Editorial O' the Day

From the often must-read Victor Davis Hanson. A little advice to the left. Regardless of which side of the fence you are on, you have to admit they need a little help.

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200412300838.asp

As the old politics lie in ruin from hypocrisy and incoherence, the Left needs to get a new life. Here are a few more suggestions:

Remember that multilateral inaction — whether in the Balkans, Rwanda, or Darfur — is often
calculated, selfish, and far more lethal to millions than risky interventions like removing the
Taliban and Saddam.

Quit idolizing Europe. It was a far larger arms merchant to Saddam than was the United States; it supplied most of Dr. Khan’s nuclear laboratory; it financed much of the Oil-for-Food
scandal; and it helped to create and tolerate the Balkans genocide. It has never freed any
country or intervened to remove fascism and leave behind democracy — silly American notions that are to be caricatured except when it is a matter of saving Europeans.

Stop seeing an all-powerful United States behind every global problem. China is on the move and far more likely to disrupt environmental protocols, cheat on trade accords, and bully
neighbors. The newly expanded Europe has a larger population and aggregate economy, stronger currency, and far less in trade and budget debts than does the United States — and is already using that economic clout for its own interests, not global freedom from dictators
and autocrats.

Don't believe much of what the U.N. says anymore. Its secretary general is guilty of either malfeasance or incompetence, its soldiers are often hired thugs who terrorize those they are supposed to protect, and its resolutions are likely to be anti-democratic and anti-Semitic. Its
members include dozens of nations whose odious representatives we would not let walk inside the doors of the U.S. Congress. The old idea of a United Nations was inspiring, the current
reality chilling.

Stop seeing socialists and anti-Americans as Democrats. When a Michael Moore compares beheaders to our own Minutemen and laments that too many Democrats were in the World Trade Center, he deserves no platform alongside Wesley Clark or a seat next to Jimmy
Carter or praise for his pseudo-dramas from high Democrats. Firebrands like Al Sharpton
and Michael Moore are the current leftist equivalents of 1950s right-wing extremists
like the John Birchers. They should suffer the same fate of ostracism, not bemused and tacit approval.

Ignore most grim international reports that show the United States as stingy, greedy, or uncaring based on some esoteric formula that makes a Sweden or Denmark out as the world's savior. Such "studies" always ignore aggregate dollars and look at per capita public
giving, and yet somehow ignore things like over $100 billion to Afghanistan
and Iraq or $15 billion pledged to fight AIDS in Africa. These academic white papers
likewise forget private donations, because most of the American billionaires who
give to global causes of various sorts do so as either individuals or through foundations. No mention is made of the hundred of millions that are handled by American Christian
charities. And the idea of a stingy America never mentions about $200 billion of the Pentagon's
budget, which does things like keeping the Persian Gulf open to world commerce; protecting Europe; ensuring that the Aegean is free of shooting and that the waters between China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are relatively tranquil; and stopping nasty folk like the Taliban and Saddam
from blowing up more Buddha monuments, desecrating Babylon, or ruining the ecology of the
Tigris-Euphrates wetlands.

Action and results, not rhetoric and intentions, are what matter. Cease blaming others for
declining popularity. There is neither a Karl Rove conspiracy nor an envisioned red-state
theocracy. No, the problem with our Left is what killed the dinosaurs: a desire to plod on
to oblivion in a rapidly evolving world.