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January 13, 2007

In which another conservative sees the light

Having been against the Iraq invasion and occupation from the outset, I've had a lot of affirmation on my position. Despite being called an unpatriotic, traitorous, anti-American coward..I have not waivered from my belief that this adventure absolutely immoral and unjustified.

Had I been wrong, I'm certain I'd have reexamined by beliefs and adjusted them accordingly. But I don't think I'd have felt the kind of Richter Scale shift as this:

As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool's errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic.

But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool.

In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Carter did.

The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government's conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me.

It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President.

I turn 40 next month -- middle aged at last -- a time of discovering limits, finitude. I expected that. But what I did not expect was to see the limits of finitude of American power revealed so painfully.

I did not expect Vietnam.

As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war.

I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?

Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home.

This commentary is from Rod Dreher, a long-time conservative columnist.

I recognize that Mr. Dreher still considers himself a conservative. But after reading this essay I believe that Dreher has taken the first important steps away from that ideology. He's articulating the need to question authority and never take things at face value.

Those are the traits of a liberal.

Dreher isn't just reexamining beliefs and making minor shift adjustments. He's having to dissect all that he's embraced and realize that its folly. And he's doing it at a time in his life that's fundamental: as a father of young children.

He's not just changing his belief set to satisfy himself. He's doing it because he's a father who wants to raise his children.

Dreher is growing up and moving away from his childish beliefs of conservatism because he has no other moral choice. And he knows it.

(via Glen Greenwald)

Posted by Carla at January 13, 2007 09:02 AM