This is what force as a governing philosophy looks like

For every liberal and conservative, these days, who is romanticizing force as a governing philosophy, they now have a situation in the Gaza Strip that embodies that dark, ugly fantasy.

Abbas dissolves Palestinian government

"It was a day of major victories for Hamas and its backers in Iran and Syria — and of devastating setbacks for the Western-backed Fatah. In one particularly humiliating scene, masked Hamas fighters marched agents of the once-feared Preventive Security Service out of their headquarters, arms raised in the air, stripped to the waist and ducking at the sound of a gunshot.

The violence has killed at least 90 people in the past five days, including 33 on Thursday alone. Witnesses, Fatah officials and a doctor reported executions by Hamas militants of defeated Fatah fighters Thursday; Fatah said seven of its men were shot in the head gangland-style. Hamas denied any such killings."

Those infatuated with force have a dystopian fantasy scenario in Hamas' efforts to take over the Gaza Strip, since there really is few other groups in the world who would more concur with that governing philosophy.

I know, I know. Hamas is too forceful. Liberals and conservatives who argue for a governing philosophy of force are just "the right balance."

Isn't it convenient how anyone who wants to justify their power is always "just the right balance." "Fair and balanced," as Fox News would say. Everyone is fair and balanced, have you noticed that. They want to use force for their own priorities, for the "the right balance." It's convenient, isn't it? The only people who are too forceful or who are too liberal or too conservative are someone else. It's never the people who claim justification for power.

Lord Acton and George Orwell would be having a high old time trying to sort through this godforesaken and propaganda-soaked period.

In the meantime, like the Nazis and Soviets before them, Hamas takes seriously the idea of force as a governing philosophy. And 90 people in the last 5 days have been murdered in the name of that governing philosophy.

Force is freedom. Freedom is pressure. We care more for people, thus we repress them. We don't want too much freedom or too much repression. We want "the right balance." Somewhere between Ghandi and Hitler. Somewhere between King and Stalin. Somewhere between Jesus and the Roman Empire. Somewhere between Buddha and Castro.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. Somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guliani.

Because everyone knows that Ghandi can't lead a country or a culture like Hillary Clinton can.

If the Washington Post or National Public Radio or Frontpage Magazine or the National Review or any of the various liberal or conservative publications romanticizing force as a philosophy of governance think they have nothing to do with this Hamas takeover, they are tragically mistaken.

I'm not suggesting that any of these publications want a Hamas takeover. None of these publications want that. But they do encourage the activities of Hamas and similar groups when they preach that a tougher philosophy of governance by force, primarly, rather than policy and political philosophy that promotes liberal self-governance, primarily, is the ideal that liberal democracies should aspire to and which leaves liberal cultures, like America, and illiberal cultures, like Palestine, alike, less vulnerable to the manipulations of terrorists, despots, dictators, autocrats, tyrranical and illiberal religious, political, and secular leaders, political, business and leadership practices and philosophies and lobbying reltionships with government which flaunt and romanticize how they can force, buy, and otherwise manipulate government and people for their own purposes.

When you use political pressure as a regular means of getting your way in democratic politics, you not only engage in an abuse of power in democratic societies and cultures, you provide the rationalizations that groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Queda, hardliners in Iran, Syria, and throughout the Middle East, the Cuban Communist party, the Chinese Communist party, the North Korean Communist party, and every such group to engage in every abuse of power that they engage in.

Illiberal practices in liberal societies rationalize illiberal practices in illiberal societies. And they look at us and our illiberal practices and say, "Look at those fuckin' pussies. They don't know how to fuckin' pressure for power. We know how to fuckin' pressure for power."

And then situations like the one we are seeing in Gaza take place. Or the sectarian warfare in Iraq.

Or 9/11.

We are not responsible for these awful, ugly facts of pressure and power.

But we are responsible for the rationalizations that gives them mileage and appeal, when we persistently fail to face our own illberal hypocrisies.

We are definitely the better guys, the good guys, so to speak. But we need to people who live consistent in our commitment to liberal values and make freedom as available to all people, as much as possible. And to only limit freedom when it is for purposes of dealing with genuine, immediate, and dangerous threats to our safety that cannot be handled in any other way except with force. And when we use force, we need to put our presumption on the least possible necessary force, the least possible necessary aggression, if we are to take those liberal values, and their far better and stronger consequences for our societies and cultures, seriously.

What is happening in Gaza is the logical conclusion of a political period that has rationalized and romanticized force, pressure, and aggression for all too often our far too self-centered purposes.

Hamas and Al Queda and the hard-line leadership of countries like Iran and Syria and the Communist governments of China, Cuba, North Korea and illiberal forces all over the world are the embodiment of force as a governing philosophy and, tragically, our rationalizations of illiberal ideas, philosophies, governance, policies, social, religious, educational, business, and other practices which support the rationalization of such practices among illiberal groups and governments and which are used to rationalize illiberal practices in liberal democratic countries and cultures.

It is a tragic and ugly self-fulfilling prophecy which can only be resolved with a more serious commitment to liberal values in liberal democracies and cultures.

A lot of people in my life, I think, wonder why I spend so much time and risk so much to make this argument that, to many of them seems like a crazy obsession with politics and everything political.

But the reason that I take this line of argument and this work so seriously is because I want peoples of the liberal democratic world, and the world of less liberal democratic and even illiberal cultures and peoples, to give up this sad and ugly rationalization that persistently feeds these cycles of aggression and force overwhelming liberal values and virtues. Namely, I want us to give up the propensity for such pressure, force, and aggression to overwhelm our capacity, willingness, and opportunities to reflect on, discuss, debate, and decide the most important questions in liberal societies on genuine liberal democratic grounds which respect the consciences, thoughts, and expression of all people and decides questions more honestly and openly based on their merits and the principle that more open and honest expressions of our thoughts and consciences and which are make for more honest, decent, open-ended lives which respect liberal values and their role in better supporting our lives rather than perpetually taking such values for granted and fruitlessly and cyclically arguing that it is those values that better support us that are responsible for the downfall of our culture and our lives.

I am tired of people in liberal societies being perpetually hornswaggled into the notion that it is our liberal values that are the greatest threat to us and our culture and our more illiberal notions which romanticize tough over throughtful that are our savior. Our saving grace is found in our thoughtfulness, decency, openness, compassion, freedom, consciences, and good natures. We do not need to bully people for them to be good. We do not need to be bullied to be good. And I am tired of the rationalizations that bullies in liberal democratic socieities, nevertheless illiberal societies have for bullying me or other good, decent, thoughtful people to get what they want.

I don't want it from Al Queda or Black September. I don't want it from Robert Mugabe or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But neither do I want it from Hillary Clinton or Rudy Guliani, Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, or anyone in the liberal or illiberal world.

I am tired of being bullied by anyone is the truth. I am tired of it. And I am tired of my thoughtfulness being disregarded by those who would rather get their way than to engage me more thoughtfully. I am tired of teachers, administrators, bosses, officers, judges, friends, family and authority figures of all kinds and anyone who wants to bully their way through my life disregarding more thoughtful efforts on my part, especially when it concerns my own life.

I am tired of bullies getting their way and using getting their way as the rationalization for why the world is just a place where the world isn't fair, nice guys finish last, and bullies get their way.

I am tired of it in Gaza. I'm tired of it in America. I'm tired of it in Europe. I am tired of it in Africa. I'm tired of it in Asia. And I am tired of it in South America and North America. I'd be tired of it in Antarctica and the North Pole if it turns out that people were getting treated like shit there too.

I don't care where it happens. I'm tired of it. And I'm tired of liberal peoples, especially, giving it the gas and the mileage that it needs to dominate the liberal and illiberal world in the 21st century and any generation. If we want to end terrorism and despotism, then we must give up the illiberal notions and governing philosophies that animate our own more liberal cultures.

Gaza is what force as a governing philosophy looks like. And we need to face up to that and take seriously the need to give up our illiberal rationalizations for that kind of ugliness. And the ugliness we rationalize in our own lives.

Love,
Ben