May 27 - The 60's produced a lot of people who still hold to the values expressed by JFK, Dr. King, Malcolm X and RFK, and George Bush is also a product of the 60's. He expressed those ideals in his Whitehall Speech which spelt out the cause for freedom as our priority in U.S. foreign policy - and wasn't that the primary banner under which we marched in the 60's? I could understand dismissing the speech as mere words but we are actively in the field, fighting and dying to give life to those ideals, and our country was finally putting its money where its mouth was.

One would think that political activists from the 60's would feel some satisfaction that the major impetus for our activism - that the U.S. was supporting vicious dictators as part of the Cold War - had finally been addressed. So why are so many of them on the other side?

Keith Thompson's column in the SF Chronicle was noted by Instapundit (among many others) because he spells out unequivocally how the left abandoned liberalism. I can well imagine how the column was received in San Fransisco, though, and it probably started with the phrase "Yes, but."

Maz2 sent me a link to Thompson's website (Thompson at Large) and I noted in the interview on the main page that he expressed his admiration for Robert F. Kennedy. (Thompson also writes the blog Sane Nation.)

Invoking RFK sure brings back a lot of memories. People who make blanket assumptions about baby boomers do so in a vacuum. Maybe some day I'll write the definitive essay on how my generation was affected by events which culminated in 1968 and were I to really try and write it the thesis would probably be based on this hypothesis:

Baby-boomer Democrats are idealists who were mugged in 1968.

Maybe you had to be there to get that, but I'll just try to condense and say that politically aware people were hit with a bombardment of events in 1968 and those who look back on it as their heyday probably forgot that actually, it was a year of intense pain, struggle and loss (I sort of covered some of the events here in my early and thus raw blogging days.)

One unchallenged assumption we made back then was that those brave and courageous enough to stand up to U.S. foreign policy were liberations fighters. We were wrong. Different people probably have individual moments when that assumption proved disasterous, but for me it was probably the scenes of Vietnamese frantically trying to get out of Vietnam when the U.S. withdrew from Saigon - why were all these people trying to get away? they were free now! - and then the embassy takeover in Tehran forced me to reconsider my automatic support of the anti-Shah forces in Iran (because Khoumeini's supporters were, you know, progressive) and, although it took awhile and required kicking some very bad habits, I gradually figured out that being pro-democracy rarely equated anti-American. This new awareness wasn't based on fear but on guilt: I had blindly supported all things progressive and thus supported groups and causes that were as destructive and murderous as I imagined U.S. foreign policy to be.

A realization like that can really knock the wind out of you. Just think "Pol Pot" and imagine the shock when ugly reality intrudes on your complacent support for progressivism.

There are a lot of people who haven't moved beyond their 60's views, and that's their right, but I do find it disturbing that they so little resemble the people we were back then. We may have been dumb, but we also had a lot of love for and eagerly embraced the world and the future. Our belief system was as far away from cynical sophistication as you can possibly get - in fact, we avoided cynical and sophisticated people because they were, like, plastic, you know? Never trust anyone over 30 because they were all sell-outs who had been co-opted by the establishment and lived in the suburbs with houses made of ticky-tacky.

We despised liberals above all because they were phony, which proves that we were right about some things. We also despised the establishment, and the problem with today's liberals is that when they became the establishment, they became what they once opposed.

Yes, I'm going somewhere. I think that maybe you have to be humble enough to admit that the extravagances of one's youth were what they were, and they require neither stubborn defense nor apology but just a little honesty to ascertain what was good and should be preserved and, maybe, even a chance to feel good because even if there were some mistakes there were also some right calls, like supporting the Czechs, the civil rights movements, an end to apartheid, hating hypocrisy and understanding that freedom was worth fighting for even if we misread what actually were freedom, or liberation, movements.

Thompson obliquely addresses this:

Back to your question: Have I moved right? What today is called liberalism is almost unrecognizable from the liberalism of the late 1960s. This is not to be nostalgic about the past — it's a question of being accurate. In his 1966 Cape Town speech, Bobby Kennedy declared himself unwaveringly opposed to communism because it exalts the state over the individual and over the family. He said the best way to oppose communism is to enlarge individual human freedom.

Unfortunately for the old guard, the onrush of events these past few years has produced a lot of people, and especially young folks, who stop, reflect and wonder if they took the red pill or the blue pill. Once you have arrived to a frame of mind to pose the question you already know the answer, so do you do?

One answer lies in a new political undercurrent these days composed of people calling themselves South Park Conservatives and Thompson supplies one definition:

... South Park Conservatives, which describes young Americans who believe in a kick-ass foreign policy, and who mock the compulsory compassion of the P.C. culture. Interestingly, they don't necessarily sign on to every line in the GOP platform.

That's a decent plan for Americans, but what about Canadians? and, more of concern these days, what about the Conservative Party of Canada? I dislike the saying that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged because it is not only dismissive but also implies that conservatives are shallow: someone who will dump their moral principles wholesale after a traumatic event couldn't have held those values very dear. But liberals have become like a friend who keeps suggesting we go out for a latte even though she knows I take my coffee black - she employs the popular word but doesn't really think about what it means.

Thomspon again:

The left/right divide is not what it used to be — that's my point. At the end of the day, I care less about the map than the territory, less about labels than issues.

The Meatriarchy (who is back from vacation) has an apropos post about a pending CBC interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone and his own thoughts on the misuse of the term conservative.

The CBC Meets South Park may sound like a Monty Python skit, but that's been done. It was an internet thread titled Monty Python Meets the Borg, and the South Park-esque offering was Oh my God, they've assimilated Kenny. The bastards!

I sincerely doubt the CBC can assimilate South Park or even grasp what the movement is all about, but I do hope Canada is ready for the kind of alternative conservatism the South Park types offer: smaller government, de-centralization, truer respect for the individual and above all, replacing mindless prattle in correct-speak PC. It would also be nice to embrace the very liberal notion that we shouldn't be afraid to abandon programs that don't work - despite our investment of both years and money - and try some new solutions that actually might work.

There's a lot of unmarked territory out there, and the Conservatives should be the ones surveying and staking some out.

The innate inertia of Liberals is probably why I kind of share the South Park view of politics:

I hate conservatives, but I f***ing hate liberals.

May 29 - 02:42 - Many posts (like this one) reveal their intent after they have been written. It seems I still don't get why more of my former associates don't support Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I was shocked (in the true sense of the word) when Gulf War I didn't finish the job and get rid of Saddam. I felt a bit guilty so kept abreast of events (and massacres) in Iraq over the years and was on board for regime change long before 2000 elections.

I make no pretense at consistency! I fully recognize that the optimism of the 60's was counterweighed by our real fear of seeing the planet consumed in a nuclear holocaust and maybe our optimism was a defiant response to that fear.

But I never meant the post to be nuanced, and apologize for any pain inadvertant nuance may have caused readers.

I lean towards a libertarianism-with-a-safety-net preference and believe in the tenet That which is not expressly forbidden is thereby allowed (which has gotten me into some interesting exchanges during my years in Canada) and it's a hard-wired thing much like inherent rights and distrusting government.

But my invitation for Canadians to dispense with the old labels and scout the territory was genuine. Labels are human inventions and thus liable to change.

Today's musing were brought to you by the cliche Fortune favours the bold.

Posted by: Debbye at 12:04 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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