A snatch of dialog in illustration of the aporetics of our political predicament:
A. It's a war! Don't say anything bad about our guys! Which side are you on? Don't preface your defense of Trump by conceding that he has these and these negative qualities. Don't give ammo to the enemy! In a gunfight against a home invader would you allow your enemy time to re-load, in the interests of a fair fight? Hell no! He is in the wrong and you are in the right. He is out to kill you. You must stop him, and if that ends up killing him, so be it.
B. But then truth and objectivity go out the window. Onesidedness and blind partisanship rule. Oppositions intensify. Polarization increases. Polarization issues in demonization. We need to come together and work together. Trump is deeply flawed. How can you blind yourself to his flaws?
A. This is a war, not a gentlemanly discussion, or an attempt at an objective personality assessment. You cannot be objective and conciliatory in a war. You must defeat the enemy before he defeats you. Trump is all we have. Can't you see that? Your attempt to be fair and conciliatory and reasonable and 'moral' will be taken as a sign of weakness and will only embolden our enemies on the Left. We cannot 'come together' with them because there is no common ground on which to do so. They do not share out values. The enemy is committed to our destruction.
B. So you are OK with any and all means sufficient to destroy the enemy? Do the ends justify the means? Were the Allied atrocities during World War II justified by the good outcome?
A. I don't like saying yes, yes, and yes, but I fear that I have to. This is the problem of dirty hands. The buck stopped with President Harry Truman. Would you not have ordered the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese population centers? Or, comfortable in your ivory tower, would you have taken the position of Elizabeth Anscombe possibly sacrificing civilization itself to a just war THEORY? Which is better known, the premises on which Just War doctrine depends, or the consequences of Allied defeat and Axis victory?
B. This is scary stuff. Isn't there some alternative to war?
A. And what might that be? I see only three alternatives to war, none of them good. One can attempt to WITHDRAW from the fight. Head for the hills. Build alternative communities and hope to be left alone. Unfortunately, the totalitarians, being totalitarians, won't leave us alone. That's not 'who they are.'
Or one can accept POLITICAL DHIMMITUDE.
Finally, one can attempt the POLITICAL EQUIVALENT OF DIVORCE, whether through secession, partition, a return to federalism, or something else.
B. Those are the only options?
A. As far as I can see.
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