDR’s “poison pill” to keep SS from ever being eliminated, and 30 years later politicians used the same poison pill for Medicare.
“From massive deficit spending to a weak economy, from an overextended military commitment to police the world to stagnant job growth, from bumper sticker patriotism that requires no sacrifices to indebtedness to foreign countries, from burgeoning entitlement programs to a crumbling and deteriorating infrastructure: All will require shared sacrifices to solve.”
[RWC] Regular readers will recognize “shared sacrifices” is BCT lingo for increased tax rates.
“Yet we appear to be hopelessly divided between left and right, and the main solution they offer seems to be making the other side pay.
“But the extremes do not represent the whole. Many Americans — the moderates, the compromisers, the pragmatists — have been marginalized, even though they represent the majority.”
[RWC] “[T]he moderates, the compromisers, the pragmatists … represent the majority?” Not so much. According to Gallup, “Americans’ political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.” The last I checked, 36% isn’t a majority, and in this case isn’t even a plurality.
Further, your definition of “moderates,” et cetera may differ from that of the BCT. Recall the BCT considers politicians with Americans for Democratic Action Liberal Quotients of more than 90% to be “the moderate middle.”
“They understand what the political hardliners and ideologues don’t — that ‘authentic truth is never simple.’ They know that the world in which we live is complex, and the problems we face are complex.”
[RWC] Here’s the quote with some surrounding text: “By temperament and upbringing, I had always taken comfort in orthodoxy. In a life spent subject to authority, deference had become a deeply ingrained habit. I found assurance in conventional wisdom. Now, I started, however hesitantly, to suspect that orthodoxy might be a sham. I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high — whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops — is inherently suspect. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them. Even then, the truths to which they testify come wrapped in a nearly invisible filament of dissembling, deception, and duplicity. The exercise of power necessarily involves manipulation and is antithetical to candor.” Does anyone care to bet the BCT doesn’t see itself as a contributor to “dissembling, deception, and duplicity” and “manipulation?”
“Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army officer who is now a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, wrote the words quoted above, and they should be a starting point for change.”
[RWC] According to Wikipedia, Andrew Bacevich is a retired career Army officer, “has been ‘a persistent, vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq, calling the conflict a catastrophic failure’,” and “described George W. Bush’s endorsement of such ‘preventive wars’ as ‘immoral, illicit, and imprudent.’” Mr. Bacevich’s son was killed in combat by an IED in Iraq. Sometimes the BCT shares some of this info, sometimes not.
“Start with this question: Are we a better nation than we were 10 years ago?
“Sadly, no, and on many levels. And going to extremes is not the solution.
“Hardliners on the left and right like to mock moderates by saying the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill. But if you steer too far to the left or right, you’ll end up in a ditch.”
[RWC] Did you notice the editorial didn’t give us examples of “going to extremes” and “too far to the left or right?”
“It’s time to steer this country back to the middle of the road.”
[RWC] As I noted above, your definition of “middle of the road” may differ from the leftyspeak version used by the BCT.
© 2004-2011 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.