I hereby coin a new term; Kersten Delusional Disorder.<\/p>\n
I originally thought “Kersten Derangement Syndrome”, but I think KDD is a more serious pathology.<\/p>\n
When they got the word that the Strib was going to hire a conservative columnist (to put in the stable with DFL monkeys Lori Sturdevant, Nick Coleman, Doug Grow, Kim Ode, Pat Reusse and, well, pretty much all of them short of James Lileks), the local lefty pundocracy acted like someone had proposed giving them a rectal exam with a pool cue; her addition to the staff – a lone conservative voice in a room full of people with boy and girl crushes on Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone – prompted the local Sorosphere’s most irritating conceit, the statement-as-fact that “The Strib is a conservative tool”.<\/p>\n
Naturally, Kersten is pretty much right about everything, and is head, shoulders and ankles better than anyone else on the Strib columnist staff.<\/p>\n
Last week, she wrote a column about Rep. Ellison’s “Department of Peace” proposal<\/a>. Kersten points out the grim fact; institutional pacifism has a long record of abject failure to prevent war. She cites Norway, which, in the wake of the bloodbath of World War I joined Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and many other smaller European nations in declaring pacifism their primary line of national defense:<\/p>\n Norway’s commitment to what Ellison calls a “culture of peace” dates back to its founding in 1905, according to a 2006 report by Col. Karl Hanevik of the Norwegian Army. For decades, writes Hanevik, the country’s foreign policy was based on a firm belief that “international disputes should be solved via arbitration and international law.”<\/p>\n After World War I, Norway’s leaders placed their hopes for peace in the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, and let their military go to seed.<\/p>\n Norway declared neutrality when Hitler threatened in 1939.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, they officially resolved that all belligerents were equally wrong; that the Poles who were fighting for their lives, and the Brits and French who declared war in their support (but didn’t do much else) were equally as wrong as the Nazi regime that was bombing Poland’s cities.<\/p>\n Which is, indeed, one of the most corrosive conceits of today’s “peace” The country was wholly unprepared when Germany invaded on April 9, 1940…The German blitzkrieg rolled through Norway, and the king and government fled to England for safety…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pretty thoughts didn’t work<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Not only that, but the only reason King Haakon, his family and his cabinet were able to flee was because the only <\/em>parts of Norway’s military that functioned as planned on that first day of the war – an ancient coastal fortress and a forty-year-old torpedo – sank the German cruiser Bl\u00fccher<\/em> and the German battalion that was supposed to cut off the retreat route from Oslo. And because the only squadron of Norwegian fighters that was capable of taking to the skies against the Luftwaffe <\/em>broke up a German attempt to drop paratroops in the area.<\/p>\n Not, let us note, because of any pacifists’ actions.<\/p>\n Let’s make no mistake, here. Peace is something to strive for. Peace is almost always preferable to war. I said almost.<\/p>\n But pacifism is only tenable in a world where everyone believes in peace. Pacifists like to point out the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King as triumphs of “passive resistance”. But both of their successes depended entirely on their taking place in a context of the (general) rule of law, in areas controlled by liberal democracies who were, if not initially friendly to either of them, at least not actively disposed to kill both men and all of their followers.<\/p>\n So – Kersten was right.<\/p>\n And her critics?<\/p>\n Well…<\/p>\n AlphaBetty writes for MNBlue, the home of an endless stream of dozey conspiracy theorists and purple-faced rantmongers. And her take on Kersten<\/a> indulges in the same kind of selective, self-serving, myopic ignorance that, by nature, has <\/em>to be prevalent to believe in things like “Departments of Peace”.<\/p>\n While Ms. Alphabetty may seek “peace”, she commits violence against clarity and context:<\/p>\n Perhaps, she feels the French had the right approach. Pushing a fortress mentality, backed by ample defense spending, French war minister Andre Maginot figured he had German aggression licked. He was mistaken. The Nazis just marched around France\u2019s line of expensive concrete fortifications.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again with the historical ignorance. “Fortress mentality” is to “confronting violent evil” as “eating a Big Mac” is to “a nutrition program” (or for that matter, “passive resistance” is to “confronting violent evil”; it’s one of many approaches, one that seems historically discredited.<\/p>\n (For more on the historical ignorance, see the long screed on military history – which, as always, highlights pacifist myopia and ignorance – below the fold<\/a>).<\/div>\nmovement <\/strike>racket.<\/p>\n\n
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\nOnward:<\/div>\n\n