Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditone querentes?
So Joshua Micah Marshall links to the Daou Report, which was highlighting a Corner post by Ramesh Ponnuru, and now I have another Lewis Black earwig wreaking havoc with my equilibrium:
The risk is that liberals’ moral arguments are peculiarly prone to coming across as self-righteous and moralistic.
And yes, I know he means it in the “addicted to moralising” sense and not merely in the “pertaining to or characteristic of one who practices morality” sense, but hey: he left the door open. And it’s a lovely little piece of snark to walk away with, isn’t it? Our moral arguments are hampered by an actual morality that we insist on applying to ourselves—and thus, by extension, anyone who’d join our club.
Their moral arguments consist mostly of ganging up to tell some convenient Other on the margins over yonder that they’d damn well better knock it off.
—Snarky as it is, though, it’s the kernel that proves Ponnuru’s basic argument: playing the preaching game won’t work for us, and it’s not because Americans are Bad, but because People are Cussedly Cantankerous. Besides, it’s letting them pick the battlefield and define the terms, and Ponnuru’s post is an avis most rara: advice from the other side that’s worth the taking. He just showed us where and when their flank will ambush us. Don’t let’s take the bait.
That said, I can’t get Nick Confessore’s crazy idea out of my head. Maybe providing health insurance through the Democratic party is in itself not so great a plan, no. But the idea of using what power we have to do what we can to weld together a reality-based safety net, doing what it can to end-run those most useful bits of the government currently headed for Grover Norquist’s bathtub, providing an alternative to the faith-based megachurch charity network, and thereby reconnecting the party with the people, and reminding the people directly just why it is we come together to get things done in the first place—
Sure, it’s buying votes with bread—a practice connected to traditions as old as the idea of a republic itself. It’s also one hell of a lot more useful than half-heartedly taking up tut-tutting about Grand Theft Auto.
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