Why I am No Longer A ‘Brain Dead Liberal’

Best insight from the whole article:

“Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.”

People get so caught up in hating the current administration that they fail to look at the past seven years in the context of History. The information age has allowed realities to be delivered to us instantly (casualties in Iraq, election results in Florida) causing President Bush to seem more villainous than other Presidents. Remember: Lincoln’s election caused half the nation to secede and 620,000 American soldiers died during his presidency (about 150 for every 1 soldier during Bush’s term in office).

As Bush often says, he will be interested to see how history remembers him. Cut the partisan crap and count me in on that point.

Allan is right about the best insight in the whole article. Republican, Democrat, either way we are going to be fucked if we don’t learn to take care of ourselves in our own communities.

Fantastic article.

Can someone explain this argument for me?

Premiss: We think things are bad.
Premiss: If we step back we find that things have been this way for a while.
Conclusion: We should accept this historical record as inevitable truth.
Implication: The actions that are causing bad things today are justified.

I honestly don’t see how the premisses support the conclusion/implication.

I’m certainly not saying the Bush administration’s ridiculous adventures abroad are justified because JFK was worse. Just that there are screw-ups on all sides.

Bush also ran the Texas Rangers into the ground. I don’t recall Jack Kennedy ever destroying a professional sports franchise.

Of course, the New York Knicks have fared poorly under the ownership of Zombie Howard Taft.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I wasn’t really impressed with this article. Mamet’s conversion (and it doesn’t seem like an extreme one) is pretty typical of any aging idealist who tends to grow more conservative over time — their lives change, their attitudes change, etc.

I’ve experienced this myself as a young liberal transitioning from adolescence into adulthood — my views have become slightly more moderate, and I expect that to continue in the future. But I know that they will not change THAT much. I’m not going to wake up one day in 30 years and realize that I’ve been just plain wrong this whole time.

One of Mamet’s key arguments, which has already been discussed here a little, is the comparison between Bush and JFK, and the idea that Bush receives an unfair amount of criticism, at least relative to other presidents. Was I the only one who thought this point was almost comically weak? The American presidency is so unique an institution that one could find parallels — strong ones — between any president and any other president. While Mamet puts together his list of parallels in an adequately thought-provoking way, I don’t think it’s sufficient to either condemn the Kennedy presidency as mediocre or to validate the Bush presidency as anything other than a total disaster. Step back and think about that for two seconds; shouldn’t any premise equating those two presidents be automatically suspect? It’s not an illusion, it’s not a misperception, and it’s not a premature judgment, young liberals…the Bush presidency IS a disaster. And it is a disaster not just because of incompetence or neglect or even malice — it is a disaster because of the perverse and misguided ideology on which it is based.

As a final thought, I’d like to point out something which has annoyed me for years. Mamet is but the latest in a series of prominent individuals who change their minds about their political ideology. This has happened throughout human history and will continue to do so — people change their minds and change their values with time. But it is far too often characterized as a change between liberal and conservative ideology. This is not an accurate assessment — Mamet’s change is from left to right, certainly, but not from liberal to conservative. It’s a change from liberal to libertarian, and it should be referred to as such.

An intellectual like Mamet may decide that government is too big, that taxes are too high, and that a welfare state inspires laziness and dependency in its citizens. These are arguments with which I disagree, but in which I can find shreds of truth and logic and merit. But nowhere in Mamet’s article, or similar ones by other converts, will you find a revelation that government should have an increased role in policing the sex lives of its citizens, or that total free speech or freedom of the press goes too far, or that it is perfectly reasonable to give up some of our core personal freedoms in exchange for greater national security.

These are the issues that distinguish conservatives from libertarians — it is a total pretense to associate “less government” with conservatives any more than liberals. Sure, conservatives want less government interference with commerce and earned income, but where do all those “small government” principles go when it comes time for Republicans to go after tremendous amounts of personal freedom for the sake of imposing order? Mamet may no longer be a “brain-dead liberal,” but he’s no conservative either. This article is not a case for the ideals of conservatism or the Republican party, even if it might masquerade as such.

Sorry to write so much, but that article just demanded a rebuttal. Thoughts?

Mamet’s rant is full of convoluted half-truths, ignorance, and several outright lies — much like you would expect from the neocons.

Hollywood’s Newest Neo-Con: David Mamet Chugs the Kool-Aid