Friday, September 12, 2008 - Posts
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So, yes, as Rosa pointed out, Sarah Palin said that "perhaps" we'd have to defend Georgia if it were a NATO member. Here's the rest of what she said:
"The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to," she said. "It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries."
John McCain and Barack Obama both support Georgia's entrance into NATO. Here's what Obama said when Russia invaded Georgia:
"The United States, Europe and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression, and seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis. ... This is a clear violation of the sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of Georgia—the UN must stand up for the sovereignty of its members, and peace in the world."
"I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship."
No, she didn't have a good interview overall with Charles Gibson, and that's a big hurdle for her personally. But, regarding Georgia and Russia, if suggesting economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and reliance upon allies to handle a foreign policy crisis is insane, well, the inmates are going to be running the asylum regardless of who wins in November.
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I'm intrigued by this interpretation, from psychology professor Jonathan Haidt on Edge, which Ann already wrote thoughtfully about, about why people vote Republican. Haidt points out that mostly liberal academic psychologists have concluded that "conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death." And then right when he is about to lose me, for seeming pat and condescending, he writes:
"our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. ... Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats."
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"the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. When Republicans say that Democrats 'just don't get it,' this is the 'it' to which they refer."
I don't entirely understand why Democrats haven't generally persuaded more voters in the middle that they're also about binding people together. That's what Barack Obama's community organizer past was about, and yet somehow that job description was treated as a bad word at the Republican convention. But I think Haidt's framing of the challenge is useful. And humble, which is a nice change of pace from all the campaign clattering this week. (More natterings from me about that here and here.)
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