I know North Korea encourages its people to hate America, and President Bush in particular. But this photo from its state-run media still shocked me:
North Korea may revile Bush, but there are other nations — in particular, those where free people have fresh memories of oppression — that admire him:North Korean children play a shooting game with a toy gun aiming at a portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush at Namjun kindergarten in Shinwiju, Pyongan-Budo, North Korea. The photo was released by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 9, 2005. (Reuters)
Hated by dictatorships and embraced by fresh young democracies, Bush seems to have made the right enemies, and earned the right friends.U.S. President George W. Bush waves to the crowd after delivering an address to a large gathering of Georgians in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 10, 2005. Bush, the first U.S. leader to visit the ex-Soviet Republic while in office, spoke in the capital's Freedom Square, the rallying point for a 2003 "Rose Revolution" that installed a reforming, Western-looking government. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
When liberals, seriously or not, encourage people to kill Bush (as they did here and here), do they realize they're aligning themselves with the world's most repressive regime, and against its newest free nations? Do they care?
4 comments:
The left have a long and proud tradition of aligning with repressive regimes, after all, even the worst can't be as bad as Amerikkka right?
I have long felt that the quality of one's allies, and the nature of ones enemies define a person better than anything else.
When I found out Vaclav Havel and Lech Wallessa, two of my personal heroes, were for the Iraq War, it certainly shored up my belief in the justness of the cause.
Posted by Dave Justus
GB, that use of "aligning" is pretty slippery. To go Godwin on you for a moment, are you "aligning" yourself with Hitler if you're in favor of a well-maintained interstate highway system? Pol Pot and Kim Jong-il believed in proper dental hygiene--are you "aligned" with them? Evil people are often correct on some issues, and to have a similar opinion to someone is not to "align" oneself with that person.
Of course, anyone actually calling for Bush's death should be condemned, but some of them may be even more opposed to Kim's regime, so talking of "aligning" seems a bit out of place.
Dave Justus,
The right have a long tradition of aligning with repressive regimes, too (think third world dictatorships during the cold war.) I wouldn't be too proud to be allied with the House of Saud, Putin, or Musharraf, either. Politics often makes alliances with unsavory characters necessary, so this isn't an argument that flatters either the left or the right.
Posted by Big Ben
BB, highway maintenance and dental hygiene are neither criminal, nor controversial, nor even political. Who is for bad highways and rotten teeth? So it doesn't make any sense to speak of someone as "aligned" with someone else with respect to a subject upon which virtually everyone is in agreement. However, if two people both agree that Bush should be assassinated, I think that fact does indicate that they have at least some ideological common ground.
Additionally, the fact that someone opposes Kim's regime neither mitigates the same person's calls for Bush's death, nor changes the fact that he shares Kim's view of Bush.
Posted by GaijinBiker
I didn't say it mitigated anything, but the opinion is bad because the opinion is bad, not because of who else shares it. If someone opposes Kim's regime then it is really weird to say that they are "aligned" with Kim, even if they share some views.
I grant that common sense issues like dental hygiene weren't the best example, but if, prior to the current Iraq war, someone said you were "aligned with the Iranian mullahs" because you opposed Saddam's regime, I think you might have legitimately objected to that phrasing.
I'm not arguing with your condemnation of those who call for assasination of the president, just the phrasing you use to do so.
Posted by Big Ben
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