(sometimes you need) More Than A Feeling
Steven Den Beste at USS Clueless looks at why the left's anti-war arguments failed:
I think that there may have been some sort of deep feeling that if only those demonstrating against the war could somehow adequately communicate how strongly they opposed the war, that this would be enough to convince the rest of us to give up the entire enterprise. If the validity of a point of view is entirely a function of the sincerity with which it is held, then if enough people are emphatic enough about their sincerity, they should prevail for that reason alone.
And how many on the left have reacted to that failure:
Attempts by the leftists to show how emphatically they oppose war don't seem to be having any impact. Invective and ridicule has failed to discredit those of us who have been advocating war. (And that's puzzling, too. In college, denouncing someone as being "conservative" would instantly discredit them and silence them. Why hasn't that been working in the debate about the war?)
So they're turning up the intensity of the ridicule and invective. If they can somehow find the right magical ad hominem characterization for their opponents, the opponents will vanish and take their dangerous messages with them. (So if "conservative" doesn't work, maybe "psychotic" or "racist" will.)
Read it all. For a Den Beste post it's actually rather brief and to the point.
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