Progressive Democrats are the party of the Responsible Parents in America. The Responsible Parent has Principles that guide their action. Radical Republicans are the party of the Selfish Children in America. The Selfish Child has little awareness of the consequences of their action. They are indifferent to other people.
Security and Protection are the major Responsibilities of Progressive Democrats. The Principles of Progressive Democrats will slay the shortsighted and narrow definition of Security and Protection espoused by the Selfish Child.
Finally, we will look at three essays by Paul Jaehnert, and discuss potential framing for the issues raised in them.
Summary
1. America is a Family. We are all in this together.
2. Healthy Families have Responsible Parents.
3. Responsible Parents take the job of Family Security very seriously.
4. Responsible Parents, for example, put locks on their doors to Protect their families from External Threats.
5. Responsible Parents, for example, put smoke detectors in their homes to Protect their families from Internal Threats.
6. Responsible Parents Budget their income and expenses to Protect their families from Financial Threats.
7. Responsible Democrats do these same things for our National Family.
Who, What, How, Why
To whom are we responsible? Progressive Democrats are responsible to:
Ourselves
Our Children
Our Family
Our Community
Our Country
Our World
What are our responsibilities? Progressive Democrats favor policies that produce the following results:
External Security
Strong Military Forces
Strong Alliances
Strong Diplomacy
Strong Finances
Internal Security
Strong Communities
Strong Families
How are these responsibilities conducted? Progressive Democrats bring the following Principles to the development of their policies:
Honesty
Thoughtfulness
Knowledge
Caution
Concern
Why are these responsibilities important? Progressive Democrats recognize the importance of protecting:
Our Liberties
Our Freedoms
Discussion
External Security
Everyone is in favor of a Strong Military. So how is it that Democrats have allowed themselves to become branded as "Weak on National Defense"?
First, the Republicans have used repetition to establish the Weak on Defense frame. For fifty years they have pounded this phrase while preaching fear. It is a powerful combination.
The second factor is that we knew we had a strong military, and focused our efforts on diplomacy, alliances and finance. By emphasizing peaceful efforts, we left ourselves open to the charge of weakness. Therefore, we now must bring to the creation of Security our best efforts. This requires honesty, thoughtfulness, knowledge, caution and concern. Our opponents, the Selfish Children of America, only consider Security from the viewpoint of "what's in it for me?" This viewpoint was intolerable, but allowed to go unchallenged during the cold war because we were the pre-eminent global economy following world war two. This viewpoint can no longer be tolerated when faced with the problem of international terrorism. The Selfish Children can no longer be permitted to waste our military on preemptive wars, alienate our allies, destroy our alliances and ruin our finances. We must return to policies based on a strong military, reliable allies and strong alliances, strong diplomacy and strong finances.
Strong Alliances
How do we create and sustain strong alliances, strong diplomacy and strong finances?
First, we remember our Family. We are all in this together.
Strong Alliances stretch far back in time. They are a survival strategy that mankind has evolved to insure successful communities and families. Progressive Democrats recognize that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Therefore, we advocate cooperation with our allies, continued coordination of efforts to deal with terrorists, as well as all other criminal elements that threaten society. This effort requires Honesty, Thoughtfulness, Knowledge, Caution and Concern.
NATO serves as the beacon of Strong Alliances and Strong Allies. We kept the peace, and succeeded in letting the Soviet Union fail due to internal weakness. We were able to avoid War by maintaining thoughtful, cautious and knowledgeable policies. Dedication to Peace requires much more effort than dedication to War.
It is the same today with the mullahs in Iran. They will fail in the face of the next generation of Iranians that want freedom. But it is this next generation that must build its own freedom, we cannot give it to them.
All societies based on a single person, be it Fidel Castro in Cuba, or Kim Jong Il in North Korea, will change when the leader passes or is forced out by the rising tide of discontent. It may take several generations, but it will take place. This is best documented in A Force More Powerful, by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall.
Strong Diplomacy
Consider Nathan Gardel's interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, on the situation in the Middle East:
Gardels: Over the years, Israeli hardliners like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu have argued that Israel lives in a "tough neighborhood" where its enemies only listen to force. The American neocons argued the same -- that going into Iraq unilaterally would provide "a demonstration effect" of overwhelming U.S. might that would scare the "tough neighborhood" into compliance with U.S. goals.Hasn't this turned out to be wrong? Doesn't military superiority as a blunt instrument lead to eternal enmity, not security? Touring the devastation of towns across southern Lebanon after Sharon's invasion in 1982, one could predict that something like Hezbollah's hatred of Israel would emerge years later.
Brzezinski: These neocon prescriptions, of which Israel has its equivalents, are fatal for America and ultimately for Israel. They will totally turn the overwhelming majority of the Middle East's population against the United States. The lessons of Iraq speak for themselves. Eventually, if neocon policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well".
Considering strong diplomacy and Iran, Gardels comments that:
"So far as Iran is concerned, we have made an offer to the Iranians that is reasonable. I do not know that they have the smarts to respond favorably or at least not negatively. I lean to the idea that they'll probably respond not negatively but not positively and try to stall out the process. But that is not so bad provided they do not reject it.While the Iranian nuclear problem is serious, and while the Iranians are marginally involved in Lebanon, the fact of the matter is that the challenge they pose is not imminent. And because it isn't imminent, there is time to deal with it.
Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly. To do that produces intense counter-reactions that are destructive. We have time to deal with Iran, provided the process is launched, dealing with the nuclear energy problem, which can then be extended to involve also security talks about the region.
In the final analysis, Iran is a serious country; it's not Iraq. It's going to be there. It's going to be a player. And in the longer historical term, it has all of the preconditions for a constructive internal evolution if you measure it by rates of literacy, access to higher education and the role of women in society.
The mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future. But change in Iran will come through engagement, not through confrontation.
If we pursue these policies, we can perhaps avert the worst. But if we do not, I fear that the region will explode. In the long run, Israel would be in great jeopardy."
Thus, we conclude that strong diplomacy is in our best interest, and that the policies of the Selfish Child, the feel good pre-emptive use of military force, is often short sighted.
Strong Finances are the foundation upon which all external threats are confronted. Without sustainable resources to attend to the problems presented by criminal and terrorist threats, our society will fail to contain these threats over the long term. Since the Selfish Child is short sighted, looking only to their gain at society's expense, we cannot trust our future to their narrow sighted policies.
We must balance our income and expenses. A family must do the same. No Responsible Parent, confronted with increased expenses will voluntarily accept a pay cut. Rather, they will take a second job.
Since our national security depends on a strong financial position, Progressive Democrats advocate policies that match revenue and expenses.
True National Security will increasingly depend on Energy Independence. See, for example, (1), (2), and (3). This is the Responsible thing to do. If we had spent 5% of our military budget on energy independence since 1973 (the first "energy shock" thirty years ago), we would be free of foreign requirements today. The result would be that we would require Billions less for defense (perhaps, even, enough to have paid for the entire Energy Independence Program that we failed to undertake). Energy Independence would eliminate funding of International Terrorism by American consumers.
In summary, External Security, in fact, all Security, requires the Responsible Parent to bring Honesty, Thoughtfulness, Knowledge, Caution and Concern to the discussion. Vietnam and Iraq II have taught us what failure in this regard mean. Dishonesty about the reasons for the Iraq war and dishonesty about the consequences are exemplified by this from Newsweek on February 12, 2003:
"Winning on the battlefield may be a cakewalk compared with securing the peace. Michael Hirsh and Melinda Liu go inside Washington's postwar blueprint for the future of Iraq....Back in Washington, US officials who are quietly - and gingerly - making plans for postwar Iraq dismiss comparisons to the imperial MacArthur. The last thing they want to emulate in Iraq is the seven-year occupation of Japan. In fact, some officials at the Pentagon and State Department tell NEWSWEEK they hope to be able to withdraw US troops in as little as 30 to 90 days after President Saddam Hussein's ouster - if Iraq's military can be swiftly purged of his henchmen and turned into a pro-Western security force. That, they admit, is optimistic; more "realistically," says a Pentagon official, the talk is of a maximum five- to six-month occupation. "The plan is to get it done as quickly as possible and get out," says Lt. Col. Michael Humm, a spokesman for the Pentagon's chief planner, Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith."
We know the dishonesty involved. One need only Google "Iraq permanent bases" to obtain references to 14 Enduring Bases from the Chicago Tribune on March 23, 2004 and the plans to trade Saudi Arabian military bases (Osama Bib-Laden's big beef), for Iraqi bases.
Security requires policies based on the Principles of honesty, thoughtfulness, knowledge, caution and concern.
The War in Iraq is bleeding away the funds required by the police detective work required to solve the terrorist problem. We must ask ourselves if the bombings of trains in London, Madrid and India could have been prevented by invading a country or dropping precision guided missiles?
It is police detective work, requiring staunch allies and alliances, properly financed, which will solve the problem of terrorism.
This cannot be made more plain than the announcement that Scotland Yard and the UK Constabulary have broken up another terrorist plot.
The Selfish Child dreams up a world they would like to live in, and then creates fantasies about getting there. The disaster in Iraq is the result of their dreams and fantasies.
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