A reasonable, substantial debate

Two articles caught my eye, today.

E.J. Dionne wrote one of the more arrogant columns I have seen him write in the very long time that I have followed his work.

An Antiwar Tide on the Rise

E.J. doesn't even hold open the possibility that he might be wrong about the war. That there is still a substantial debate and discussion, on-going and which needs to be on-going, about what to do with the situation in Iraq. His column is one long screed about how he and and those who want to pull out are right and how President Bush must be brought to heel to see just how right they are.

Sounds a lot like a President I know, actually, doesn't it? Stubborness and self-righteousness doesn't distinguish between ideology, it seems.

Meanwhile, John McCain makes some really interesting comments today.

McCain: Progress is being made in Iraq

From that article:

"Using a color-coded map of Iraq as a prop, McCain said Iraqi army battalions have arrived for duty as called for, many at or above 75 percent of their programmed levels, bomb attacks and murders are down since the new policy was implemented and the number of civilians killed in Baghdad dropped from 1,222 in December to 494 in February.

He said U.S. forces have moved out of large bases to take up positions in small outposts as part of a shift in strategy. "Contrary to predictions, this has not increased U.S. casualties. And, not surprisingly, our presence has resulted in a dramatic increase in actionable intelligence about terrorists," he said.

McCain said the debate in the Senate had an Alice in Wonderland quality to it, with critics of the war attempting to "micromanage a conflict based on what the conditions were three months ago — not what the reality is today."

Ironic, isn't it? A Democratic Congress being criticized for being out of touch with reality on the ground in this war. I thought liberals had a monopoly on being in touch with reality and conservatives were all in denial? Or that's what you'd assume listening to so many liberals and Democrats, these days.

The truth is that I've not really thought seriously about supporting for John McCain for President, necessarily. I have been more of a Barack Obama, Rudy Guliani, Ron Paul sort of independent, with my eye on Barack because I like the tone he's set in terms of how political debate and discussion needs to take place. Barack seems more genuinely committed to lifting up the political debate, generally, and having discussions that transcend traditional schisms between right and left that I really appreciate, even as he has many views that are more conventionally liberal as I might hold. All of the candidates have views I don't like. Rudy's tough on crime attitude sours me, ironically, even as it endears so many to him. His effort to rid New York City of smut struck me as Puritanical and too nanny-state for my tastes, even as I appreciate that he is pro-choice, as am I, and in favor of gay rights, as am I, and has an unconventionally liberal view on gun control, even as I favor gun rights and take gun responsibility very seriously and am very aware and concerned about the dangers that guns in the wrong hands can pose in the world.

I am in favor of gun rights, ironically, for the very same reason that Rudy is in favor of gun control, I imagine: because I think it will make us safer and that people will be more responsible with guns and will have more responsible conversations among gun owners the more their freedom is respected. I'm also convinced that more dangerous folks like the militia-men and the slightly off-kilter Timothy McVeigh/Terry Nichols types will both more likely stay above ground and out in the open and feeling less threatened by government intervention in their lives the more freedom there is around this issue and, thus, less likely to engage in the most dangerous behavior around guns and do things like the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing the less they have to fear from government, which is their most typical and seriously-felt rationale for maintaining such gun-focussed paranoia.

I disagree with Rudy about how to get to better resolution of this serious issue. But I am sure that he supports gun control for the very same reason that I supported gun control all the way up past the 2000 election, when I supported Bill Bradley with nearly indistinguishable views from Bill on this issue and most issues: because he wants the world to be safer. It's the reason that George Bush invaded Iraq and that liberals want to withdraw and the reason why so many of our political discussions get so fucked up. Because we all want our fears about the world to go away and we are all sure that we have all the right answers to get us there.

Ron Paul was a name around my house when I was growing up because though my dad has been a liberal since his college days when he carried around petitions to impeach Nixon at his and my alma mater, Wichita State University, he had a very serious libertarian streak that he and my extended family has always had and that I have shared. It is the reason that he voted for John Anderson in 1980 (it may have been the libertarian candidate, Ed Clarke, but for some reason I remember him voting for John Anderson, the independent, that year) and the reason why he voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

My dad has never been a social conservative in any meaningful way (neither have I) except when he would awkwardly avoid sexual conversations when I was growing up and the fact that he wouldn't let us watch rated-R movies until we were actually 17 (something that my sisters and brother and I would routinely circumvent at my grandparents' house when they would go to bed on weekends and leave HBO and Cinemax to a bunch of curious, horny little teenagers). But he has always been a businessman and had a pretty serious libertarian streak in him, one of the more important things that my family, split unevenly between liberals and Democrats, like my dad and my immediate family, and conservatives and Republicans, like my grandma and grandpa and most of my uncles and aunts who have been red-state folks as long as Reagan has been President (my grandpa was very much like Reagan, as it turns out; both macho and gentile, but also a Roosevelt Democrat and a Reagan Republican).

I like Ron Paul and I'm interested in what his candidacy will bring to the Republican party. I'm concerned about whether he has genuine leadership and executive capacity (an edge I have to give to Rudy Guliani over all of the major candidates, I have to say, including Barack, largely because of his mayoral experience, and because he did a fine job, I thought, of handling the 9/11 crisis, in striking contrast to Ray Nagin's flailing performance in New Orleans when the hurricanes hit). But I'm very interested in what his candidacy will bring to the Republican party and general election political debates and discussions ahead of the 2008 election.

The point of this long-rambling post, though, is not to flush out my views on major Presidential candidates.

The point of this post is that it is becoming crystal clear to me that stubborn self-righteousness and the failure to engage more open-mindedly and open-heartedly serious policy debates, like the Iraq war, is not something that is monopolized by the President. Quite the contrary, I find the President refreshingly open-hearted compared to the drumbeat for withdrawal from the likes of E.J. Dionne, these days (seems E.J. may have more in common with the Vice President he imagines as so evil than he's likely reflected on).

The number of civilians who have died since the surge has dropped from 1,222 in December to 494 in February, McCain argues. Bomb attacks and murders are down.

All of which begs the question at this point in the war: who is not open to hearing that they are wrong, at this point?

I don't pretend to have any crystal ball about this war or any issue. I could be wrong about everything I've ever believed in my short little life, up until now, and could be wrong, still, in ways that I've never imagined. I probably am. I do think I have pretty decent political instincts, including about the limitations of politics and government and people who make choices about both. But I could be completely off-kilter myself (I've never wanted to blow up a Federal building. But I have had my own little disgruntled moments in life, even as most people probably think of me as Ms. Mary Sunshine. Of all of the contradictory things that people have thought about me, that would probably be the most ironic, if true).

And the one instinct I hold near and dear to my heart probably more than any other is that popular opinion is no reliable or necessarily reasonable guide to anything in this world and that the only reasonable guide to anything in this world is more thoughtful, engaged, open-ended, open-minded, open-hearted discussion and debate about important issues in the world. That is the reason why reason and education rather than the will of the majority are among the highest values in a liberal democratic culture. Because they are more reliable than the will of that majority that swings in the wind with every popular attitudinal swing of an ever-finicky and often brute and mob-like electorate. Popular political attitudes are like fashion: the hot thing, one moment, and not-to-be-caught-dead-in, the next.

And that is why a thoughtful, engaged, open-ended, open-minded, open-hearted discussion is the only one worthy of an open, free, liberal democratic people, society, and government.

Because noone knows anything with unfailing certainty. Noone. About anything. And anyone who tells you differently, no matter how liberal, how conservative, no matter how educated, how experienced, no matter how Christian, how Muslim, how American, how anti-American - no matter how much someone assures you that they have finally hit upon all unfailing wisdom about the world is exactly the Buddha in the middle of the road that you must at least engage in a healthy discussion if you're more averse to killing it.

A reasonable, thoughtful, more deeply-considered, substantial debate. That's all I ask for. I don't think that's too much to ask. All this bullying is counter to every reasonable impulse we have and it certainly doesn't do one iota to resolve either the situation in Iraq or any policy issue. Not for real. Perhaps some people don't care if issues get resolved for real and not just based on some self-righteous notion of how the world should be. But the most fundamental way that the world should be is that important matters like this war and any policy issues should be resolved on their merits, by reasonable, substantive discussion, rather than by brute force.

Let's hope that is where the discussion will head after this most recent effort to bully the conversation where certain folks want it to go.

Love,
Ben