Loving Peace, Hating Freedom

In Summer 2007's City Journal, Bawer has a screed against what he calls the "Peace Racket." He rails against left-wing academics and activists who promote appeasement in the name of peace, a "blame-America first" mentality, and a "zero-sum" view of the world economy that teaches "American wealth derives entirely from exploitation and that Americans, accordingly, are responsible for world poverty."

Fine. Sure. Whatever. Appeasement doesn't always work, America isn't to blame for every single evil in the world, and sometimes a rising tide can lift all boats.

Bawer's argument, though, is sloppy. Is it even worth mentioning that this "fast-growing, troubling movement" (whose "growing power" is evidenced by Kucinich's Department of Peace bill in the House) is utterly marginalized in the American political process, and forces enamored with national strength and violent overthrow of illiberal regimes have been in power for nearly a decade?

Bawer, you've been getting what you want for the past seven years. And the very folks who've been undermining the American freedoms you love so much, the ones who have been grinding down our military preparedness, tarnishing America's image by adopting the tactics of tyrants, and making us less safe with reckless violence, have been attacking their opponents with the same rhetoric that you use here: "freedom-haters," "appeasers," "blame-America first crowd."

Furthermore, your description of these scary scary campus activists and their communist-sympathizing boomer professors bears a striking resemblance to another group of uppity grad-students, out of Chicago, say:

"They want to remake our world. They plan to become politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, journalists, lawyers, teachers, activists. They’ll bring to these positions all the mangled history and misbegotten ideology that their professors have handed down to them. Their careers will advance; the Peace Racket’s influence will spread. And as it does, it will weaken freedom’s foundations."

UPDATE: Found some older writings. As a gay man living in Amsterdam, Bawer does have understandable impatience with European government's embrace of virulently homophobic "moderate" muslims in the name of tolerance:

"On 9/11, I would never have imagined that five years later, a man who refuses to condemn the stoning of female adulterers would be respected as the leading voice of “moderate” European Islam; that European governments would still be funding within their borders mosques and Muslim schools that teach contempt for democracy, Jews, gays, and sexual equality; that Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen would argue for accepting the oppression of Muslim women in the West; and that Britain would still be sheltering radical clerics, Queen Elizabeth knighting the likes of Iqbal Sacranie (who calls homosexuality “unacceptable”), and London mayor Ken Livingstone praising as “progressive” the above-mentioned al-Qaradawi (who has defended suicide bombers and the execution of gays)."

And he recognizes Bush's failures:

"No question, Bush’s arrogance, incompetence, inarticulateness, deafness to criticism, and tolerance of torture have (in Andrew Sullivan’s words) “managed to muddy the moral high ground against the evil of Islamism” – thereby polarizing Americans and helping alienate Europeans at a time when unity is crucial. (The U.S. military’s dismissal of desperately needed Arabic-language experts for being gay testifies to the endurance of an absurd bias that I thought, on 9/11, would fade in the face of a real and deadly foe.)"