Why I'm A Conservative Republican

Not even Rush can say it any better. If there is anyone left in the Republican Party with any brains or a desire to win elections, start grooming this guy for office.

Pass The Class Hatred, Comrade

Speaking of anti-bourgeoisie manifestos, did anyone catch some of the Pullman League of Women Voter's ballyhooed "non-partisanship" on display in Lenna Harding's colmnn in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News today?

What kind of people can be happy with failure to address some of our country's most basic problems? It is this smug head-in-the-sand satisfaction with the status quo that the author of that message shares with our current leadership that has got us deeper into the morass that I have described. Things are just peachy with them. They have their flashy gas-guzzling SUVs or sports cars along with speedy boats and ATVs that tear up our pristine wilderness. They have enough money to buy corn-fed beef and the latest electronic gadget when it hits the market.

These same head-in-the-sand types often are the same folks who equate pledging allegiance, flag-waving, wearing flag lapel pins with patriotism, and who decry those who don't follow protocol or criticize our leaders as unpatriotic. Like the flowers that bloom in the spring - tra la - these have nothing to do with the case.

Aren't you glad that so-called "progressives" are not bigoted, don't question others patriotism, don't play to stereotypes, don't practice the politics of division, and don't encourage class warfare?

Let me skewer the myth of the wealthy, selfish conservative one more time. A recent study by Arthur C. Brooks, an economist at Syracuse University, found that on average, liberal families annually earn 6 percent more than conservative families. Furthermore, conservative households give 30 percent more money to charity than liberal households.

Welcome Cav!

Please welcome Cav, who just made his first thought-provoking post below. I think it is imperative that we as conservatives start thinking about how we can rebuild the Reagan Coalition.

As a child of the 70s, I see many parallels between now and then: an energy crisis, high gas prices, national disaffection following a long and frustrating war, fears of impending environmenal catastrophe, bad music, etc. Remember, it took Jimmy Carter to get us Ronald Reagan. And it will take Obama (or McCain to a lesser extent) to get us a new conservative leader like Reagan, be it Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, or whoever. In the meantime, our conservative values will have to be stored with care, and love, for better times.

Cav is a former Central Washington University College Republicans president and still lives in Ellensburg, which in many ways is Pullman's sister city. I am very glad to get some more Eastern Washington voices on the blog (and yes, I'm including you over there in Walla Walla, Paul.)

MoveRed.org

MoveRed.org is the youth coalition (ages 16-28) of the King County Republican Party. Their purpose is "to promote increased Republican activism among a younger segment of the population that is often left out of the political process." Above is their latest YouTube video.

I'd love to see a group like this started up in Whitman County. In Pullman, at least, the conservative youth voice is often suppressed/squelched/ignored by liberal teachers and professors.

"Young Republicans a proud minority"

Speaking of the College Republicans, here's a tribute to all you Young Republicans everywhere. Stay strong. You are doing the right thing at an early age and will have no regrets later when your point-of-view is vindicated.

From an AP story in yesterday's Seattle-PI:

CHICAGO -- Ladarius Beal is a rarity on the South Side of Chicago.

He is a young Republican, a suit-and-tie-wearing island of conservatism in a sea of Democrats, many of them supporters of presidential candidate Barack Obama, who lives nearby.

The 17-year-old's top political issues have their roots in his evangelical Christian faith: he adamantly opposes abortion and believes in marriage as a union between only "one man and one woman." And one day, he hopes to vote for Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor who dropped out of the presidential race when John McCain secured the GOP nomination, but vowed to build upon his conservative voting base.

"He does not let anybody make him feel ashamed about what he believes. And that's how I am," says Beal, a junior at Chicago's Julian High School, where he's known as the "preacher" for regularly riling up fellow students with his views.

He is a young black man living amid the "Obama-mania" that has overtaken not just his predominantly black high school, but college campuses across the country. He is among the up-and-coming Republicans who stand proudly against the tide, even if they are in a distinct minority.

An AP analysis also found that a notable number of young Republicans, like Beal, have conservative leanings. The analysis of exit poll data from 2008 presidential primaries found that Republican voters younger than age 30 tended to be more conservative than their elders:

- A third of those young Republicans oppose abortion in all circumstances, compared with 23 percent of Republicans age 30 and older.

- They also were 10 percentage points more likely to say the top quality in a candidate is that he or she "shares my values." Older Republicans were more likely to cite experience.

- And young Republicans were nine percentage points more likely than older Republicans to vote for Huckabee.

Overall, the analysis found that those in the 18- to 24-year old Republican bracket were the most conservative young voters.

Tarah Goulding, a 20-year-old senior at the University of Texas, is among them. She won't say which candidate she voted for in the Texas Republican primary, but says she's found things to like about Huckabee, Ron Paul and McCain.

"As a young person who wants to admire a president as a moral leader, I respect that Senator McCain doesn't just tell people what they want to hear," says Goulding, who's been an active Republican since age 14 and is now a precinct leader in her county.

That attitude makes her unusual among her college peers, says political science professor Michael McDonald, who thinks McCain's support of the Iraq war will make it difficult for him to appeal to young people's trademark sense of idealism.

"Talking about finishing the job - these sorts of things are not going to sit well with young people," McDonald says, noting the strong anti-war sentiment on campuses, including his own George Mason University.

In general, he and others say it is a difficult time for Republicans to try to reach out to young voters - so some wonder how much McCain will try.

Since the early 1990s, researchers at the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press have found that Republican ranks - young people included - are declining. Of 18- to 29-year-old registered voters who took part in Pew polls, about a third identified as Republican in 1992, compared with about a quarter in recent years.

Meanwhile, the percentage of young people in that bracket who identified as Democrats has risen from 29 percent to 34 percent in that same time frame.

Researchers at Harvard's Institute of Politics say they saw a slight increase in young people who identified as Republican after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but also have seen that support dissipate.

Many young Republicans don't dispute their minority status.

"The stories you hear about how college students are Obama maniacs are absolutely accurate," says Ellen Dargie, a 19-year-old sophomore who heads a Republican student group at Georgetown University. "But I think people really underestimate Republican youth."

She also thinks some young Democrats will switch allegiance after college - "as people grow older and see where their money is going and they start living with some of these policies."

"I think it's just a matter of time," she says.

That's what happened to Mike Murphy, a 27-year-old information technology technician in suburban Chicago. He leaned Democratic in high school, but is now a conservative Republican.

"It really made me mad that the government felt the need to take so much of my hard-earned money," Murphy says. Besides a wish for lower taxes, he counts national security and a tough immigration policy among his biggest priorities.

"I am not like any of these Hollywood Michael Moore-types from the Democratic party," he says.

Still others believe hope for luring young Republican recruits will come with more inclusiveness.

"Republicans can often be stereotyped as rich, white, old men. But that is not the Republican party of today," says Brendan Kownacki, a 22-year-old Republican who is a media strategist and consultant in Washington, D.C.

"There can be pro-choice Republicans, pro-environment Republicans, fiscal moderates, fiscal conservatives, or even gay Republicans."

Allen Otto, a 20-year-old Republican who is gay, agrees. He supports same-sex marriage, but isn't too fussed about his party's stance against it.

"There are many, many more issues in the political arena that mean a lot more to this country than gay marriage," says Otto, a student at Trinity University in San Antonio. A self-described conservative, he's supporting McCain.

Back in Chicago, however, Beal says he's just as glad he won't be old enough to vote in November. He'd rather have a chance to vote for Huckabee in 2012.

Though young black people are very unlikely to identify as Republican, according to the AP analysis, Beal seems almost inspired by his loner status, sharing his views with his Democratic peers - whether they want to hear them or not.

"Believe me," says social studies teacher Gwen Dunbar, "everywhere Ladarius goes, he's remembered."

"Socio-Cultural Characteristics of the Palouse Basin"

You're really going to enjoy this particular piece of professorial fluffery. It demonstrates considerable academic laziness, liberal bias, greatly oversimplified generalizations, and a general surrender to popular stereotypes. It's from the Palouse Basin Community Water Resource Information System, part of the Water Resources Program at the University of Idaho which provides a "platform for cross-disciplinary analyses of water resources sustainability within the eastern Palouse Basin watershed of western Latah County, Idaho, and eastern Whitman County, Washington."

I have highlighted what I consider the biased parts below:

A large proportion of rural residents in the area, especially those living outside of its population centers, were born in the Basin. Their customs and lifestyles are typical of those found in rural areas of the West, in that they tend to have resource-based and land-production occupations, and are comparatively more conservative in their values and perspectives. One crude indicator of this social characteristic is the number of campaign contributions made by residents of Colfax, WA, in the 2004 election: all but one were made to the Republican Party or its candidates – in a state where a minority (46%) of voters voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

However, in the Idaho portion of the basin’s rural areas, an exception is that some proportion of rural landowners either are faculty of the two universities or professionals attracted to the university-town of Moscow, and thus comparatively more liberal and affluent than their neighbors -- or they are even more liberal residents who have been attracted to the area as part of the back-to-the-land movement that began in the 1970's. One indicator of this social characteristic is the proportion of voters in Latah County that voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election – 50% -- in contrast to a state in which a majority voted for Bush (69%).

It might also be noted that a major segment of the Moscow and rural Latah County population, given a more liberal political orientation and the fact that they have come from other more populated, congested and poorly planned areas of the country, are more concerned than other residents with growth management and the use of government and public policy to advance economic and community development in a way that they see as being progressive and well-planned. Some are opposed to certain kinds of economic activity (e.g., "big-box" retail stores) and have been labeled by others as "anti-growth."

In contrast, some residents of the Basin, especially in rural Whitman County, are more conservative in their beliefs and preferences, and some (including many farmers in the region) are among the region’s most conservative, especially in comparison to their fellow citizens on the "west-side" of the state of Washington and in Latah County. These individuals tend to believe that the less government involvement in citizens’ lives, the better, and they espouse principles of free-market economics, despite the subsidies that some receive from the federal government. Of particular relevance for water resource management, they are generally in favor of community development through increased economic activity (i.e., "pro-growth"), and would like to see their communities grow in terms of the basic industries and retail outlets available for local services, consumer choices and purchasing options, and general local prosperity, through the jobs, income and economic expansion generated.

So, I guess we can interpret from that we conservatives are in favor of "poor planning" and "wasting water?"

And while there is some truth to this assessment, categorizing people as "anti-growth" and "pro-growth" by who voted for Bush and who voted for Kerry is embarassingly simplistic, insulting, and just plain wrong.

I know MANY Democrats who are in favor of Wal-Mart in Pullman. Pullman is around 55% Democrat, and yet Judy Krueger of PARD lost overwhelmingly in the 2005 city council race. I'm sure many of those folks who voted against Krueger voted for Kerry the year before.

Moscow is also strongly Democratic, yet the city council members who opposed big boxes were thrown out en masse last November. The same council that approved the Hawkins water deal went on a few weeks later to uphold a controversial measure granting health benefits to "domestic partners" of city workers, including those of the same sex, in violation of Idaho law. "Conservative?" You tell me.

On the flip side, I know of many conservatives who strongly oppose big-box stores in both Pullman and Moscow. And Whitman County is not underdeveloped because the Democrats have been in control all these years. Whitman County government has largely been a Democrat-free zone for a long time. No, it is in large part due to those farmers mentioned above who fear suburban development intruding into rural areas. In Pullman, it was business owners that chased away the Palouse Mall.

Until recently, Democratic Latah County had been the center of retail and housing development on the Palouse. Republican Whitman County had developed the anti-growth reputation. The opposition to big boxes is a coalition that spans political parties, the unholy alliance of liberal fascists and NIMBYists. The common thread with each group is that they want the government to decide what other people can do with their land. The NIMBYists just tend to be a little more quiet about it.

As an information system for those making decision about water, this seems to be a very poor resource. You would think they could do their homework and conduct some meaningful surveys on political attitudes about growth on the Palouse. They probably wouldn't like what they found.

Leave the F#$%ing Stilts at Home

Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, has written what I consider to be the most insightful (and damning) indictment of modern American liberalism I have yet seen. THIS IS A MUST-READ TO UNDERSTAND THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS IN PULLMAN AND MOSCOW!

When you read this, think of the wealthy Ph.D's of "grassroots" PARD and No SuperWalMart reliving their Berkeley-esque tie-dye glory days and lecturing us about the plight of the working class. Think of Mayor Chaney and her "sustainable" Mexican fishing village. Think of white professor David Leonard yammering on about Hurricane Katrina and African-American "genocide." Think of the recent freakshow that was the "Northwest Progressive Conference" at WSU. Think of John Streamas comparing the WSU College Republicans to Nazis. Think of Alex McDonald, the Young Democrats, and other middle-class WSU students complaining about "racism" and "oppression" on campus. Think of the monotonously politically correct and left-wing orthodox editorialists of the Daily Evergreen writing about "getting involved," "where's the outrage?" and "youth apathy." Taibbi makes the same point I have made before: Liberals ARE the establishment now. How can they rebel against themselves? That is why I contend that conservatism is becoming the new counterculture, and hence, much more fun.

Some relevant quotes:

Thus, the people who are the public voice of American liberalism rarely have any real connection to the ordinary working people whose interests they putatively champion. They tend instead to be well-off, college-educated yuppies from California or the East Coast, and hard as they try to worry about food stamps or veterans’ rights or securing federal assistance for heating oil bills, they invariably gravitate instead to things that actually matter to them – like the slick Al Gore documentary on global warming, or the “All Things Considered” interview on NPR with the British author of Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. They haven’t yet come up with something to replace the synergy of patrician and middle-class interests that the New Deal represented.

[...]


“Perhaps what the real issue is that the left is not really a grassroots movement,” he says. “You have this donor/elite class, and then you have the public . . . You have these zillionaires who are supposedly funding the progressive movement. At some point that gets to be a problem.”

[...]

This is another dirty little secret of the left – the fact that, at least when it comes to per-capita income, those interminable right-wing criticisms about liberals being “elitists” are actually true. According to a 2004 Pew report, Americans who self-identify as liberals have an average annual income of $71,000 – the highest-grossing political category in America. They’re also the best-educated class, with over one in four being post-graduates.

[...]

But having rich college grads acting as the political representatives of the working class isn’t just bad politics. It’s also silly. And there’s probably no political movement in history that’s been sillier than the modern American left.

What makes the American left silly? Things that in a vacuum should be logical impossibilities are frighteningly common in lefty political scenes. The word “oppression” escaping, for any reason, the mouths of kids whose parents are paying 20 grand for them to go to private colleges. Academics in Priuses using the word “Amerika.” Ebonics, Fanetiks, and other such insane institutional manifestations of white guilt. Combat berets. Combat berets in conjunction with designer coffees. Combat berets in conjunction with designer coffees consumed at leisure in between conversational comparisons of America to Nazi Germany.

We all know where this stuff comes from. Anyone who’s ever been to a lefty political meeting knows the deal – the problem is the “spirit of inclusiveness” stretched to the limits of absurdity. The post-sixties dogma that everyone’s viewpoint is legitimate, everyone‘s choice about anything (lifestyle, gender, ethnicity, even class) is valid, that’s now so totally ingrained that at every single meeting, every time some yutz gets up and starts rambling about anything, no matter how ridiculous, no one ever tells him to shut the fuck up. Next thing you know, you’ve got guys on stilts [like the No SuperWalMart doofus pictured above - tf] wearing mime makeup and Cat-in-the-Hat striped top-hats leading a half-million people at an anti-war rally. Why is that guy there? Because no one told him that war is a matter of life and death and that he should leave his fucking stilts at home.

Then there’s the tone problem. A hell of a lot of what the left does these days is tediously lecture middle America about how wrong it is, loudly snorting at a stubbornly unchanging litany of Republican villains. There’s a weirdly indulgent tone to all of this Bush-bashing that goes on in lefty media, a tone that’s not only annoyingly predictable in its pervasiveness, but a turnoff to people who might have tuned in to that channel in search of something else.

[...]

But to me the biggest problem with American liberalism is that it hasn’t found a new legend for itself, one to replace the old one, which is more and more often no longer relevant. I’ve got no problem with long hair and weed and kids playing “Imagine” on acoustic guitars at peace marches. But we often make the mistake of thinking that the “revolution” of the sixties is something that rightly should continue on to today.

While it’s true that we’re still fighting against unjust wars and that there’s unfinished business on the fronts of women’s rights, civil rights, and environmental preservation, there’s no generational battle left for America’s rich kids to fight. In the sixties, college kids had to fight for their right to refuse to become bankers, soldiers, plastics executives or whatever other types of dreary establishment lifestyles their parents were demanding for them. And because they had to fight that fight, the interests of white college kids were briefly and felicitously aligned with the blacks and the migrant farm workers and the South Vietnamese, who were also victims of the same dug-in, inflexible political establishment. Long hair, tie-dye and the raised black fist all had the same general message – screw the establishment. It was a sort of Marxian perfect storm where even the children of the bourgeoisie could semi-realistically imagine themselves engaged in a class struggle.

But American college types don’t have to fight for shit anymore. Remember the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill album? Remember that song “Fight for Your Right to Party”? Well, people, that song was a joke. So was “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “And the Cradle Will Rock.” The only thing American college kids have left to fight for are the royalties for their myriad appearances in Girls Gone Wild videos. Which is why they look ridiculous parading around at peace protests in the guise of hapless victims and subjects of the Amerikan neo-Reich. Rich liberals protesting the establishment is absurd because they are the establishment; they’re just too embarrassed to admit it.

When they start embracing their position of privilege and taking responsibility for the power they already have – striving to be the leaders of society they actually are, instead of playing at being aggrieved subjects – they’ll come across as wise and patriotic citizens, not like the terminally adolescent buffoons trapped in a corny sixties daydream they often seem to be now. They’ll stop bringing puppets to marches and, more importantly, they’ll start doing more than march.

This is why I don't sweat PARD. No one will ever take them seriously. Those self-important poseurs would have been finished a year ago if not for the Pullman City Code that threw their appeal into the glacially-paced justice system.

And I don't fear the Democrats, because as many missteps as the GOP has made over the war, immigration, etc., the average American does not consider the looney moonbats of Pelosi, Reid and Company to be a viable alternative. Once the Republicans find a leader who can connect with the common people again, as Ronald Reagan did, the ship will be righted and the left will be put out of our misery for good.

HT: Dale Courtney

In Praise of the Pullman PD

The Pullman police have gotten plenty of bad press as of late. I don’t think there’s any point in repeating what has gone on and what has been said about them, as anyone in this area is probably well aware of it all, and anyone reading from afar could just insert their own prejudices against cops everywhere into the blank if they don’t happen to know the details.

I want to write about what the Pullman PD do right, and as fate would have it, this involves two incidences I have been personally involved in within only days of each other. I’m going to share with you my recent experiences with our local law enforcement officers to remind everyone – fans and critics alike – that we really do need these men and women in uniform, and that we ought to appreciate them more than many seem to.

The first incident occurred just this past weekend. Basically, my roommates and I were throwing a pig roast at our house, an event for which we required a small admission fee of all guys who joined us (women got in free). A few arrogant, entitlement-minded narcissists attempted to crash the party. I caught them and threw them out, but they returned with friends of theirs and refused to leave. Right before my roommates, guests, and I commenced with beating these idiots into pulp, the Pullman PD arrived and trespassed them from our property at our request and left us to enjoy our party. Though admittedly somewhat frustrating (because I think a lot of people out there deserve/need a sound beating), this outcome was best. It’s all thanks to our local police forces.

The other incident occurred just this evening. Long story short, my roommates and I stopped an attack on a young woman by her ex-boyfriend near our house. Within minutes, a Pullman PD officer was here to assist her and interview us. While he was doing this, another officer had caught and detained this young woman’s attacker in another part of town. If there is justice, he will be in prison; this is not the first time he has attacked the poor girl, as she told my roommates and I.

The Pullman PD are frequently called many names, accused of being racists, of only picking on students partaking in relatively benign behavior while ignoring real crimes, etc. It would be obviously wrong to say that they do not sometimes make mistakes, but too often it seems that their human errors are all that they are given credit for, and frequently their errors are blown out of proportion in shameless attempts at exploiting unfortunate events for personal or special-interest gain. My examples to the contrary are admittedly few as they are personal examples, but it is obvious that many more of a similar nature exist in the memories of others. I offer my few positive experiences to remind everyone that, despite a lot of the local lefty rhetoric against our officers, they are essentially good people – people who can make mistakes, like any of us, but who rise to the occasion and do good works, sometimes at risk of personal injury and even death, when they are called upon to do so, and all for our benefit.

Victor Davis Hanson: The Post-west

I found this great read elsewhere on the web. Given current discussions taking place here at Palousitics, I found this piece timely:

April 13, 2007
The Post-west
A civilization that has become just a dream.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.

I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs — even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.

NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a “disproportionate” nature.

In this apparition of mine, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in Syria at the time, would lecture the Assad regime that there would be consequences to its serial murdering of democratic reformers in Lebanon, to fomenting war with Israel by means of its surrogates, and to sending terrorists to destroy the nascent constitutional government in Iraq.

She would add that the United States could never be friends with an illegitimate dictatorship that does its best to destroy the only three democracies in the region. And then our speaker would explain to Iran that a U.S. Congresswoman would never detour to Tehran to dialogue with a renegade government that had utterly ignored U.N. non-proliferation mandates and daily had the blood of Americans on its hands.

Fellow Democrats like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid would add that, as defenders of the liberal tradition of the West, they were not about to call a retreat before extremist killers who behead and kidnap, who blow up children and threaten female reformers and religious minorities, and who have begun using poison gas, all in an effort to annihilate voices of tolerance in Iraq.

These Democrats would reiterate that they had not authorized a war to remove the psychopathic Saddam Hussein only to allow the hopeful country to be hijacked by equally vicious killers. And they would warn the world that their differences with the Bush administration, whatever they might be, pale in comparison to the shared American opposition to the efforts of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran to kill any who would advocate freedom of the individual.

Those in Congress would not deny that Congress itself had voted for a war against Saddam on 23 counts — the vast majority of which had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and remain as valid today as when they were approved in 2002.

Congressional Democrats would make clear that, while in the interests of peace they might wish to talk to Iran, they had no idea how to approach a regime that subsidizes Holocaust denial, threatens to wipe out Israel, defies the world in seeking nuclear weapons, trains terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq, engages in piracy and hostage taking, and butchers or incarcerates any of its own who question the regime.

In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the “Great Satan” during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.

Bill Clinton would likewise add that he bombed Iraq, and Afghanistan, and East Africa without congressional or U.N. approval because of the need for unilateral action against serial terrorism and the efforts of radicals to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naiveté about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.

I also dreamed that the British government only laughed at calls to curtail studies of the Holocaust in deference to radical Muslims, and instead repeatedly aired a documentary on its sole Victoria Cross winner in Iraq. The British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish foreign ministers would collectively warn the radical Islamic world that there would be no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind, no more backpeddling and equivocating on rioting and threats over cartoons or operas or papal statements. There would be no more apologies about how the West need make amends for a hallowed tradition that started 2,500 years ago with classical Athens, led to the Italian Republics of the Renaissance, and inspired the liberal democracies that defeated fascism, Japanese militarism, Nazism, and Communist totalitarianism, and now are likewise poised to end radical Islamic fascism.

Europeans would advise their own Muslim immigrants, from London to Berlin, that the West, founded on principles of the Hellenic and European Enlightenments, and enriched by the Sermon on the Mount, had nothing to apologize for, now or in the future. Newcomers would either accept this revered culture of tolerance, assimilation, and equality of religions and the sexes — or return home to live under its antithesis of seventh-century Sharia law.

Media critics of the ongoing war might deplore our tactics, take issue with the strategy, and lament the failure to articulate our goals and values. But they would not stoop to the lies of “no blood for oil” — not when Iraqi petroleum is now at last under transparent auspices and bid on by non-American companies, even as the price skyrockets and American ships protect the vulnerable sea-lanes, ensuring life-saving commerce for all importing nations.

I also dreamed that no columnist, no talking head, no pundit would level the charge of “We took our eye off bin Laden in Afghanistan” when they themselves had no answer on how to reach al Qaedists inside nuclear Pakistan, a country ruled by a triangulating dictator and just one bullet away from an Islamic theocracy.

…

And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.

Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it. [emphasis added]

©2007 Victor Davis Hanson

The Mormon Question

This letter appeared in yesterday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Since first arriving in Moscow, to start school at the University of Idaho in 1961, I have always been proud to say I live here. The cultural, religious, ethnic, and racial mixture of our residents has made life here both interesting and pleasurable. Vera White's INK column (March 30) disturbed me. She identified Mike Hoffman (A mystery solved) as "Christ Church member Mike Hoffman."

In this diversified community I was shocked. Would you refer to city supervisor Gary Riedner as Catholic Church member Gary Riedner, or City Councilwoman Linda Pall as Jewish? I hope this reference was not malicious. I, for one, would appreciate her being more sensitive to others regardless of their religious differences, in her future commentary.

Rick Beebe, Moscow

Nothing more clearly demonstrates what small-minded, ignorant, intolerant bigots the coterie of Moscow liberals are than their crusade against Christ Church. Even liberal columnists like Tom Henderson and Jim Fisher of the Lewiston Tribune rail against this bigotry. It makes no one take them (or their causes) seriously.

What concerns me most, however, is when I see such religious bigotry among conservatives.

We conservatives believe in tradtional American values: hard work, individual liberty, self-reliance, free enterprise, patriotism, and faith in God. That faith in God is not limited to theology. There are Jewish conservatives, Catholic conservatives, Protestant conservatives, etc.

A recent Gallup poll on presidential candidate preferences brought forward some troubling issues.

Conservatives are widely accused by liberals as being racists. Yet the Gallup poll found that 92% of conservatives would vote for a black presidential candidate versus 95% of liberals, a statistical tie. So much for that old saw.

However, 75% of liberals would vote for a Mormon candidate versus just 66% of conservatives. Overall, 72% of Americans would vote for a Mormon candidate and 24% would not.

Compare that with 67% of liberals who would vote for an atheist, while only 29% of conservatives would vote for an atheist.

Proof that some prejudices die harder than others is that overall, Americans have grown vastly more supportive over the last 70 years of virtually every type of non-traditional presidential candidate (Jewish, black, Catholic, or a woman) except for a Mormon.

Some of this disparity, no doubt, comes from the unease that some Evangelicals, who comprise a sizable portion of conservatives, have about Mormonism. As an Evangelical, I admit LDS beliefs are somewhat of a mystery to me.

Prominent conservative blogger and talk show host Hugh Hewitt has stated that Evangelicals should not withhold votes for a candidate based purely on theological disagreement. He fears that if Christians attack someone like Mitt Romney for his faith, it won't be long before secular liberals attack Christians on similar grounds. In fact, that is what we are seeing in Moscow now.

We, as conservatives, must not step into that cesspool. One of my favorite movies is "Gettysburg," based on the Michael Shaara book "The Killer Angels." There is a great line in the movie that goes:

Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one a time.

I will judge Mitt Romney by his policies, his words, and his actions, not his church membership. To do otherwise would be to engage in the petty snobbery and elitism that the PARDners do with Wal-Mart.

Ronald Reagan focused on what united us when he spoke of America as the "shining city on a hill." Let us not dishonor his legacy by focusing on what divides us, as the leftists do.