Glennocidal Tendencies, Part II
Following up on Retardo’s post below, I think it’s worth re-examining Glenn Reynolds’ characteristically passive-aggressive attempt to justify genocide. Here it is, my emphasis:
Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide — unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That’s what happens when two societies can’t live together, and the weaker one won’t stop fighting — especially when the weaker one targets the civilians and children of the stronger. This is why I think it’s important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don’t, the military strategy we’ll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond “vigorous.”
Let’s stop for a minute and think about the implications of this idea. Glenn is literally saying that unless we take “vigorous action” to topple every single Middle Eastern government, we’ll eventually have to commit genocide against the entire Muslim world. For those of you counting at home, that’s one billion people who would be wiped out in an “unavoidable” and “provoked” mass extermination.
Now, let’s turn to what the Perfessor wrote just yesterday:
Bush’s problem on the war is that he’s losing the Jacksonian base, which is no longer confident that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win, regardless of foreign or public opinion.
Glenn never defines what he means by “whatever it takes to win,” but I’m fairly sure he’s not talking about firing Rumsfeld, increasing troop levels or raising taxes. As Kevin Drum writes:
So: what’s the plan, hawks? “Whatever it takes” is just cheap talk. Are you suggesting higher taxes to fund a dramatic increase in military end strength? A draft? A ground invasion of Iran? A permanent military occupation of the entire Middle East?
The short answers are “Hell no,” “no,” “yes,” and “I get a boner just thinking about it.”
Why do some say “boner” while others say “woody?”
Boner sounds funnier, though. Hee hee.
Boner.
OMGROFLMFAO!!!!
“Whatever it takes”:
—the Bush twins, Adma Yoshida, Amber Pawlik and Jonah Goldberg personally signing up to do a tour of duty!
Isn’t Instayokel using a “You made me shoot the hostage” rationalisation here? It’s the most insane form of blame-the-victim pathology.
Guy robs store. fucks up. is trapped. takes hostage. shoots hostage. blames cops for “forcing” him to murder.
*Because* the Indians objected to the immoral conquest of their land, they fought back. Because they fought back, rather than purposely impale themselves on the conquerers’ bayonets, it’s their fault that they were all murdered.
His lumping us in with the Romans also says a lot about his mentality. The Romans had no national morals to betray nor higher ethics to ignore when they conquered the Carthaginians. Reynolds obviously thinks that we don’t either.
So apparently “Jacksonian base” is a new shibboleth, with Glenn’s dittoheads dropping the name constantly and not explaining what they’re talking about. They don’t even explain who Jackson is. I suspect they mean Scoop, but it sounds more like Andrew.
Yup. Just read the Wikipedia article on the concept of “Jacksonian” and you’ve got the historical and intellectual gravitas to fill the air with words, provide nothing insightful or practical, and bore everyone senseless.
Am I reading that wrong, or did Glenn just _justify_ the genocide of American Indians?
This is the Andrew “I don’t care that the Cherokees have assimilated and now fight their battles in court, they’re still Indians and so I will violate the Constitution, break the law, steal their land and send men, women and children on a death march because, hey, Indians got it coming” Jackson base?
Wow, what a base to pander to. Doubtless Glenn thinks the Cherokee brought it all on themselves by…I don’t know, filing suit in federal court. I guess that’s enough to provoke genocide if you’re an Indian. Those Cherokee should really have thought twice before taking such, um, extreme action.
Whatever, Glenn.
His lumping us in with the Romans also says a lot about his mentality. The Romans had no national morals to betray nor higher ethics to ignore when they conquered the Carthaginians. Reynolds obviously thinks that we don’t either.
This is just it, R. From the comfortable distance of a few thousand years, we can look at the Romans with some measure of dispassion. If we take Jared Diamond’s thesis in ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ we can even accept some of the inevitability of the accidentally stronger groups conquering and destroying the accidentally weaker groups.
But even as we’ve progressed technologically and economically to the point where all nations operate within a global relationship today, so has our collective morality progressed to look at all those horrific slaughters of our past in a different light … and certainly to look at a proposed slaughter in the present as the true evil it would be.
Glenn and the slavering kill ’em all hordes on the right are moral throwbacks who have not evolved with the rest of us. That Glenn seeks to cloak his venal genocidal wishes in a vague, outdated understanding of history just means he is somewhat aware that what he proposes is out of bounds … he is not sure why it is out of bounds (because it is evil, dumbfuck), but he thinks that if he can just construct the right analogy, he’ll win over his critics.
*Because* the Indians objected to the immoral conquest of their land, they fought back. Because they fought back, rather than purposely impale themselves on the conquerers’ bayonets, it’s their fault that they were all murdered.
They also signed treaties with us, mistakenly thinking we were civilized enough to follow through on our word. Glennocide Reynolds never mentions this either.
Thud-
That’s exactly what Instatwit is saying. Look closely and see if you can spot the parallels between this and modern GOP/Neocon foreign policy…
How dare those selfish redskins question our settlers walking in and putting fences all over their lands, when they were’ the Indians’ lands to begin with! Why they practically begged for us to slaughter them all.
Of course, once we put the fences up, they become _our_ lands…
If we take Jared Diamond’s thesis in ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ we can even accept some of the inevitability of the accidentally stronger groups conquering and destroying the accidentally weaker groups.
Actually, yes, I agree with Diamond’s thesis. We can also accept early societies’ rigid patriarchy and sexism, because hey, it’s how they survived. The point is that I thought we’d moved beyond that sort of thinking.
Is it wonder why Tennessee is second tier? Quite frankly, I’m shocked they’re that high.
Is it wonder why Tennessee is second tier? Quite frankly, I’m shocked they’re that high.
Insty alone makes them fifth-rate.
Yeah, that was my point too, Brad.
Yeah, that was my point too, Brad.
It sure was. And if I’d taken the time to read the rest of it, I would have realized that. Call me the “Instapundit of the Left” if you wish.
Heh. Indeed. (no worries, I do that all the time, too)
Seriously – does anyone know for sure what doofus means by “Jacksonian base”?
Because if he does mean Andrew Jackson by it, then I am going to spend the entire rest of the day seriously freaked out. Possibly the rest of the week.
My fellow countrymen have completely lost anything that even vaguely resembles a grasp on reality.
But even as we’ve progressed technologically and economically to the point where all nations operate within a global relationship today, so has our collective morality progressed to look at all those horrific slaughters of our past in a different light … and certainly to look at a proposed slaughter in the present as the true evil it would be.
Glennocide knows this, but it’s his function as the credentialed wingnut propagandist to push an ignorant interpretation of the history of modern life to keep the jingos on message and frothing enough to respond to public opinion polls in a way that provides legitimacy for the Bushies.
He’s a liar. Simple as that.
Yeah, it’s all of a piece, Mal de mer. Like the whole vogue on the right for accusing people of ‘moral relativism’ after 9/11. That threw me for such a loop, because it was like, hang on … we’ve been saying since the 12th of forever that evil is evil and wrong is wrong, whether we do it or ‘they’ do it.
But the jingoists latched on to this basic moral equation and twisted it exactly backwards to where, if anybody says we do evil things, they’re a ‘moral relativist’ and boo! Post-modern treason!
It was stunning in its audacity. More stunning is that so many people fell for it.
People fell for it because they don’t understand concepts like “moral relativism” or “Jacksonian”, despite using them frequently and forcefully to sound all learned ‘n stuff.
After all, the biggest sin nowadays appears to be to look like you don’t know something.
Someone once put the mythical history of the conquering of the American West thusly:
The savage indians kept attacking peaceful pioneers, and somehow, we ended up with all the land.
Sort of destroying the village to save it?
Point taken on Reynolds’s moral atavism.
Also, Brad’s mention of treaties is crucial, and I’m kicking myself that I didnt mention it. Morals have not only evolved, but so too has their enforcement through law. While the Romans had law and primitive sorts of treaties, the American republic was founded by men who’d read the whole of Lord Gibbon and who therefore deeply loathed the Caesarian impulse to shitcan law and treaty at will or whim — which, it turned out, is exactly what we did.
I suggest in addition to these points that Reynolds refuses to acknowledge his moral position in excusing genocide because if he admitted the moral and historical facts of the matter it would crush his idea of American Exceptionalism and moral superiority: if it’s true that the US was a genocidal conqueror, then it’s an original sin and the United States is just another country with a bloody history, the only thing making it morally unique is its constitution and bill of rights Reynolds’s idols delight in shredding.
A few years ago at the Volokh Degeneracy there was a long meditation on the uniqueness of the Shoah, which every wingnut linked to. Some did commend the argument in good faith, but for others, I think there’s bias. The Shoah was perpetrated by Germans whom everyone decent should agree were concentrated evil then but whom wingnuts think are bad *now*. And the Shoah was finally halted by the US, which is also true and a good thing, but serves as well the wingnut idea of America Always The White Knight In Shining Armor. OTOH, the US’s genocide of the native americans must be minimalised, deprecated, or, in Reynolds’s case, outright excused. And our genocide of the Filipinos resides in history’s memory hole, where they’d like it to stay. If the genocide was by people we dont like now, or was stopped by US, then it’s the worst genocide ever. But if it’s a genocide that we actually prosecuted, then, well, what genocide? and didnt they have it coming?
Not that the Shoah isnt unique — but it’s unique with regard to the process and thoroughness and rate of the killing, not in the intent. I have no doubt that if Custer, Sherman, Sheridan, Jackson et al had the technological infrastructure (the sociological infrastructure — the racist, exterminationist attitude of the American masses, was up to the challenge) the Nazis had, the result would have been identical to the Shoah because the american government’s intent (at least speaking for Sheridan and Sherman, and Sherman was commander of the US Army) was to wipe the red man from the earth. As it was they did their best with what they had to exterminate the plains indians, and they nearly accomplished their goal. Goody goody, says Glenn Reynolds. Sweet Jesus I hate that sonofabitch. Oh wait, I’m engaging in the Left’s Victim Fetish! Sorry!
So when he heard the Cherokee were going to court, Andy Jackson’s comment was, “Disturbing if true?” Heh. Indeed. Or, rather, heh-indeed. Or…oh, fuck it.
The Jacksonian Tradition. It is old Andy (as opposed to Jefferson). And, huh, it does begin with an account of America’s ruthlessness at war. Jeebus.
Here’s the intellectual heft of the “Jacksonian base” idea: the number one hit for the phrase, before the Walter Russell Mead article, is this. It’s a Winds of Change post by Trent Telenko.
Trent Telenko argued that, in an election against Dean, Bush could put New York in play by playing the anti-Semitism card. That’s Howard “Mr. Judith Steinberg” Dean. Note also the racism of that comment, which suggests that urban blacks are the Enemies of America.
Telenko is a pseudo-intellectual fraud of the first order. Any idea that he introduces into the right-blogosphere has had all the worth sucked out of it, if it had any worth to start with.
But of course! den Beste was there first.
Glenn Reynolds, you’re supposed to be a respectable academic. You’re dining off Steven den Beste’s intellectual droppings. Isn’t it time to check yourself?
Besides the genocide problem, there is the issue of how big the Islamic World is. We’re talking about going to war with at least a third of the world. That doesn’t make much sense.
Instapundit was actually referring to the MICHAEL Jacksonian base, who view Iraqis as little boys suitable for, uh, whatever Michael Jackson did with them.
Round of applause for arthur ending the longest snark drought on S,N! ever.
Jiminy gee whilikers crickets….is there ANY SINGLE Republican strategy which, when stripped of its froofrawaws, doesn’t boil down to racism? Except, of course, for the ones that boil down to homophobia.
It’s almost enough to make you believe in God – an evil, evil god. It has all the moral irony that finding out that the National Socialist movement had been founded by some guy named Herschel Finkelstein would have.
Helps to explain why the Republicans like to sell themselves as “the party of Lincoln”, too – because that was the last time they actually did anything for a minority group in the U.S.
I give up. I’m gonna go dye my hair blond and buy one of those “88” ballcaps or something. After all, I’m a liberal moral relativist, aren’t I?
We’re all moral relativists. Anyone who think he’s a moral absolutist is kidding himself.
I can’t believe the name “Glennocide” never caught on for Reynolds after that post.
Besides the treaties and the fact that morals have changed, there’s also the fact that the American genocide still has negative effects on modern Native Americans.
Therefore, to legitimise it is to legitimise the problems that stem from it today.
Man, Glenn is scum.
Mr. Reynolds has joined the Jacksonian march (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacksonian_march&redirect=no)
Glennocidal Tendencies: American Psycho Version
Is Patrick Bateman alive and well and living in Colorado? Maybe. If so, he’s changed his name to Stephen Green and he’s no longer content with petty things, like allowing his envy of friends’ superior business cards drive him…
Before we jump to conclusions, Glenn could be referring to any number of Jacksonian bases:
– the Curtis James ’50 Cent’ Jacksonian base, who are just looking for a reason to “ride up wit tha toast and bust slugs”
– the Shoeless Joe Jacksonian base, who follow their hero even when he is clearly implicated in a Black Sox-sized scandal
– the Jermaine Jacksonian base, who assume that some vague association with a very famous person makes them important, too
Fukuyama’s Gift
Here’s a story of importance, via Matthew Yglesias, who doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of what he’s discovered. Francis Fukuyama, the apostate neoconservative, says that in the 1990s, neocons tried to manufacture an enemy, because they felt tha…
dating sites dating sites
dating sites dating sites
dating sites dating sites