When The Playing Field Is Skewed To The Right.
by tristero.
Folks, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a zillion times. Never argue on the right’s playing field. Ever. It’s a setup and you will lose. That’s ’cause the questions as they pose them are defined so narrowly and foolishly, they preclude anything resembling what a liberal means by rational discourse. In the post linked above, Jonah Goldberg emits:
If Democrats want terrorists to fall under the Geneva Convention let them say so. My guess is most won’t, if they’re smart.
And Kevin falls for it:
Well, I’m a Democrat, and I’ll say it: anyone we capture on a battlefield should be subject to the minimum standards of decency outlined in the Geneva Conventions. That includes terrorists.
Wrong, wrong wrong!
Like, “So, would you rather Saddam stay in power?” this is a framing of the issue that provides for not even the hint of an intellectually coherent response, let alone a “dialogue.” It is designed to elicit the narrowest range of acceptable responses, responses that reduce disagreement with Bushism to a quibble.
And if, without thinking, you take the bait and respond as Kevin has, you’re instantly battling uphill:
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What is all this preposterous liberal hand-wringing about rights for terrorists? They’re beheading our soldiers! They are evil! And there you are, worried sick about their rights. And look, the world thinks we’re barbarians anyway, anti-Americanism predates anti-Bushism, duh. And let’s not forget the big picture here: The important issue is not to demonstrate we’re not barbarians but to defeat the terrorists before they kill us. The rest is detail.
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So, should you ignore Goldberg? Compared to falling through the rabbit hole into Wingnutland, that would be a very wise idea. But you don’t have to ignore OR play along with Goldberg’s bizarro rhetorical gotcha. Here’s how I think liberals could respond to the latest rightwing version of “how long have you been beating your wife:”
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Jonah Goldberg is indulging in political games when he knows full well that the lives of millions of Americans working abroad, including soldiers who are fighting a war he supports but refuses to fight, are being endangered by the arrogant refusal of the Bush administration to set an example of principled action in the world. By embracing an official policy that embraces torture and murder, Bush (and enablers like Goldberg) are ensuring that what happened to Daniel Pearl will happen to more and more Americans. But the effect of this egregious flouting of bedrock principles going back thousands of years will transcend even the numerous terrible personal tragedies that are sure to come. As it becomes more dangerous for Americans to travel, trade will suffer and the security of our country will suffer precipitous declines.
Instead helping to create an atmosphere for genuine inquiry and dialogue, with recourse to facts and intelligent give and take, all Goldberg offers is one more opportunity to toss around the same old vacuous smears the right has been peddling for 30 plus years against the rest of America’s politicians, including those who are quite willing to fight wars Goldberg and company don’t have the guts to fight themselves. If Goldberg were prepared to discuss these very serious issues with any seriousness, he never would have proposed doing with such constricted, partisan language. And until he is prepared to be serious, I see no reason to enter his farcical rhetorical world.
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Is what I’m suggesting here clear qua style of approach?
I’m suggesting a majorly aggressive effort to ensure the issues are discussed properly – on mutual terms, or our terms, but never solely theirs. By contrast, Kevin, without apparently realizing it, addressed with due seriousness a ludicrously false dichotomy stemming from a worthless – no, a totally non-existent correlation. By doing so, the true issues were obscured, hopelessly obscured. And why? For one purpose only: Partisan gain on the part of Republican operatives, to get Kevin to admit he “cares more about the human rights of killers than keeping America safe.” And Goldberg’s not alone; Dems being nice-nice to terrorist is is the rightwing meme du jour. Even on the surface, it’s really a pretty pathetic one, nevertheless it’s important to understand what their rhetorical strategy is hiding. A few observations:
Goldberg’s framed the issue so that “permitting” so-called terrorists to “fall under the Geneva Conventions” becomes an either/or dichotomy, conflicting with America’s desire to do what it takes to be safe. Does the US government have any responsiblity to place human rights above the safety of the country? THAT is the question Goldberg is posing.
And that question is not in any real sense a useful question in the world of real people, as opposed to television action shows. First of all, there simply is no positive correlation – there is not even a logical association – between an increase in human rights violations and an increase in genuine national security. Yet that is what Goldberg is inviting us to discuss as if it were a serious topic.
At the very least, we’re arguing at the level of 12 grade high school moral dilemmas. At the worst, we are majorly wasting time. That’s because this completely false correlation makes it next to impossible to discuss in a rational way the important matter at the center of it all: What will it take, both in the long and the short-run, to protect American citizens and interests abroad and at home?
When it’s put that way, all sorts of important sub-topics are raised which Goldberg’s formulation dangerously sweeps aside as the subject veers off to Geneva, Gitmo, and gulags in Georgia. How do we increase the number of native Arabic speakers in CIA and FBI? How can the US muster the moral will to undertake a long-overdue and comprehensive examination of the efficacy both of military force against radical Islamist terrorism and of numerous long-held assumptions of American foreign policy?
That’s just a few, of course. As for the Geneva Convention in the 21st century, that, too is a vitally important issue. But it is a completely separate one. And the only way to discuss Geneva is by addressing it as carefully as one addresses all the other issues one confronts and not by frivolous linkages.
Only an incompetent, willfully dishonest fool would characterize the world as some kind of hydryaulic system where the more you torture, the safer you are. But that is the worldview that Goldberg’s eagerly proposes that Democrats respond to. There is no purchase to be had by a response on Goldberg’s terms as they are skewed and unserious.
Repeat: It’s a real mistake to give Goldberg the status of one who ought to be engaged. That’s how Perle and Wolfowitz sold the idiocy of preventive invasion and conquest of a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and was no more involved in terrorism against Americans than Canada was. Let’s not again make the mistake of giving foolishness a status it simply doesn’t deserve.