Kerry's Not a Flip-Flopper. He's Worse
by Gregory Borse
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
In a slightly amusing story out of Dallas today, it was revealed that the congressional battle between Pete Sessions (R) and Martin Frost (D) has devolved into an argument about photos depicting the Republican congressman as an 18-year-old streaking across what used to be known as Southwest Texas State University's campus in 1974, as part of a college stunt. Sessions' campaign released a statement saying the stunt is ''old school days long gone'' and the congressman recognizes his action as ''immature.''
Frost's campaign, however, is incensed, saying he ''exposed himself to children and strangers.'' (!)
It used to puzzle me that liberals get bent out of shape any time a conservative is caught having trespassed against one of the rules of his own value system. Certainly, if the shoe were, ahem, off the other foot--and it was Frost's bare behind being waved before the media--the story would get little attention. So what if a liberal--champion of live-and-let-live morality--ran around naked when he or she was a freshman in college? Who didn't do things when they were young that they might now think twice about? (Or, if you are Madonna, not think twice about).
Of course, when a liberal perpetuates the prank, the attitude seems to be: since this does not violate any personal code of my own, there can be no scandal. Bill Clinton cheats on his wife while in the White House and gets caught and his base shrugs. Then he lies in a court of law--a court his office requires him to uphold--and it's all about the personal sexual indiscretions of one man, not about the respect the highest office holder of the land has for the constitution. Why, it's none of our business. It didn't hurt us. Marriage is a private affair--it's between him and Hillary. What are you on about?
When I was younger, I used to thank my lucky stars for hypocrites. I used to thank them because I reasoned that if there were no hypocrites there could be no leaders, no teachers. What I naively believed was that since no one was perfect, it was folly to expect anyone to live up to ideal standards 100% of the time. Failure is to be expected. And hypocrites were something of the price you pay. Besides, it left room for that tricky business of mercy and forgiveness. If a preacher were to give a sermon on the evils of adultery--and you knew him to be quite the accomplished adulterer, well, you had to agree with his sermon in order to recognize him as a hypocrite. So, your value system was actually re-enforced by the recognition that someone had failed it.
But since that time I've grown up.
There are only two ways to avoid completely being a hypocrite. 1. Live up perfectly to a set of values that exist whether you hold them or not. 2. Abandon a belief in a set of values that exist whether you hold them or not. Yeah--that's the ticket. If I don't believe in an objective set of values, then I can set myself up as my own judge.
And this is pretty close to a liberal view of morality. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that liberals have no values whatsoever. To the contrary--many hold quite lofty values up to which they live quite nicely. It's just that they seem to have bought into the idea that values cannot be imposed from without, but must well up from within. They are not totally wrong about this--it's just that the values that well up from within do not need to relate to any that might be imposed from without--hence, the liberal draws the line at an individual’s pursuing happiness at the expense of anyone else. This explains why they favor consensus and institutional remedies for society's problems. The reasoning is this: if all values are subjective, then order issues from compromise--and in order to reach compromise, we need institutions, like the United Nations, for instance, or, in their more mundane manifestations, committees, to settle disputes about individual notions of the good. Consensus issues from the vote, and, hence, the majority rules (Gore won the popular vote! Gore won the popular vote!)—Except when the majority perversely makes the wrong choice--as in the case of homosexual marriage. But that's what activist judges are for. Unless they belong to the Supreme Court that ruled against Gore's petition. Dang!
That's why all the shouting about the War on Terror from the left has to do with Bush's reasons for going to war--not about whether or not the war is actually necessary. If a liberal can prove that Bush lied, then he can still support the idea of the war in principle without the necessity of taking responsibility for prosecuting it.
Put another way, according to the only value of the liberal I have in mind--if one follows only one's own dictates--there can be only one failure: to sin against the self. Hence, all the harping from the media for Bush to confess to some ''mistake.''
And this perhaps explains the perplexing case of John F. Kerry. As it turns out, he is not a flip-flopper at all. In fact, according to his value system, he has been perfectly consistent about everything. If he as accepted and is guided by the fundamental idea (a contradiction, by the way, for this philosophy) that all values are to be determined individually, and he recognizes that reality itself is an ever-changing thing, then there can be no contradiction in changing positions on anything as the result of the ever changing landscape of a fluid reality. Morals must keep up with the times. It there is any permanent law of ethics, it’s that they are situational.
According to such ''logic'' the 9/11 attacks can be explained away, even excused, because according to a subjective understanding of the good, the Islamists are not wrong according to their own standards. And we must, then, seek to reach out to them and, via world committee, come to some compromise between their wiping us off the face of the earth and our living in harmony with our fellow human beings (psst. They have a simple solution to this problem: everyone converts to Islam, now.)
So, as you listen to the liberals castigate Bush's decisions, make note of the fact that the criticism seeks some admission that he has gone against his own word. But in insisting that anyone acquiesce to a set of values from outside, is to be guilty of imposing those values. They say the war is being conducted as a personal matter (which is the only reason liberals ever do anything and the only motivation for action they can understand). They cannot fathom being motivated by values that come from someplace other than one's own head, one's own heart, or one's own loins.
But to impose this view upon an individual who believes in an objective set of values up to which he himself must live, to values that are not determined by a majority faction according to a committee vote, is to commit the only mortal sin recognized by the left: the forceful imposition of one's subjective views upon someone else.
So--according to this subjective sense of values, John Kerry is most clearly not a flip-flopper. He's a hypocrite. Which is much worse.
Look for more of the same in tonight's debate. |
