The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The scourge of Pessimism
Although Geoffrey Wheatcroft does makes some interesting historical points here, one would be remiss not to ask: what exactly is his purpose in writing it?
Is the author trying to suggest that we should leave despotic dictatorships alone in the Middle East instead of giving the people there a voice? Sure, people have blown democratic opportunities in the past, but is Mr. Wheatcroft suggesting instead that the best hope for the Middle East is for "benevolent" (read: lusting for power) Marxists to nationalize everything and make all of the people's decisions for them? I am not sure this is truly the impetus of the democratic fever that is catching on all over the world...
Actually, I happen to think it is not the author's intent that we install some Hugo Chavez look-alike dolls to rule the region. But I could be wrong. And then again, what exactly is his intent?
My point is that the left has not been forthcoming with any meaningful ideas of their own--at least none that have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. That great dream of leftist utopianism, the United Nations, has become an abysmal failure, and a corrupt-to-the-core failure at that. So what is the average high-salaried media elitist to write? Does he/she propose a course of action to follow that would actually accomplish something positive for the world and for the cause of human freedom and dignity (which the Bush Administration has done in spades)? I'm still waiting to hear what these people are for: seemingly all I hear is what they are against--and even that changes like the wind. From where I sit, the best the "intellectual" left has to offer are reasons why each new policy solution offered by conservatives might not work as exactly as planned. Or in general why the rest of us should stop being so damned...optimistic.
Pessimism has become the pandemic of the left wing, and its method of infection is through vehicles like the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, ABC, CBS, CNN, and all other "mainstream" media voices of "reason". As if attempting to water down Bush's successes will somehow atone for their own vacuum of reasonable solutions to the issues and problems that confront us all.
A great example of this: it was the Clinton Administration that first proposed Personal Savings Accounts for Social Security, and I remember seeing a NY Times op-ed praising Clinton's "out of the box" thinking... Today however they evoke words like "short-sighted" or "political pandering" to explain their opposition to the same proposals. This exposes the media's real MO: the wholesale condemnation of any Bush proposal (regardless of merit) and the watering down of any Bush policy success (even if it rids the world of monsters, frees millions of repressed people, and fuels a worldwide democratic revolution). We are watching revisionist history in progress. The lengths to which some media have gone to argue against things it was arguing for just 6 years ago boggles the mind. It is something right out of the pages of Animal Farm.
I frankly have had it up to here with all of this incessant doom and gloom. No, I do not think our President is King Midas. But to read some of the opinions from some of these so-called "pundits", you would think that things are actually getting worse in the Middle East as a result of Bush's policy decisions, and nothing could be further from the truth. Even moderate voices on the left have had to admit over the last several weeks that Bush "might have been right, after all"...ad infinitum. Indeed, things have not looked so hopeful in the Mideast in a very, very long time.
To the leftists pulling the strings in our MSM, there is nothing more horrifying in general than American success under a conservative administration. So put on your raincoats: it may be a bright sunny day, but the pessimists are coming, and they are trying to bring along as many clouds as possible to rain on our collective parade. And this is who we are supposed to be taking "guidance" from?
Is the author trying to suggest that we should leave despotic dictatorships alone in the Middle East instead of giving the people there a voice? Sure, people have blown democratic opportunities in the past, but is Mr. Wheatcroft suggesting instead that the best hope for the Middle East is for "benevolent" (read: lusting for power) Marxists to nationalize everything and make all of the people's decisions for them? I am not sure this is truly the impetus of the democratic fever that is catching on all over the world...
Actually, I happen to think it is not the author's intent that we install some Hugo Chavez look-alike dolls to rule the region. But I could be wrong. And then again, what exactly is his intent?
My point is that the left has not been forthcoming with any meaningful ideas of their own--at least none that have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. That great dream of leftist utopianism, the United Nations, has become an abysmal failure, and a corrupt-to-the-core failure at that. So what is the average high-salaried media elitist to write? Does he/she propose a course of action to follow that would actually accomplish something positive for the world and for the cause of human freedom and dignity (which the Bush Administration has done in spades)? I'm still waiting to hear what these people are for: seemingly all I hear is what they are against--and even that changes like the wind. From where I sit, the best the "intellectual" left has to offer are reasons why each new policy solution offered by conservatives might not work as exactly as planned. Or in general why the rest of us should stop being so damned...optimistic.
Pessimism has become the pandemic of the left wing, and its method of infection is through vehicles like the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, ABC, CBS, CNN, and all other "mainstream" media voices of "reason". As if attempting to water down Bush's successes will somehow atone for their own vacuum of reasonable solutions to the issues and problems that confront us all.
A great example of this: it was the Clinton Administration that first proposed Personal Savings Accounts for Social Security, and I remember seeing a NY Times op-ed praising Clinton's "out of the box" thinking... Today however they evoke words like "short-sighted" or "political pandering" to explain their opposition to the same proposals. This exposes the media's real MO: the wholesale condemnation of any Bush proposal (regardless of merit) and the watering down of any Bush policy success (even if it rids the world of monsters, frees millions of repressed people, and fuels a worldwide democratic revolution). We are watching revisionist history in progress. The lengths to which some media have gone to argue against things it was arguing for just 6 years ago boggles the mind. It is something right out of the pages of Animal Farm.
I frankly have had it up to here with all of this incessant doom and gloom. No, I do not think our President is King Midas. But to read some of the opinions from some of these so-called "pundits", you would think that things are actually getting worse in the Middle East as a result of Bush's policy decisions, and nothing could be further from the truth. Even moderate voices on the left have had to admit over the last several weeks that Bush "might have been right, after all"...ad infinitum. Indeed, things have not looked so hopeful in the Mideast in a very, very long time.
To the leftists pulling the strings in our MSM, there is nothing more horrifying in general than American success under a conservative administration. So put on your raincoats: it may be a bright sunny day, but the pessimists are coming, and they are trying to bring along as many clouds as possible to rain on our collective parade. And this is who we are supposed to be taking "guidance" from?
