Dick Cheney: Defiling the Dead

In October, 103 U.S. military personnel died, up from 71 in September. According to the military, the increase occurred because of increased activity by U.S. forces and because Muslim extremists consider Ramadan an especially meritorious time to launch attacks on their enemies.

Dick Cheney knows the real reason, however: the insurgents increased their attacks in an attempt to influence the U.S. elections. Cheney does not explain why there was an even greater proportional jump in deaths a year ago, from 49 in September to 96 in October, when there was no upcoming U.S. election. As usual more interested in politics than reality, which he disdains, Cheney is using the dead bodies of U.S. troops to rally support for the misbegotten and miserably failed policies responsible for their deaths.

Andrew Sullivan: Delusion and Conservatism

From Andrew Sullivan’s blog (http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/) for October 20, the post Tradition and Conservatism:

“Tradition is simply the pattern that exists at any given moment .. It is where you start from; it constrains what you can do.. it is the universe in which practical life has to occur.
…
The conservative… simply observes that this is the way the world is.”

Thus, Sullivan claims that the “conservative,” without bias or ideological interest, can objectively read the pattern of history and see what it is at any given moment,and has such a clear view of the universe of practical possibilities that he or she can inform the ideologically blinded partisans who make up the rest of the world how ro proceed. There is no reason to believe that any of this is true.

The illusion that the conservative sees the world "as it really is" from a neutral, natural, and ideology-free perspective is absurd, and is just as dangerous as the illusion of any other sort of ideologue that his or her grand theory captures unbiased the whole of reality.