Fault Lines

I love the usual conservative line that we had better do things “their way” or anyone who opposes any portion of “their way” is to blame for anything bad that happens. I hear this childish (and illogical) line of argument all the time from the right. “Give the President the power to do anything he pleases or the next 9/11 is YOUR FAULT!”

Kevin responds better than I can:

Of course, you might just as well ask yourself why there were no terrorist attacks on American soil in the four years before 9/11. The fact is, superhawks always claim their programs are vital to American security, and they almost always turn out to be wrong. We didn't need to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II, we didn't need Joe McCarthy's theatrics during the Cold War, and we didn't need COINTELPRO during the Vietnam War. And when the Church Committee outlawed the most egregious of our intelligence abuses in the 70s, guess what happened? The Soviet Union disintegrated a decade later. Turns out we didn't need that stuff after all. America is a lot stronger than its supposed defenders give it credit for.

In any case, [Max] Boot has succinctly expressed a talking point you can expect to hear a lot more of when al-Qaeda eventually mounts anothersuccessful attack on American soil, an act so likely as to be almost inevitable. No matter how big or how small that attack turns out to be, the hawks will rush to announce: it's the liberals' fault. It's your fault. It's my fault.

But never their fault. Never the fault of those who have so little faith in America's institutions in the first place. It's never their fault.

Damn straight. Who hates America?