Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Freedom
Just because you wear grown-up clothes and pepper in your hair, it doesn't make you a grown-up.
"While chronological age is progressive, emotional age is a layering of maturity over earlier coping styles." says psychiatrist Judith Sills.
Here's a quick emotional intelligence quiz.
When faced with conflict, what's your usual response?
1) If I don't get what I want, I often feel upset or pout about it
2) When I want something, I go out and get it.
3) If I don't do anything, the problem will go away.
4) Conflict can be resolved through communication and compromise.
We've seen Bush exhibit one and two. The right would like you to believe that Kerry is stuck at number three.
New York Times columnistDavid Brooks calls the conflict between Bush and Kerry's foreign policies one between two values, freedom and internationalism. A neutral word choice would have given us individualism and internationalism. Instead we get Bush's emotion laden word "freedom."
Maturity comes with the recognition that personal freedom, our own rights, can infringe the rights of another.
"When Bush talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about spreading freedom." Brooks says. "What he's really talking about is a decentralized world. Individuals would be free to live as they chose, in their own nations, carving out their own destinies."
Saddam Hussein would happily agree to that.
In a free for all society, the biggest guy gets to make the rules. If you happen to be the biggest guy, you have all the freedom.
Democracy, on the other hand, depends on the rule of law. It is rule, not by the sword, or by an elite, but by consensus.
Answer number four.
"Internationalism" (which Brooks opposes to freedom) is the concept of democracy applied to nations. When Kerry said, in the first Presidential debate, "We have to pass the global test", he meant that we take our grievances to a congress of the world's nations. If it is just, we can trust that the world will recognize our cause.
Bush rejects international law. The Kyoto treaty, the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice.
In doing so, he encourages terrorists and other rogue nations.
International economic sanctions and inspections have proven to be successful in containing Saddam's nuclear ambitions. The U.N. peacekeeping force was able to resolve conflicts in Eastern Europe, and Somalia, and is working in Sudan, Iran and Korea.
Kerry is arguing for the use of diplomacy, before force, and the use of international consensus, over the playground logic of might equals right.
Bush would impose democracy on the Middle East, and impose a Christian conservative agenda on America.
That's the so-called freedom of the right wing. It doesn't mean freedom of religion, the separation of church and state. Or individual freedom, the right marry whomever one chooses. Or freedom of speech, the right to protest. Or freedom of choice, couples making their own moral decisions about their future.
Compromise, in the Bush vocabulary, equals weakness.
Freedom and responsibility, Albert Camus, wrote, are bound together.
"While chronological age is progressive, emotional age is a layering of maturity over earlier coping styles." says psychiatrist Judith Sills.
Here's a quick emotional intelligence quiz.
When faced with conflict, what's your usual response?
1) If I don't get what I want, I often feel upset or pout about it
2) When I want something, I go out and get it.
3) If I don't do anything, the problem will go away.
4) Conflict can be resolved through communication and compromise.
We've seen Bush exhibit one and two. The right would like you to believe that Kerry is stuck at number three.
New York Times columnistDavid Brooks calls the conflict between Bush and Kerry's foreign policies one between two values, freedom and internationalism. A neutral word choice would have given us individualism and internationalism. Instead we get Bush's emotion laden word "freedom."
Maturity comes with the recognition that personal freedom, our own rights, can infringe the rights of another.
"When Bush talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about spreading freedom." Brooks says. "What he's really talking about is a decentralized world. Individuals would be free to live as they chose, in their own nations, carving out their own destinies."
Saddam Hussein would happily agree to that.
In a free for all society, the biggest guy gets to make the rules. If you happen to be the biggest guy, you have all the freedom.
Democracy, on the other hand, depends on the rule of law. It is rule, not by the sword, or by an elite, but by consensus.
Answer number four.
"Internationalism" (which Brooks opposes to freedom) is the concept of democracy applied to nations. When Kerry said, in the first Presidential debate, "We have to pass the global test", he meant that we take our grievances to a congress of the world's nations. If it is just, we can trust that the world will recognize our cause.
Bush rejects international law. The Kyoto treaty, the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice.
In doing so, he encourages terrorists and other rogue nations.
International economic sanctions and inspections have proven to be successful in containing Saddam's nuclear ambitions. The U.N. peacekeeping force was able to resolve conflicts in Eastern Europe, and Somalia, and is working in Sudan, Iran and Korea.
Kerry is arguing for the use of diplomacy, before force, and the use of international consensus, over the playground logic of might equals right.
Bush would impose democracy on the Middle East, and impose a Christian conservative agenda on America.
That's the so-called freedom of the right wing. It doesn't mean freedom of religion, the separation of church and state. Or individual freedom, the right marry whomever one chooses. Or freedom of speech, the right to protest. Or freedom of choice, couples making their own moral decisions about their future.
Compromise, in the Bush vocabulary, equals weakness.
Freedom and responsibility, Albert Camus, wrote, are bound together.
