Culture Wars Redux

A powerful post in another salvo in the Culture Wars

Ultimately, why should I have to convince my fellow countrymen that Darwin may have had a point and that the word “liberal” is not equivalent to “godless communist?” And why should they be forced to live in a country with morally corrupt non-believers? I'll stay in the messy, free-thinking U.S.A.B. And to the U.S.A.R. I say…

God bless you all, and see you at the U.N

A column by the inestimable Thomas Friedman notes(ref Zudfunck)

Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

Instapundit references Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon to explain the distinctions.

A response to the Michael Moore image, originally from American Leftist is provided by Michelle Malkin

The mosaic was created by the blogger American Leftist earlier this spring (would have been nice for Moore to give his fellow artist some credit). Anti-Bush bloggers--and, naturally, French bloggers--embraced the image as an anti-war indictment of Bush. But a mini-controversy erupted in the blogosphere when conservative bloggers saw the image as a moving tribute to the Iraqi war heroes and their commander-in-chief.

and from American Leftist,

I’d also like to point out that ‘War President’ is an image. It is not a textual statement or rhetorical argument. An image is like an empty room and any message that one reads in that room necessarily came in the baggage one carried when one walked in the door

In the Mind of Mog, one finds,

What does the future portend? A socialistic world controlled by a nanny state or a Muslim Caliphate controlled by fundamentalist Imams? That does appear to be the choice as freedom and true democracy, individual responsibility appears just about dead. The only hope is President Bush for he alone stands for responsibility for our actions and our future.

From the edge of reason,

We see no need to make conciliatory gestures towards the losers. None whatsoever. If Election Day taught us anything is that America is a conservative country. Hell, even the New York Times went so far today as to call it a "center-right" country. We wonder how long the editors had to ponder and/or choke on that one.

And the not-so-hidden meaning behind their request to "unite" the country is for the President to adopt liberal views (or as liberals like to call them-"moderate views"). Knowing that won't happen the what they're really saying is "Don't try to accomplish your "radical" agenda." In liberalspeak "radical" means "conservative".

Our response to this plea (which we hope the President shares) is simple - "Screw You".

History, and the wisdom of the American people, have offered George W. Bush a rare moment in history to push a distinctly conservative domestic agenda on various issues. The window will not be open forever and the opportunity should be seized, and seized quickly. We said before the election that we would offer the President friendly advice if he won, which we are glad he did. So the celebration is over (Well, almost).

The challenge of how red spread across blue may be answered by Thomas Frank in his new book. It neglects, however, the reality of the cultural amalgamation that defines any post-modern state, ably described in Robert Kagan's "The Breaking Of Nations"

Culture is a fusion of variegated identities. The aggregate whole blends all the colors of the rainbow. Thus it is more analog than discrete or digital, to stretch a metaphor. While that may not seem like a description of perceptions of American society today, the picture of voting patterns by county in a continuous whole shows the blended flow that exists and why pipe dreams like the wishful thinking behind any desire to suppress alternate cultural voices are just that - l'étranger est parmi nous, dans nos maisons, et finalement chez nous.(the stranger is among us, in our homes, and ultimately within us)