Chicken Little
Commentary by Aslan, 8.14.2006.
Just as remarkable as the emotional reaction by Betrayed Conservatives to Republican politics in Washington is the hysterical reaction by many of these same conservatives to the events in the Middle East. It seems that a sizeable portion of the right wing has become menopausal overnight, substituting histrionics for calm rational thought and a sound historical perspective. "Conservative" pseudo-intellectuals like Michael Savage lead the way, preaching that the end of Western civilization is near, when in reality history teaches us that today’s challenges are no worse – and in many ways dramatically less dangerous – than the challenges of previous decades. Even the more rational pundits such as Glenn Beck have mischaracterized the radical Islamic threat as a pending worldwide catastrophe of unique proportions.
Fortunately, our atrophied memories still recall the truly devastating events of the last century: World War I in the teens; the Great Depression in the 30s; World War II in the 40s; Vietnam, assassinations, and cultural decay in the 60s; more Vietnam, disastrous economics and cultural bankruptcy in the 70s. But today’s neurotic obsession with lurking disaster – a strange new discipline best described as political eschatology – apparently harkens back to something that never existed: long, idyllic stretches of civilized living; tranquil decades where music, baseball and humanitarian progress dominated the news, not roadside bombs, oil prices, terrorism and casualty counts.
In large part, Reagan is to blame for the proliferation of conservative doomsayers in 2006. Powered by the strength of his policies and the emergence of America as the world’s lone superpower, the 80s and 90s pushed Mankind’s violent heritage into the background. The extensive geopolitical capital accumulated during the Reagan years financed the morally bankrupt, yet quiescent, disaster that was the Clinton 90s, allowing the seeds of today’s struggles to take root. But more relevant to today’s doomsayer is that almost 20 years of an illusion had become real – the illusion of being in control, of having arrived at a time and place beyond world wars and cold wars, beyond credible threats to the affluent American lifestyle of backyard barbeques, shopping sprees and soccer games. Alas, Utopia did not begin with the American revival in the 80s, and it will never come to pass on this planet.
Paradoxically, the violent wake-up call in 2001 and the subsequent deadly struggles in the Middle East are a cause for optimism, not doom and gloom. We are reminded that the destructive potential of technology has forever placed violent Mankind on the edge, destined one day to topple into the abyss (see Eventual Destruction). But the events of today argue strongly that the end is not near; the West is being forced to contend with Islamofascism at exactly the right time, hopefully to result in a term of relative peace before the next violent paroxysm grips the world.
This optimism is born of perspective, of the realization upon close examination that this decade holds dramatically less risk and vastly more opportunity than any decade of the previous century – perhaps excluding those Reagan 80s – and that includes the Roaring 20s and the post-war, "I like Ike" 50s.
The 1920s saw the rise of communism in Russia and fascism in Europe, the machinery of death that would grind up over 100,000,000 people in subsequent decades. With the advent of prohibition, organized crime became a force domestically, while the civil wars that raged in Russia, China, Ireland, Turkey and elsewhere took the lives of millions, demonstrating that the world of international politics was dramatically more volatile than today.
The 50s began with the Korean War, where more Americans died in three months than have died in three years in Iraq. Stalin died, throwing the Soviet Union into disarray, and the cold war heated up with a vengeance, as evidenced by over 80 above ground nuclear tests in 1958 alone. Desegregation via Brown v. Board of Education required the use of the 101st Airborne in Arkansas to ensure black children could enter previously all white schools. Reacting to the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the Israelis, French and English collaborated to invade Egypt and seize the canal while at the same time, to keep things lively, the Soviets rolled into Hungary to crush the revolt there, killing thousands. Fidel Castro gained power in Cuba and Joseph McCarthy went Red hunting. And the French lost a little colonial war in a place called Vietnam.
How would today’s doomsayers react to the "idyllic" 1950s? Michael Savage would have jumped – off the Golden Gate Bridge probably – certain that communism spelled the end of Western civilization. Glenn Beck would be speechless with fear (no small task) after hearing Eisenhower declare that the "two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world." (Atoms for Peace, December 1953)
To the World War II generation, the threat of $4.00 gas prices and Israel on a bug hunt would hardly raise their blood pressure. And Iraq? Compared to the colonial upheavals of the last century where perhaps as many as 50,000,000 million died, it would be considered a veritable oasis of peace.
The danger is clear: nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamofascists determined to make war on the West, thereby fulfilling religious prophecy. Yet the greater danger in a politically correct, pacified world would have been these same Islamofascists quietly acquiring WMD before shaking the complacency of the powerful West. They have tipped their hand too soon and that is the opportunity of the moment – to crush militant Islam now.
No one is suggesting that the crisis faced by the West today is trivial. Some will die in this struggle and there will be economic hardship, perhaps even a...a...recession. It is unlikely, however, that the greatest generation would have been all that worried. When the meat of the War on Terror is all said and done, more people will have died in Darfur in a few months than will have died collectively in the Middle East and among the Western powers in ten years. Most of us will watch, in prosperous comfort and relative security, as braver men and women win the day.
Optimism is the attitude of conservatives, so let’s stop trying to steal the mascot of the Left:
Copyright © 2006 Dan Hallagan. All Rights Reserved.