A note on my preferences

This is boring, but I’ve got to say this. My dislike for Bush is mostly personal. I just can’t stand the man. As for Bushite policies, my skepticism is essentially right-wing. The war in Iraq, I fear, is deepening and broadening a chasm in the heart of the West, and damaging the already troubled Western civilization. I am not a geopolitical or cultural relativist: the West must survive, and the Middle East can go hang. Similarly, Bush’s inaction on the immigration front… but that’s a strictly internal affair.

Incidentally, I am an elitist: every nation’s elites have its mission and duties, among them to educate and lead the masses, and share in their ordeal in times of trouble (e.g., in wartime). But to openly despise the commoners, to wish them away — what kind of elite behavior is this?

One comment

  1. The thing is, the Western states had prior to 1848 a tradition of noblesse oblige going back at least five or six centuries. In Russia, that tradition lasted another forty or fifty or years (or so the case can be made).

    The chartered colonies from which the U.S.A. was founded were consequences of the English Civil War, itself an attempt to do away with the Divine Right and the same noblesse oblige which was its accompanying responsibility. (Loose interpretation.)

    When you factor in the sense of entitlement afforded by fulfillment of the Protestant Work Ethic (or in too many cases, realization of its fruits without the fulfillment), the takeaway is, “f— ’em, make ’em bust their butts for their own slice of the pie.”

    Not much room for noblesse oblige there.

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