The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats

Posted on | October 11, 2013 | 118 Comments

Lee Harvey Oswald, arrested after an August 1963 pro-Castro protest

“The alienated radical suffers from feelings of helplessness and insignificance and, unable to find satisfaction in ordinary life, seeks to vindicate himself — to prove that he is a person of historical importance — by grandiose gestures on behalf of fringe ideologies, savagely lashing out against ‘the system’ he rejects in a sort of sour-grapes rationalization: Feeling rejected by society, he rejects society in revenge.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Squeaky Fromme, Sara Jane Moore, Lee Harvey Oswald and the Radical Impulse,” Aug. 27

What happened to the Democrat Party? When and how did the psychological impulses of radical alienation seize control of a large segment of our society, infusing them with the anti-religious, anti-family, anti-capitalist, anti-American spirit that dominates the souls of Democrats today? George F. Will describes the pivotal turn:

The transformation of a murder by a marginal man into a killing by a sick culture began instantly — before Kennedy was buried. The afternoon of the assassination, Chief Justice Earl Warren ascribed Kennedy’s “martyrdom” to “the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots.” The next day, James Reston, the New York Times luminary, wrote in a front-page story that Kennedy was a victim of a “streak of violence in the American character,” noting especially “the violence of the extremists on the right.” . . .
A Soviet spokesman, too, assigned “moral responsibility” for Kennedy’s death to “Barry Goldwater and other extremists on the right.”
Three days after the assassination, a Times editorial, “Spiral of Hate,” identified Kennedy’s killer as a “spirit”: The Times deplored “the shame all America must bear for the spirit of madness and hate that struck down” Kennedy. The editorialists were, presumably, immune to this spirit. The new liberalism-as-paternalism would be about correcting other people’s defects.
Hitherto a doctrine of American celebration and optimism, liberalism would now become a scowling indictment: Kennedy was killed by America’s social climate, whose sickness required “punitive liberalism.” . . .

Read the whole thing. Hat-tip: My smart-ass friend Ali Akbar on Twitter.

 

 

Category: Culture, Democrats, History, Liberals

Comments

118 Responses to “The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats”

  1. Art Deco
    October 12th, 2013 @ 3:10 pm

    To some extent, I think it was the moment. From about 1955 to 196?, the country was a ‘satisfied’ society in a way it was not before and after, due to a mix of dispositions and external events. I think people had less of a tendency to attribute various sorts of experienced discontent to failures of public policy (or they compared their current situation to their upbringing).

    During the Truman years, you had a bloody and inconclusive war, inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty attended by escalating devotion of resources to the military (including draft calls).

    By 1952, the inflation was contained; by 1953, there was an armistice in Korea; by 1955, the share of resources devoted to the military had stabilized and balanced budgets were the order of the day. I think this accounts for the difference between Truman’s experience and Eisenhower’s.

    The explosion in street crime (and associated urban riots) did not begin until 1963; Lyndon Johnson’s VietNam catastrophe began in 1965; the resurgence of inflation began in 1966, and so forth.

  2. Quartermaster
    October 12th, 2013 @ 3:21 pm

    You can believe what you like. WE’ll never know the truth. If you think we do, more power to you. I disagree.

  3. Quartermaster
    October 12th, 2013 @ 3:31 pm

    You obviously confuse mockery with invective. Too bad for you. If you don’t like being mocked, then don’t come where people are well informed and try to get your BS past them.

    OTOH, if you are seeking truth, you can find it here. Whining will simply get you marked as a special snowflake and the pile on will begin.

    The left doesn’t have a plank in their collective eye. They’ve got the whole bloody tree, then they whine when someone points it out. If you don’t like that, all I can say is – tough on you.

  4. K-Bob
    October 12th, 2013 @ 4:03 pm

    Exactly. Jean François Revel wrote extensively on the dangers of putting “ideology” ahead of a set of principles and the tools of reason.

  5. K-Bob
    October 12th, 2013 @ 4:05 pm

    That’s way off topic.

    And bizarre.

  6. K-Bob
    October 12th, 2013 @ 4:07 pm

    Oooh, echoes in Trumka today. Former President of the United Mine Workers (several years at it), now supporting an Administration busily kicking miners to the curb.

  7. K-Bob
    October 12th, 2013 @ 4:08 pm

    I hope so. I always try to read Steyn elsewhere. I should look to see if Krikorian writes elsewhere, too.

  8. K-Bob
    October 12th, 2013 @ 4:12 pm

    Exactly.

  9. JadedByPolitics
    October 12th, 2013 @ 6:47 pm

    The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/wpNk2fEeL4 or as I like to call them the #HailSatan Party

  10. MichaelKennedy
    October 12th, 2013 @ 11:02 pm

    Will is usually correct, which is why he is off ABC now.

  11. MichaelKennedy
    October 12th, 2013 @ 11:04 pm

    Yeah, there must have been at least 100 Birchers in Texas then.

  12. MichaelKennedy
    October 12th, 2013 @ 11:05 pm

    You need to read Epstein’s new book on the assassination. Cuba may have been involved but we will never know.

  13. K-Bob
    October 13th, 2013 @ 4:07 am

    If he can manage to stay to the right of the NR and Weekly Standard types, then he might be an interesting “get” for Fox.

  14. rsmccain
    October 14th, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

    The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/nnUdHDk22g @Karoli @DkChoco @SeniorInfo4u @ljgarb

  15. NCBibleThumper
    October 14th, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/nnUdHDk22g @Karoli @DkChoco @SeniorInfo4u @ljgarb

  16. dontfundit
    October 14th, 2013 @ 3:08 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/nnUdHDk22g @Karoli @DkChoco @SeniorInfo4u @ljgarb

  17. tahDeetz
    October 14th, 2013 @ 3:16 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/nnUdHDk22g @Karoli @DkChoco @SeniorInfo4u @ljgarb

  18. Jeanette_Runyon
    October 14th, 2013 @ 3:56 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Lee Harvey Oswald Democrats http://t.co/nnUdHDk22g @Karoli @DkChoco @SeniorInfo4u @ljgarb