There is a diary currently on the rec list calling out the killer of Dr. George Tiller and the Christian community at large for the actions of of this deranged lunatic. In my view it suffers from one of the great fallacies embraced by the anti-religious, namely that of smearing a particular belief system with the actions of fanatics who claim adherence to that belief system. Thus the Inquisition is true face of Christianity, the face that Christians just can't bear to confront. The killer of George Tiller is the fault of the Christian religion. Anti-homosexual campaigns are conducted by those calling themselves Christian, so the Christian religion must be responsible for these outrages and it's high time that those professing to be Christian face up to their heritage of hatred.
Of course, then one should say the same thing about liberal democracy, because if one examines all of the horrors that have been perpetrated by its declared devotees since it came on the world scene, under the standards established to judge Christianity, we cannot but conclude that it is a destructive and pernicious force in the world. At least if we are to retain a modicum of intellectual integrity.
We must remember, that just as with the case of Christianity, those committing those horrors cannot be excused merely as hypocrites betraying their stated values, but must be seen as the true face of liberal democracy.
Let us examine the record of those professing to be liberal democrats, shall we?
I suppose we should first begin with Thomas Jefferson, whose articulation of the philosophy forms the core of the American birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. As everyone knows, Jefferson was a slave holder and a profligate spend-thrift. He died nearly penniless and the more than one hundred slaves he owned were sold at auction to pay his debts without regard to the preservation of family units. This was clearly not because Jefferson lacked the imagination to apply the philosophy across the board, no, it was clearly because liberal democracy is itself to blame.
Then maybe we should move to Andrew Jackson, slave holder, duelist, Indian killer and hater extraordinaire. He too was a liberal democrat. In fact the Democratic party, the oldest party in America, which is itself the first liberal democracy in the world, is so enamored with these two that they have annual "Jefferson-Jackson Day" dinners.
What about Abraham Lincoln? He was a terrible husband whose self-absorbed melancholy drove his wife nearly berserk.
Then of course there is Woodrow Wilson, the man who sought to spread this horror across the world and use it as the foundation of an international system. He was a hard-bitten racist whose praise of the KKK was incorporated into D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, inspiring the foundation of a new KKK in the image of the one that had been crushed by federal troops two generations earlier.
FDR? Japanese internment and incorrigible philanderer. He died in the arms of his mistress, for crying out loud!
Lyndon Johnson? Mass murderer of Southeast Asians.
The fact is that Cheney and his torturing cabal are not hypocrites when they claim that they are liberal democrats. They are just acting within a well-established tradition. So it really is hypocritical for those who believe in liberal democracy to assert that Cheney is anything but a liberal democrat.
Right?
Of course not. The idea is absurd on its face. To hold an ideology responsible for all of the excesses and horrors committed by those who profess to believe in it is absurd. To hold it responsible even for the horrors committed in its name without examining the claim is likewise ridiculous.
If you can find evidence that the actions in question comport with the stated ideals of an ideology, then and ONLY then do you have a cogent case.
But that would require actually studying and attempting to understand those with whom we have conflict.
You know, intellectual effort as opposed to self-righteous moral onanism.
And that's just expecting a bit too much of people.
Just ask Dick Cheney, the liberal democrat.
Update: Edited to fix typo
Update 2: I have to run for a few hours. I didn't expect to generate so much discussion. I will try to answer comments both friendly and hostile when I return.