Building Better Brain Bombs

[Every once in a while I post an essay that is really a reply to something that happened off-stage, so to speak. This is one of those moments.]

The other day I received an email from someone who felt that she knew me, my opinions, my own sense of what is true, right, wrong. I shall name no names, and I shall give nothing away here. But the writer suggested that I was being, well, dishonest; and if not dishonest, I was being inaccurate, even, perhaps, revisionistic. What startled me most, of course, was the intimation that someone I barely know knows me better than I know myself. And what I apparently did not know without the help of this particular interlocutor is that I have always supported the Iraq invasion spearheaded by George W. Bush.

It's curious what people claim to know. I can assure you that my wife took this bit of news as a surprise; she recalls trying to get me to change my mind about Iraq, insisting, for example, that I should read Why We Fight by Bill Bennett (she insisted again Friday night that I need to read it). I have not read that undoubtedly fine work, largely because I already have far too much to do as I promote war at every turn. But what I think is clear is that people mistake my strident defense of President Bush as somehow support for everything he stands for; but my defense is really a critique of the junk hurled his way. I have never been pro-war, but I have been very much anti-crap. And I believe this fact with all my heart: the leftists are the revisionists when it comes to the genesis of the Iraq invasion.

Some people cannot believe that Michael Richards is not, in fact, Jerry Seinfeld's fictional neighbor, Kramer; Mr. Richards created such a convincing character one is tempted to conclude that he and Kramer are identical (how jarring it is to learn that they are not). Great actors who loathe serial killings nonetheless convincingly portray serial killers. Great novelists who are anti-war nevertheless portray war in all its brutal accuracy, even without having actually served a moment in battle. Great defense lawyers posit great apologies on their clients' behalf, leading jurors towards a "not guilty" verdict that the defense lawyer himself would not ever reach. You get the point. Merely because I have argued against the arguments proffered against the war, it does not follow that I am for the war. I am merely against bad arguments.

I would urge readers, who are interested in my feelings about the war against Islamic fundamentalism, to read what I believe is my definitive statement as presented in my series, "The Most Important Question: On Inevitability And The War On Terror." Readers will discover what I believe is really at stake; and readers will note, too, that I was far ahead of the pretentious and leftist billionaire George Soros, underwriter of the Democratic National Committee, who -- in a silly essay I discussed here -- called for a change in metaphor when discussing the war on terror. (And as for the attempts by linguist George Lakoff to redefine the Iraq War as an occupation, see my comment #2 at MadMike'sAmerica in this thread.)

I have been quite consistent in challenging bad arguments. I have challenged the idea that pacifism is strictly forbidden in Christian orthodoxy. I have challenged the idea that peace is attainable in "Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And Peace That Eludes." I have challenged arguments that suggest that only liberal dissent is deemed unpatriotic. I have criticized arguments that the war in Iraq is a quagmire, or that its difficulty proves its foolishness, or that American troops would fare better with more armor. I have criticized Madeleine Albright. In fact, I have criticized many things here. But I have never opined that I support war.

Sadly, my critic(s) will probably not read my definitive series "The Most Important Question", no matter how much I implore them to. Nor will they probably bother to read my lengthy but sincere letter to America, drafted mere days after 9/11 (and posted at a new Contratimes auxiliary), to judge its consistency with the series mentioned above. They are free to define me as they deem most expedient for them. I offer no definitions about their personal beliefs, since I hardly know these folks. I shall respectfully leave them alone.

Lastly, the emailer described me as a bomb thrower. You know, a sort of intellectual terrorist, a kind of Molotov cocktail-tosser in the brain. I stand, apparently, in the same company as Ann Coulter or, well, no one else. My rhetoric is shaped merely to detonate in the midst of irrefutable logic (or so it is suggested).

I find the 'charge' amusing.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.