THE WORLD IS A MORE PEACEFUL place than ever, according to John Tierney. Despite the nightly news, and the hysteria of the political left, Tierney notes that organized violence around the world has actually been cut in half over the last fifteen years. It is an interesting read in that it provides some perspective on current events.
Along the way, Tierney has on interesting take on the infantile "war for oil" mantra that we have heard so often, most notably from the far left.
The Iraq war is sometimes described, by both foes and supporters, as a pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing, but not even the most ruthless accountant can justify the expense. Even before the war, America's military costs in the Persian Gulf were much greater than the value of all the oil it was getting from the region, and now it's spending at least four times what the oil's worth.
Kind of shoots down the "greedy America" line of bull from the pre-schoolers doesn't it?
I nice companion piece to Tierney's column is the last contribution from Victor Davis Hanson, who takes a few well-deserved shots at our "spoiled and unhappy" global leftists.
The anti-Americanism that we frequently see and hear, then, is often a plaything of the international elite — a corporate grandee, a leisured athlete, or a refined novelist who flies in and out of the West, counts on its globalizing appendages for wealth, and then mocks those who make it all possible — but never to the point that their own actions would logically follow their rhetoric and thus cost them so dearly...
...Rhetoric is always at odds with lifestyle: A novelist who tours and writes in English is the epitome of the Western liberal tradition that allows freedom of expression, promotes book sales through open markets, and enjoys unfettered peer review. Ms. Roy will always operate deeply embedded in the system she ridicules, and Western grandees will always pay her well for making them feel badly for a few hours. Islamists, Communists, and theocrats — in a Saudi Arabia, Iran, Cuba, or China — would not only not pay her, but might well issue a fatwa, jail time, or a death sentence for what they didn’t like to read or hear.
This also explains why American liberals are so enamored with trashing the "religious right." The practice, whether it be global or local, seems to be to pick an easy target that you know will not cost you anything economically or in any sense of freedom.
Still, wouldn't it be nice, just once, to see a typical liberal head into the heart of the West Bank, or along the border of Syria, and preach to the Islamists that they are having a "dangerous" effect on freedom, or that they need to stop efforts to create a "theocracy," or tell them that they are all a bunch of hicks, worshiping a God that doesn't exist?
Of course, that would not only cost them their economic and political freedom, but probably their head as well. Just something to keep in mind you hear another pampered coward picking on the "religious right."
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