Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Here's Hillary Clinton giving us a crystal clear statement of the Obama administration's official position on the propriety of Israel's killing of well over a thousand Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians:

[W]e support Israel’s right to self-defense. The rocket barrages, which are getting closer and closer to populated areas, cannot go unanswered. And it’s, you know, regrettable that the Hamas leadership apparently believes that it is in their interest to provoke the right of self-defense instead of building a better future for the people of Gaza.

Unfortunately none of the reporters at this press conference felt it was necessary to ask Clinton 1) if Palestinians have a similar right to self-defense, 2) what it would take to "provoke" this right, or 3) how many Israeli deaths would be justified—and rationalized by the United States, rather than condemned—once it was provoked.

Courtesy of The Distant Ocean

What a perfect example of thoughtless, reflexive servility from the courtiers and thoughtless arrogance from the throne room. Secretary of State Clinton appears completely sincere: people whose position is comparatively weak have, by virtue of their vulnerability, no right to fight back. It's not even something that can be considered. The vulnerable must make the best of enforced participation in a hollowed out proceduralism. This is not a liberal belief, at least as liberalism is explicated by its adherents. It's very much the opposite, and in that lies the foundational problem of actually existing liberalism.

Ideology is not a consumer item that one shows to friends or hides from them as dictated by circumstances and peer pressure. For it to have any significance outside an appalling display of smugly constipated propriety, there has to be at least an effort to follow through on the core convictions. In liberalism, that means the rule of law as an enlightened means of accommodating conflicting needs, applied in an egalitarian manner, in which the judges themselves are judged according to how well they protect the most vulnerable. It is not rule enforced by whatever use of violence is expedient, with laws tacked on afterwards to justify it.

Today's dime's worth of difference is that might does indeed make right, provided that's not explained to the public by a fascist shit-flinging chimp.