D'Souza rocks Gore Vidal Can we say checkmate?

Peter Robinson: I begin with the words of Gore Vidal: "Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all." If you want to know why the United States got to be hated, in other words, we got to be hated by behaving hatefully. Dinesh? Dinesh D'Souza: Complete nonsense. The United States first of all is both hated and loved. You have to explain why it is a magnet for immigrants all over the world. Young people throughout the world are fascinated by the United States. So one has to account simultaneously for the appeal of America and for why some people, both abroad and in America, hate America. ... Peter Robinson: Now let me quote Dinesh to you: "The Islamic fundamentalists don't object to the excesses of American liberty alone, they object to liberty itself." We are an affront to their way of life. Gore Vidal: I find generalities of this nature totally irrelevant to any discourse. You cannot generalize about Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, very--this is not a monolithic culture, Islam. Dinesh D'Souza: You generalized about America. Gore Vidal: Yes, because I'm an American and my family has been here a long time and helped invent the country. ... Gore Vidal: We invented Oklahoma. You can't be more American than that. A great musical came out… Dinesh D'Souza: You just said you can't generalize about Indonesia. Why can you generalize about America? Gore Vidal: I'm not going to generalize; you are generalizing about this humiliated culture.

Here's another splendid example of "death by D'Souza" :

Peter Robinson: The title of your book, Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, the subtitle, How We Got to be So Hated. I now give you the opportunity to enact one reform that would make us less hated. Gore Vidal: Cut the Pentagon budget by half. Peter Robinson: Robert, you would start by cutting military expenditure? Give us your reform. Robert Higgs: I would like to see a requirement, for example, that positioning United States military forces outside the United States require the approval of ninety-nine percent of the members of Congress. Peter Robinson: Okay, Dinesh what we have here are two very bright, literate, important, well spoken people, who are profoundly alienated from the United States as it now exists. What do you make of them? Dinesh D'Souza: One reason they're alienated is that they are Americans. By this I mean is the peculiarity of America to generate within the country a kind of anti-Americanism that I don't see other countries generating. And I've asked myself why that is. I think one reason is that I'm comparing America to other countries. I'm using an historical or comparative standard. Americans tend to use a utopian standard. They tend to judge America by a standard that no other country could survive and therefore they sneeringly say, well Americans are only pursuing their self-interest. They're only after oil. They're only after resources, but we expect everybody else to pursue their self-interest. So the very fact--I mean look if the Chinese or the Arabs kill ten thousand of their own people, what is the world reaction? Most people sigh and then they go back to eating their breakfast. And why, because people kind of expect the Chinese and the Arabs to do that. But if America, in the middle of a war, accidentally kills two hundred people, bombs a school or hospital, it's a worldwide outrage, there are protests, there's an investigation, people are hauled before the hill, what does this mean? This to me testifies to the moral superiority of America because it is judged by its own residents and by others by a standard that no other country could meet.

If you read the rest of the debate, Vidal gets absolutely obliterated - it's not even a contest. There's more where that came from if you follow the link. (P.S. : I don't agree with everything D'Souza says, but he's definitely a sharp guy with a lot of good ideas. ) Update from Godless: Shropshire, to address your points: "I certainly meant it and I'd love to know about all these people who want to come-- who immigrate here. It's been a long time since a Norwegian has asked for a green card. People don't leave Europe for the United States...Yes they try to come here and that's perhaps their revenge in a way. And but the first world countries do not regard us with anything except some irritability and at times fear." Irritability and fear? Perhaps, but that's the way the most powerful country is always looked at. As for the immigration issue, I'm not sure what part you think is a cogent point - here are the most recent statistics on immigration. These are the people that Vidal would love to know about, who do want to come here. Do you really think that people who want to come to this country from (say) China or India consider becoming an American citizen a "revenge" on America? That's a contrarian reading of the situation, to say the least. "Gore Vidal: I would say my underlying motif is: don't indulge in so much self-love. We are far from perfect society and the more we boast, the more odious we seem to others and more ridiculous in my eyes we seem to ourselves." Well, fine, it's one thing to boast for no reason and claim the US is a perfect society. It's quite another thing to defend the United States against the accusation that it's a "rogue state", as Vidal claimed at the outset of the talk. The point is that D'Souza's claims are factual - the United States is, indubitably, the most free and rich country in the world. It's arguably also the best place to live, if measured in terms of the number of people who wish to enter. The point being that if Vidal and co. attack the United States by comparing it to Iraq, they had best expect a factual and complete rebuttal of that analogy as delivered by D'Souza. To dismiss the rebuttal as "empty boasting" is to avoid attacking it on the facts. Note that D'Souza was not an uncritical cheerleader for the United States - he admitted that he wouldn't be able to defend every US foreign policy action (e.g. our actions in Latin America during the 80's). He was simply saying that if you apply a comparative standard, the United States usually comes out on top. " Gore Vidal: I would agree with that. We are making every wrong move and we will continue to do so. The first law of physics, there's no action without reaction. Americans are born not believing that. So we do all sorts of terrible things to other people and then we're surprised that they don't like it and they strike back." This seems to be a hypercritical and contentless statement. What terrible things had we done to the countries of the Sept. 11 hijackers to induce them to attack the US? Unless you naively lump together the Palestinians and the Iraqis with the rest of the Arab or Muslim world, there really was no reasonable beef whatsoever for the Saudis. Remember, the Saudi hijackers sought to replace the repressive US-supported Saudi government with an Islamic theocracy. If we had followed Vidal's dictum and simply withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, the situation there would have gotten worse rather than better. Think "Iranian Revolution". Furthermore, it seems to me that Vidal omits a crucial part of the equation. He should also say, "We do all sorts of lovely things for people and then we're surprised when they hate us." Because it is inconsistent to mention the failures of US foreign policy without mentioning the successes We give unmatched amounts of gift aid to developing countries. We're burdened with the role of world policeman in Bosnia and Somalia and Israel. We're the source of most (all?) of the important technological developments of the 20th century, with the last 5% or so being picked up by Japan and China. We rebuilt Japan and Germany after kicking their ass. We saved Korea and tried to save Vietnam from a communist threat. We saved the world from communism and got little thanks for it from those who romanticize Stalin. Yes, we also participated in misadventures in some 3rd world countries, but mentioning that without mentioning the rest of it presents an incomplete and misleading picture of events.