The most serious reason to be concerned about a Giuliani presidency

Obviously a lot of Republicans have learned the wrong lesson from this war in Iraq.

Where is a Democrat or a Republican with courage and more serious thought when you need them?

Does America really believe that that they can attack and intimidate the world into submission? Could we possibly be tempted into such hubris?

Just once, I'd like to hear one Presidential candidate this election say:

"We're gonna stick it out in Iraq until they're ready for us to leave. We started this mess. We're gonna finish cleaning it up until Iraqis responsible for the security of their country tell us their ready for us to go.

But, as a rule, we're going to engage diplomatically, because we have learned that there are limits to power and our capacity to bludgeon others, even petty and potentially dangerous dictators, into our way of thinking.

We believe in our ideals. We believe in liberal democracy and liberal values. We believe in the liberal educations we all got that taught us so much about the values that we live but take for granted today. And we believe in our capacity, our commitment, and in a more realistic analysis of the necessity of persuading others rather than abusing any and all power that we might get our hands on. Because we know our propensity for human weakness. We know our propensity for arrogance. We know our propensity for how how small and weak and petty and foolish and mean-spirited we can be with all that power.

And most important of all, we know how often and how likely it is that we are wrong. We know how important it is to engage those who disagree with us, even if we have good reason to be suspicious of their good faith. And we know the long, tragic, and sordid history of humanity imposing its convictions on one another rather than engaging one another, learning from one another, understanding one another better, and persuading one another when we think others are wrong.

We know the limits of our power, of our capacity to force others to believe as we believe and to do as we want them to do.

And, instead of fighting that reality, we are wise enough to come to terms with it and to work more constructively to make our lives safer, more decent, freer, more prosperous, and a more peaceful place for us to live, fighting only when we need to and not out of our more fundamental and forever unsatiated fears and insecurities that boogeymen are perpetually around the corner.

We are confident. Because we are Americans. Because we are liberal democratic peoples. Because we know that our values really mean something. And that our muscle will never compensate for those values nor substitute as a means of protecting them.

We are confident because we are that strong and the values we believe in are that strong. And no amount of force could ever replace that kind of strength."

Just once I'd like to hear a Presidential candidate say something like that. Just once I'd like to hear a Presidential candidate with real strength and not the pretend kind that we perpetually have to settle for.

Cause faking it, no matter how much we bullshit ourselves, will never come close to the real thing. And what we all yearn for, in politics and in life, is people who have real courage and real thought and effort to help us face the most serious problems in the world we face.

Love,
Ben