| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Dying dictators and double standards |
| 2006-12-13 |
| By Brent Bozell III That great American ambassador and lovely lady Jeane Kirkpatrick has left us, but her passing also causes us to remember her strategic sense and moral clarity. She came to national prominence in Reaganite circles in 1979 with her marvelous Commentary magazine essay on "Dictatorship and Double Standards." It argued that traditional authoritarian autocracies were both more susceptible to liberalization and more amenable to American interests than totalitarian dictatorships of the left, which came into power with disturbing frequency in the late 1970s, with America as their stated enemy. She easily explained how the Carter administration and the liberal press romantically saw in the revolutionary left a shared commitment to modernity over tradition, science over religion, an educated bureaucracy over private hierarchies, and futuristic and universal goals over appeals to an archaic and ordered past. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #8 "I'm a product of the American public school system. ;-) Although we did learn about Stalin-era evils" Trailing Wife excepted from my comment, then. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-12-13 19:55 |
| #7 Stalin went after the Jews, too, but they weren't his primary target group, and he wasn't aiming for extermination. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-12-13 12:22 |
| #6 It's also why you very rarely hear "National Socialist", as Hitler was a coerced collectivist who's victim group wasn't the rich, but jews etc. Only the Victim group is different between Communism and Nazism. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-12-13 12:12 |
| #5 the trouble wid DICTATORS is that they are sooooo paranoid/protective of their power + untrustworthy of people that they require surrounding nations to be ruled by fellow dictators, ideally those which can be controlled. An interesting point, JosephM. I hadn't thought of it that way, possibly because I'm a product of the American public school system. ;-) Although we did learn about Stalin-era evils, possibly because we had a lot of parents who were professors at the nearby university, and presumably some of them were in the history department, just as Daddy was very keen to review my chemistry text, and help me master the material (for which I blame the fact that I nearly failed the bloody course!). |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-12-13 11:50 |
| #4 And Francisco Franco is still dead. Yes, our dictators were better than their dictators. However, given how much the Donks and left oppose the establishment of real democracies as in Vietnam or Iraq, there doesn't appear to too much of choice. Does that qualify me as a realist? Do these pants make my butt look big? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2006-12-13 09:42 |
| #3 This should come as no surprise to anyone. By the time American public school kids are in 12th grade (if they should make it that far) they've heard of Hitler and his atrocities (rightly so) about 1000 times, and in nearly all cases, of Mao's and Stalin's not at all. Ask them who invaded Poland in 1939, and they'll all say "Hitler", but none will reply with the correct answer "Hitler and Stalin". You can even take it further than this. Schools overwhelmingly teach about the war in Europe, and much less time is alloted to the war against Japan these days. A lot of kids think that WWII was only about the European theater. The explanation for these things is simple. The education industry is overwhelmingly populated by individuals who are left of center in their politics. The leadership and managers of that industry are nearly a monolithic group of leftists. None of these people will EVER teach that anyone whose politics are or were left of center did anything wrong, ever, for fear that kids might ever question the "absolute moral authority" of the left's philosophy/agenda. The idea is that kids must leave school believing that the left is perfect both in intent and deeds, and that literally all the evil in the world is generated from the right of the political spectrum. The Japanese thing stems from this as well. To a leftist, white fascists are ever so much more evil than nonwhite, because to believe otherwise undermines the white guilt thing. The nuke thing is a factor, but not as much as white liberal guilt. As we have seen since 9/11, one of the tactics the left uses to frighten young people away from the center/right is to conflate fascists with Republicans. But if you're claiming that Republicans are white guys who are the party of racism, it undermines your premise greatly to also simultaneously acknowledge that one of the most evil fascist regimes on the planet was nonwhite. Cognitive dissonance takes over. Guess what gets taught? Don't believe me? Ask ten 18 year olds who Hitler was, then ask 'em who Stalin was. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-12-13 06:40 |
| #2 ALso add LEV NAVROZOV's article on WORLDTRIBUNE > the trouble wid DICTATORS is that they are sooooo paranoid/protective of their power + untrustworthy of people that they require surrounding nations to be ruled by fellow dictators, ideally those which can be controlled. THUS A HIGHLY CENTRALIZED DICTATORSHIP + ARMY-POLICE STATE MUST ALWAYS SEEK EXPANSION, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-12-13 02:23 |
| #1 Bang on the money. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-12-13 02:15 |