I've been feeling cranky and disillusioned lately, both with world politics and with people on both sides of the political aisle. I suppose this happens to everyone eventually, given how depressing the news tends to be. The result, however, is that I am becoming a hard-core centrist. Firmly in the middle, radically open to both sides of an argument, devoted to the reasonable compromise, and a believer in "none of the above".
I'll explain:
Why I left the Left:
Shortly after the Iraqi elections, I became extremely disillusioned with the Left. Despite the fact that something important and significant had clearly happened, no one wanted to give Bush credit for anything, and so they downplayed its success. They blame every problem around the world with American foreign policy
Furthermore, while my liberal friends try to label themselves as enlightened and non-prejudiced towards Arabs, they also seem to be under the impression that we are a separate alien species that doesn't want or value freedom and democracy. It's just not in our culture, apparently, and we enjoy being told what to do. I'd tell them to look at the links on the side of my blog and see if any of those Arab bloggers don't want democracy, but they'd just say that we're all brainwashed by the Neocons. Not only do we reject freedom, but we're also stupid, it seems.
Finally, in an effort to appear multicultural and politically correct, many on the Left either ignore or downplay the plight of women in the Middle East and the Muslim world. They use a variety of arguments to say that we're not oppressed, that the problems are exagerrated, and that sexism is all relative, anyway. Women like Sohane Benziane were being killed in France - burned, stoned, beaten - while feminists stayed quiet for fear of being labelled ethnocentric or racist. What will it take for them to realize that this is about human rights, not culture?
Why the Right sucks, too:
Can you say hypocrisy? While people on the far Right are quick to condemn the treatment of women and gays in the Arab world, they apply a different attitude towards those issues at home. They lament the lack of women's rights in Afghanistan while they sneer at feminists, accuse women's lib of destroying the family unit and fight to ban gay marriage. They fail to see the connection between women's rights abroad and women's rights at home. ...
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