Democrats, National Security and Nukes

An excellent thread about national security, Democrats and nuclear threats over at Matt Yglesias's new place. He quotes Peter Scoblic of TNR:

[Democrats] must explain that nuclear weapons--not simply abstractions like tyranny or hate or evil--pose the greatest threat to the United States. And they must explain that, in contrast to Bush's fantasy, in which the earth is cleansed of evil, theirs is a story--all the more optimistic because of its realism--in which the concrete goal of securing and destroying fissile material can be accomplished through concrete steps.

Read the comments too. Money quote by commenter Gary Boatwright:

The first step is to reject the concept of "conservative hawk" and "liberal hawk." In the interest of ideological accuracy we should substitute "neo-conservative warmonger" for the term "conservative hawk" and "conservative warmonger" for the term "liberal hawk." The warmongers at TNR and the DLC are not liberal.

The second step is to recognize that the GWOT is simply a recycled version of the Global War On Communism. GWOT and GWOC are identical in every respect, including the lack of intellectual and ethical integrity. The Cold War had no identifiable military objective and neither does the GWOT.

Republicans and National Security

Kevin says:

Until Patrick Fitzgerald finishes his investigation, we won't know everything that really happened here. In fact, we still might not know even then. But we've learned one thing already: when presented with even a hint of evidence that someone on their team has treated national security with cavalier disdain, conservative concern with national security gets thrown overboard without a second thought.

Amen.

UPDATE: Kevin, who is thankfully back from vacation, has more.

Kid pics

Neoconservatives and God

Do neoconservatives believe in God? Via Matt, an interesting and comprehensive look at what founding neocon Irving Kristol thinks:

If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without...let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves.

I have a lot of sympathy for this view. I myself don't think there is a God, but I agree that "the masses" might act in ways that are immoral and destructive to "the fabric of society" if they learned "the truth".

Although in theory it should be possible to design a societal structure modelled after tribal patterns where moral authority was placed in the hands of "elders" of some kind (which is in fact what happens in many so-called primitive cultures).

Where I have a problem is when religious (and thus moral) authority is hijacked by people who use it primarily for their own personal advancement. I'd say the current crop of Republican leaders exemplify this.