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d429c40 "At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity. I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity? Perhaps one could phrase the same question in two further ways. At the last election, the GOP succeeded in increasing its vote among American Jews by an estimated five percentage points. Does it propose to welcome these new adherents or sympathizers by yelling in the tones of that great Democrat bigmouth William Jennings Bryan? By insisting that evolution is 'only a theory'? By demanding biblical literalism and by proclaiming that the Messiah has already shown himself? If so, it will deserve the punishment for hubris that is already coming its way. (The punishment, in other words, that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson believed had struck America on Sept. 11, 2001. How can it be that such grotesque characters, calling down divine revenge on the workers in the World Trade Center, are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?). 2001 2003 american-jews atheism ayn-rand biblical-literalism christian-fundamentalism christian-right christianity creationism democratic-party-united-states evolution fundamentalism jerry-falwell jesus jews leo-strauss pat-robertson politics religion republican-party-united-states sectarianism september-11-attacks united-states us-elections-2000 william-jennings-bryan world-trade-center Christopher Hitchens
5bb6eb0 George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism--the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it--is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language. al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory anti-war ba-ath-party bill-clinton democratic-party-united-states evil george-w-bush iraq iraq-war leftism liberalism madeleine-albright moral-absolutism moral-relativism morality opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement presidency-of-bill-clinton presidency-of-george-w-bush rwanda rwandan-genocide saddam-hussein sudan united-nations united-states Christopher Hitchens
4c1ce1d You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labor movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for 'regime change' when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the 'peace' movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba'athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W. Bush the aggressor. anti-war ba-ath-party baghdad communism democratic-party-united-states george-w-bush invasion-of-kuwait iran-iraq-war iraq iraq-war iraqi-communist-party iraqi-kurdistan kurdish-people kuwait labour-movement leftism middle-east opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement republican-party-united-states saddam-hussein socialism Christopher Hitchens
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