The real mood in America

The Congress is intent to bring to a vote a resolution that terms the killing of 1.5 million Armenians around 1915 by the Ottoman Turks as a genocide. Symbolic though it may be, it has made the Turks angry. The Congress is resisting pressure from the President on this. (By Congress, we really mean the leaders of the Democrats.)

Why are Nancy Pelosi and her followers so determined? Because there is a constituency for it. Quote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will determine whether the Foreign Affairs Committee resolution comes to a vote on the House floor. She comes from California, a state with a large Armenian population, and she's on record as favoring the resolution.

Nothing like doing things one's constituency wants (and seemingly principled, too - who wants to be a holocaust denier?) to put some spine into a politician!

What that implies, (and is noted by Frank Rich in today's New York Times) is that there is no constituency that demands with the same energy or influence for, among other things:

- an end to the policy of torture instituted by G.W. Bush
- a restoration of habeas corpus and an end to illegal surveillance

I don't mention other things, like an end to the war in Iraq, because there are powerful forces other than the President who are in opposition.

But surely no one condones torture or the suspension of civil liberties?

Think about it and let it sink in.

In particular, it means that the liberal netroots plus whatever additional civil liberties constituency is out there, collectively has much less influence than Nancy Pelosi's Armenian constituency. Time and again, the very same Congressional Democrats have given Bush and the neocons whatever they want. One would have thought that the same two things that apply in the Armenian case, a constituency and a principle, would be enough to give them the courage to fight.

We haven't taken to heart Ben Franklin's warning:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Americans will countenance anything their government does ,as long as it lets them max. out their credit cards, and allows unscrupulous lenders to give them shady loans. Civil liberties are no good as a collateral for a loan, so who needs them?