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| Unfrozen Caveman Voters |
| 2006-08-16 |
| by Josh Manchester, Tech Central Station How many times recently have you been in virtually any social situation -- business lunch, gathering with family, summer barbecue with friends -- and when the war has come up in conversation, one of the following statements is made: "It's sad, but it's going to take another attack before we really fight this war like we need to." "I just don't think we're going to win until we mobilize the whole nation against the enemy." "I really don't care whether the Middle East is democratic or not, I just want to win the war." And so forth. What you are witnessing in these moments is a distinct vein in the American spirit that is currently unrepresented by either major party or any single national politician. We might call this part of the American psychology the Unfrozen Caveman Voter. . . . I recently had dinner with a friend, another Marine, who said, "You know, at their basic core, Americans are Type-A, aggressive personalities who want nothing more than to just kick a**!" He's right, and not the first to notice this. General George Patton, in his harangues to his troops, frequently pointed out how different they were from those of other countries: Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood. But remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and remained slaves. And then this, We Americans are a competitive race ... We love to win. In this next fight, you are entering the greatest sporting competition of all times. You are competing with Americans and with Allies for the greatest prize of all -- victory. The Unfrozen Caveman Voter is begging to be released. But at the moment, he is being misread by both national parties, and especially the Democrats. Sure, some people oppose the invasion of Iraq or simply hate George Bush, period. And sure, some people distrust all Muslims and are racists. But the vast majority of America falls in the middle of these extremes. However they think of it now, they thought confronting Iraq was a fine idea, and wish it had gone better, but that doesn't translate at all into defeatism, as it is defined, refined and reiterated in the press. On the contrary, they'd like to see more action, more activity, a seizure of the initiative in some way. Using defensive policework and intelligence measures to catch bad guys before they blow up more aircraft are all fine and well, but the Unfrozen Caveman Voter wants very badly to see more offensive measures too. Don't caricature this attitude with a desire for more invasions, more nation-building, more regime-change, random airstrikes, or wanton slaughter. It's hard to say just what policy exactly might satisfy the caveman demographic. But really, the Unfrozen Caveman Voter intuits a large portion of the art of warfare: opportunities must be created and then exploited -- or if they come by luck, they must be exploited all the same. And finally, the use of extreme and otherwise intolerable violence is necessary if used in the service of victory. It's not healthy in our republic for such a large slice of the populace to be unrepresented by any politician. But that is the case today. Soon enough it will change. . . . I do believe the boy is on to something here. Would it not be fair to say that a large segment of the population of greater Rantburg consists of Unfrozen Caveman Voters? |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #14 A lot of good thoughts in there, Snowman, and don't worry about the grammar. Just tell 'em it's your Yeti dialect coming through. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-08-16 22:46 |
| #13 The supply train for the vast majority of the Soviet Army ran on American-made trucks. It wouldn't have hurt if some of the effort that went into those trucks went into building a better tank than the Sherman. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-16 22:09 |
| #12 AS: Turning over Eastern Europe to the Russians and bequething their kids with the Cold War was a sucky strategy during WW2, it's just that noone who really mattered noticed at the time. As far as I'm concerned, that was a fine strategy. It was superior to losing another million men trying to push the Soviets back. Don't get me wrong - I would have loved seeing the French or the British take on this task. As I am sure they would have loved to see GI's in Russia. But the cost would have been astronomical. It's one thing to take on Iran, North Korea or Syria. And quite another to take on a major power like the Soviets on the tail end of bloody wars with three major Axis powers. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-08-16 20:46 |
| #11 The thing is except for the Kurds and the Israelites I don't give a rats ass for the rest. I am sorry that sounds bad , but I don't, if I could get both them groups away from the ME I scorch earth the place and start over. |
| Posted by: djohn66 2006-08-16 20:45 |
| #10 Also, I think there's a false dichotomy involved: do you want a strategy that sucks less, or one that sucks just as much or worse so long as you can pretend it doesn't suck at all? |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-16 19:41 |
| #9 Verily, thou speekest truely, oh hairy one. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-08-16 19:23 |
| #8 Bah, wish I could rewrite some parts of that. Ah keeps imagining my Engrish teacher looking over my shoulder, and tapping on it with his sword... At least they got rid of all the "thee" and "thou" stuff, though, back in the day it really confused me. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-16 19:10 |
| #7 OK, some more serious food for thought than Pollster Tartare... * One a da big complaints everyone says about the Vietnam War was that the people who got us into it didn't have an "exit strategy." * Some people have said we did have an exit strategy, but bailed on our plan when the Congress decided to abandon the country; they have a point. * Other people say the North Vietnamese won because we were obsessed with "exit strategies" while _they_ didn't have one. Now, I don't wanna get into whether or not Dubya is smart or dumb. It's neither here nor there. There is a lot of dumb ink being spilled over whether "Democritization" is a good or bad idea. The continuing existance of Hamas and Hezbollah is often cited as evidence that Democracy can't work in the Middle East; never mind that we wouldn't call it democracy in the first place if Hezbollah were elected to the Chicago city council using the same methods as were used in Lebanon (i.e. a prolonged occupation by the Syrian army which only left after all groups BUT Hezbollah were disarmed, and then the election run by Syrian-written rules). Iraq is also cited as proof that Democracy Can't Work. Well, I got at least one cite: We've run the experiment where we just find a local general to keep the country under control and the enemy at bay. Or where we "give up" on Democracy and shoot the leader we think is being ineffective and put in another one. We did that during the Vietnam War. It really didn't seem to help that much. Now maybe Democracy is a bad idea, perhaps in the particular cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe even in general. I think Churchill said something along the lines that it sucked, but everything else just sucks worse. But it is a goal. It might work better than running away, which half the Carping Critics seem to want, or setting up the Ba'athist Core as _our_ tribute farmers instead of Saddam's which about half of the remaining Carping Critics seem to have wanted. These Carping Critics appear to have a consensus put together because they can blame That Retard, George Bush, for listening to Those Sinister Neocons and doing all these foolish things, but the alternative strategies they're suggesting are mutually incompatible and even if pursuing one or the other would produce results, taken alone each of their mutually exclusive strategies doesn't have very much support. Remember, folks, Clausewitz said that war was (among other things) the extension of politics by other means. (Some people say it's the other way around. But I digress. I guess it depends on how many barbarians are crowded outside your city walls). And politics is the art of the possible. Bush seems to be trying to implement a strategy that fits in with the art of the possible. Verily it sucketh, just like any other one will suck. Turning over Eastern Europe to the Russians and bequething their kids with the Cold War was a sucky strategy during WW2, it's just that noone who really mattered noticed at the time. The question is, does it suck less than the other possible alternatives? As for the thesis of the article, well, if there were such overwhelming support for a "caveman" approach to the situation wrt the Middle East, I suspect that Kerry wouldn't have gotten 48-49% of the vote, or whatever it was. And I suspect that anything the author or I write on the situation in the ME, or the electorate, is going to be badly obsolete in six months' time. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-16 19:02 |
| #6 The proper terminology is Jacksonian. Or as reported - Teddy Roosevelt: "Do not get into a fight if you can possibly avoid it. If you get in, see it through. Don't hit if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft. Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep." |
| Posted by: Glurt Flavitch2274 2006-08-16 18:59 |
| #5 I imagine they'll have a hard time figuring out our demographic if we keep eating the pollsters. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-16 18:20 |
| #4 This is a simple argument. An analogy would be "Would you rather win $10 and feel really, really good about it; or earn 1 Million dollars in such a ho-hum and boring manner that you just can't get worked up about it much at all?" People who want to join the army in a fit of patriotic ferver, to go attack the hated enemy, then come home to great celebration, make shitty soldiers. Their support for real soldiers is also a fickle and mean-spirited thing. They are the "Thank you, Mister Atkins" crowd, lauding one minute and cursing the next. Life, for them, is a series of emotional events not grounded in reality. Winning or losing is just a means to have their emotional masturbation. Often they see even the office of the Presidency as nothing more complex than an hour-long TV show. At the start, someone bursts into his office waving some papers and says, "Mr President, we have a crisis!" The President then has 40 minutes or so to solve the crisis and bring everything back to normal. There is no continuity. Such people should never have anything to do with foreign policy or the military. They do not have an attention span that recognizes decades, much less years. Policy is based on something said at last week's cocktail party. The reality is just the opposite. In the 18th and 19th Century foreign and military affairs were seen with the complexity of a chess game, by the great leaders. But today, the greatest of our leaders plays not just 3rd-dimensional chess, but 4th-dimensional chess. George Bush Sr. was a master of what were called "linkages" in foreign policy, but his son, and his brain trust, transcended even this. Ironically, in one of his first debates, George W. Bush coined the word "strategery", in a presidential debate, to the great amusement of the media. However, what he and his strategists engage in is so unique and powerful, a whole new level of strategy, that it transcends the word. "Strategery" should enter the lexicon as a level of strategic planning as far advanced above ordinary strategy as chess is above checkers. Our leaders use this means of planning to give the United States an advantage over every other nation and power in the world. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-08-16 18:10 |
| #3 I just want them to let our military fight this war without artifical restraints. Is that too much to ask? Yes, when the liberals and PC whores are in charge. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-08-16 18:05 |
| #2 I await SnowPersons input. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-08-16 18:04 |
| #1 Just Win Baby.. Just Win! and I ain't no throwback buddy |
| Posted by: Barney Rubble 2006-08-16 17:49 |