A Nation Of Bond Villains

The Beast caught the weekend episode of “Hannity” last night, in which Sean interviewed a college Prof who’s writing a book about the way Liberals see Conservatives (can’t find the details yet, but they will will be forthcoming). His thesis should be familiar to anybody who has spent any time in the lefty Fever Swamps: Liberals believe the truth of their Ethos is so manifest, so self-evident that anybody who denies it is either Evil or Stupid. The Evil conservatives are the guys with the brains who are out to make billions or enact a racist, sexist, islamophobic theocracy, and The Stupid Conservatives are those too dimwitted to realize they’re being used.

And while Conservatives grant Libs the benefit of the doubt, insofar as they they tend to argue that Libs are well-intentioned, but naive and wrong, Libs don’t return the favor at all. Which is a bit odd, considering that movement which rejects moral absolutes under the umbrella of Postmodernism seems to view the world in the same stark colors of black and white  that would be adopted by the primmest seventeenth-century puritan preacher.

Now, we understand that scorn, smears,  derision and imputations of bad faith are useful rhetoric devices when you don’t want to bother to go to the trouble of actually framing a coherent response to an argument that you don’t think you should be having in the first place; but it’s ultimately anti-intellectual and dishonest and represents a huge problem for those on the left. Screaming “Racism” or “Bullshit” may shut the other guy for a moment, but it’s no substitute for a substantive response to his ideas, right or wrong. And if you posture yourself as the party of smart people, as the movement of reason, then aren’t you required to use those smarts and reason to show the dolts how wrong they are?

And we see this all the time; Libs place whole swathes of public issues beyond debate. Question the justice of Affirmative Action? You’re a racist.  Question Global Warming? You’re a Denier. Question our open border illegal immigration non-policy?  You’re a Nativist. Criticize the Ground Zero Mosque? You’re an Islamophobe. Oppose Gay Marriage? Homophobe. The common thread here is serial imputation of bad faith: there is no principled counter-position; you’re either on the side of the Angels or you’re the Devil – or you’re too stupid to know the difference. Lick the glue and slap on the label and scream “UNCLEAN” till the bad guy slinks away.

Essentially, the left sees us as a nation of Bond villains and they break us down down into two categories: Evil Geniuses and Moronic Henchmen. Dick Cheney? Evil Genius. George Bush? Moronic henchman. Rush Limbaugh? Evil Genius. Tea Party? Moronic henchmen. And, oddly enough, this also explains the huge enthusiasm gap we see coming in November.

Because, while one might think that any electoral contest that’s a battle between Light and Dark would be worth turning out for, this is only true if the side you’re fighting for is actually worthy of your support. One could easily presume that in any given contest both parties tend to think they have God on their side – this was certainly true of the left in 2006 – 08. Energized at the prospect of turning out the minions of Darth Bush and Emperor Cheney, libs pulled out all the stops to push their side over the top. And as in any battle, people got hurt: “Politics”, as Chicago Journalist Finley Peter Dunne once said, “ain’t beanbag.”

And so, in order to defeat the GOP SMERSH, the libs were willing to jettison some of their core beliefs in service of the greater good. Declare a war “lost”? Ok. Oppose a winning war   strategy? Ok. Voter Fraud via ACORN? Ok. Hijack an election via recount in Minnesota? Ok. Sexist smears against Hillary and Sarah Palin? Ok. Attack the children of your opponent?Ok. Out Gays? Ok. Lie, cheat? Ok, ok, ok…

And this was all just ducky, provided the end justified the means. When you’re in SPECTRE’s volcano, you have to shoot the guys in black or the nuke goes off. Bond doesn’t have a license to negotiate, he has a license to kill. And kill he does. But let’s not pretend that all the bad stuff done doesn’t bring with it a load of karmic freight. Sins committed in service of a greater good that are only forgivable if the greater good turns out to be real – you know, actually, demonstrably good.

So here’s the quandary: libs need Obama/Pelosi to succeed in order to save their own souls, otherwise the serial repudiation of their own values the libs committed to get them elected all comes to naught. And two years later when they see that the people they’ve spilled so much political blood and treasure to put in control are failing across the board, they might begin to wonder who’s the real dupe at the bottom of that volcano. And this time they’ll stay home.