Fundamentally Flawed

The Democrats' new multi-billionaire backer, George Soros, has an op-ed in the Guardian laying out his argument that the Bush administration has adopted a new policy of American supremacy, an ideology born of the coupling of religious fundamentalism and market fundamentalism. The former happens to be my personal hobbyhorse and the crux of my unrelenting antipathy toward Bush and his merry band of Rasputins. When all is said and done, I am largely a single issue voter and my single issue is this: which candidate is most likely to jam a pencil in Pat Robertson's eye? Find me a Republican that is less sympathetic to Reverend Robertson and his eyes than the Democrat in the race, and he'll get my support, no questions asked.

Thus far, the strategy has lent itself nicely to straight-ticket voting, and shows no signs of allowing any hint of creeping bipartisanship. I occasionally argue with some basically libertarian types who insist that they are appalled at Bush's spending, bothered by his social agenda, but will likely vote for him anyway, because the War on Terror™ is the most important issue facing the country and they don't trust the Democrats to carry it out effectively. Well, to nobody's surprise, I find that line of reasoning to be pure crap.

For the moment, I'll put aside the fact that my day-to-day life is affected far more by our own homegrown fundamentalists who never tire of trying to write their equally bizarre beliefs into my legal code. More to the point, if the number one threat facing the United States from a security standpoint is Islamic fundamentalism, the very last thing in the world you want is our foreign policy leadership staffed with Christian fundamentalists. That is begging for disaster, a proxy battle between vengeful, medieval gods carried out by their almost-but-not-quite rational earthly representatives. As Soros writes:

Even today, many people believe that September 11 justifies behaviour that would be unacceptable in normal times. The ideologues of American supremacy and President Bush personally never cease to remind us that September 11 changed the world. It is only as the untoward consequences of the invasion of Iraq become apparent that people are beginning to realise something has gone woefully wrong.

We have fallen into a trap. The suicide bombers' motivation seemed incomprehensible at the time of the attack; now a light begins to dawn: they wanted us to react the way we did. Perhaps they understood us better than we understand ourselves.

Perhaps they did. We are standing in a terribly dangerous place in American history. This is no time for zealotry.