THE WANDERER, May 24, 2007
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Ollie the Revolutionary Feminist
One of the perennial problems we face in this world
is people who don't listen to others. An even worse
problem is the number of people who don't listen to
themselves.
On May 14, Mother's Day, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
featured an amazing column by Oliver North warning that
if the United States loses the war in Iraq to Islamic
militants, the consequences will be especially dire for
all women throughout the Muslim world: loss of the vote,
denial of basic education, sexual abuse and mutilation,
and various legal disabilities. And North extended this
list of horrors with furious indignation, calling the
U.S. Armed Forces "the principal protectors of Muslim
women in the world today."
If the U.S loses in Iraq, in other words, things
will be about what they have traditionally been under
Islam. I call this argument amazing because it assumes it
is our duty to bring a feminist revolution to the entire
Islamic world. And this infernal hooey appeared in a
supposedly =conservative= newspaper -- the one that
offers itself as the capital's alternative to the liberal
POST, the one in which the virtues of limited government
are routinely affirmed as self-evident truths!
North didn't explain what part of the U.S.
Constitution authorizes or requires the federal
government to undertake this ambitious program, but
President Bush and Condoleezza Rice would probably agree
with him. It would seem, after all, to follow from their
own agenda of promoting "global democratic revolution."
We have gone beyond the mere =nation=-building Bush
deplored during the 2000 campaign; now we are looking at
a foreign policy of universal =culture=-building. A New
World Order with a vengeance! North might as well have
added the further warning that unless the U.S. wins in
Iraq, Muslim women may never get abortion rights.
North also accused Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats of
failing the cause of women by refusing to support Bush's
war. Republican partisanship seems to have devoured
whatever was left of the genuine conservatism that wants
to preserve our culture rather than spoon-feed it to the
Third World.
Step back for a moment. Today's "conservatives" have
gone far beyond the wildest dreams of the old
one-worlders and utopians of the last generation or two.
They make Franklin D. Roosevelt, by comparison, seem like
a modest Midwest isolationist.
You can understand how the old liberalism gone
hog-wild might eventually reach this level of derangement
-- but conservatism? Nothing even faintly implicit in the
writings of such seminal conservative thinkers as Russell
Kirk, Willmoore Kendall, or Michael Oakeshott could
possibly be construed to support or foreshadow such
lunacy.
If we believe that conservatism can turn into this
goofy totalitarianism within a generation, then it
becomes much easier to suppose that swarthy gorillas
could eventually evolve into porcelain blondes. I suppose
it goes to show that when people abandon their
principles, they are apt to wind up reversing them.
The Future of Ron Paul
A curious feature of this war is that one of its
most controversial original reasons is no longer
mentioned: the security of the state of Israel. In the
beginning, as you may recall, Bush, Rice, and their
supporters kept insisting that Iraq posed a threat to
Israel; opponents of the war denied either the fact or
its relevance (or both). Now nobody on either side talks
about it.
The neoconservative hawks still defend the war, but
they no longer want to claim credit for it; nor do they
want to remind the public of Israel's supposed interest
in it.
Today we still hear, even from Bush himself, the
puzzling argument that unless we fight the enemy in Iraq
we will have to fight him here. I wish Bush would at
least offer a plausible scenario explaining how that
enemy might solve the logistical problem of getting
"here" with enough resources to conquer us.
Long before the 9/11 attacks, by the way, John
McCain gave a speech saying the U.S. should go to war to
protect Israel even if it weren't in the American
interest to do so. But this is now ancient history.
And in the latest Republican candidates' debate, the
assiduously pandering Rudy Giuliani took full advantage
of Ron Paul's courage and honesty when Paul quite
correctly called those attacks "blowback" for U.S.
interventionist policy in the Middle East. Giuliani, ever
the New York demagogue, sneered that this was "absurd."
Yet Paul's radiant integrity and relentless logic
continue to win respect and support from thinking people.
He won first place in an early post-debate poll. Giuliani
gets cheers from the Republican hordes around the
country; verily, he has his reward. Paul, the last Robert
Taft Republican, is loved and honored.
Paul had good words for Ronald Reagan; but he is,
and always has been, much better than Reagan. My dream
scenario is not, I think, very far-fetched:
The liberal, pro-war, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual,
thrice-married "Catholic" Giuliani gets the Republican
nomination next year. This drives real conservatives out
of the GOP; they turn to the Constitution Party, which
nominates Paul, the only principled and anti-abortion
candidate in the race. The Democrats win the White House
this time, but a major realignment occurs, the
Republicans going the way of the old Whigs they once
superseded.
My Week
What a week! After working till dawn one morning, I
awoke from a diabetic swoon to find myself being carried
to an ambulance. Somehow, after medical tests and
reciting Shakespeare for my amused nurses, I got home
quickly and met my deadlines. My grandson Joe turned 20;
my two newest grandsons came to visit as I prepared to
move to a small apartment from my home of 14 years. (It
was the all-night ardors of writing and packing books
that put me back in the hospital.)
I found time for Mass, Confession, a couple of
rosaries, a biography of St. Therese, and the first
major-league baseball game I've attended in many years.
While I was in the hospital, my son Mike told me that the
county government, ever helpful, had confiscated our poor
old dog to protect her from us; we don't expect to see
her again.
I'm leaving out the dull stretches. Have I mentioned
Jonathan Yardley's lovely tribute to James Thurber? A
very full week indeed.
Yet I can't complain; on the contrary, I knew
throughout that the good Lord was taking most tender care
of me. How blessed I am! No space here to list all the
people I suspect of praying for me; but thanks. "The
communion of saints."
+ + +
"A full century ago, on May 22, 1907, Laurence Kerr
Olivier was born." REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME -- a new
selection of my Confessions of a Reactionary Utopian --
is a handy antidote to despair. If you have
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--- Joseph Sobran
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