Friday, August 10, 2007
Opinion
Why can't we be friends?
President Bush has often said that it’s his job to deal with the world as it is, not as we all wish it would be...
Pakistani activists shout slogans in front of burning effigies of President George W. Bush (center), Republican Tom Tancredo (left) and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama (right).
CREDIT: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images |
By Eric Von Haessler
President Bush has often said that it’s his job to deal with the world as it is, not as we all wish it would be. Democratic presidential wannabe Barack Obama’s recent musings on the style of foreign policy that would be practiced under his administration offers a clear alternative to that practiced by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Instead of dealing with the world as it is, Barack and company believe we should indulge our Utopian fantasies and deal with the world as we wish it to be.
In a recent debate, Obama asserted that with no preconditions, he would gladly agree to meet with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Kim Jong-il of North Korea. He went on to explain that his was a candidacy that offered a true change in direction from the style of the Bush administration. And he’s right. The current Bush/Cheney doctrine of fighting the enemies of the United States wherever we find them would be replaced by an Obama policy of total capitulation--except of course when it comes to Pakistan, our ally, which he would bomb.
If America’s ready to take the policy of political correctness currently eating away at the fabric of domestic life and apply it to the world stage, Obama is the man to do it. If you think it’s time to take the touchy-feely ethos of Little League games. where points are awarded to no one and trophies are handed out to all, and apply it to foreign policy, Barack’s your man.
Remember when we had problems with too many failing students in our high schools? We just kind of stopped giving grades and the problem vanished. Remember when kids were struggling with math? We created a “new math,” where numbers weren’t so scary and intimidating. Remember when our children were having such a hard time learning to read? We just invented s“whole language” and let them know it wasn’t necessary to understand every word in a sentence. And our literacy rate skyrocketed.
Barack Obama holds out the promise that we can have that same kind of success in geopolitics if we’ll only have the courage to try it.
The first step to a politically correct solution to any problem is to change the language and style that have heretofore governed the situation. So if you’re having problems with an “enemy,” just stop calling them your enemy. There—don’t you feel better? In fact, let’s just go ahead and call them “friends.” Since we usually have good experiences with friends and we want everything to work out, it just makes sense to refer to everybody as friends and deal
with them accordingly. Now, doesn’t that put a drop of sunshine in your stomach?
Of course it does. Now that we’re all gettin’ groovy and loose, let’s put an end to this silly name-calling on the world stage and just start talking to each other. After all, there are no truly bad people. It’s just that some people are misunderstood.
Sure, Mahmoud wants to kill all the Jews while continuing to keep women as pets. But haven’t we all had a naughty thought from time to time? SP
More of Eric Von Haessler’s comments can be found at www.myspace.com/madpundit.