Hagel hearings remind that opposition to Bush was partisan not principled

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I've been avoiding politics, too upsetting, but some things get in. Neo-neocon's post on the Senator Hagel, Secretary of Defense nomination hearings makes my patriotic liberal idealist heart clench in anger.

It's not a surprise anymore, but it's still frustrating. Hagel's naked admissions are just one more reminder that President Bush reacted to 9/11 as a principled leader simply trying to do his duty as America’s Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world – following liberal principles no less. He gave his countrymen the opportunity to reaffirm that we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor in order to battle the regressive challenge to our hegemony and make the world a better place. Instead, Bush's detractors seized the opportunity to grab power and advance their own agenda of parochial partisan self-interests at the expense of the nation and a progressive world order. They succeeded and, rather than object, the Cathedral was complicit, and the majority of the West accepted the betrayal as the new political normal. We fractured and shrank where we should have united and grown.

My recent attempt at bigWOWO to set the record straight on our Iraq intervention reinforced to me, sadly, that their point of view originates from partisanship, not principle. Their truth is thus defined. It's far enough gone that Byron, bigWOWO's proprietor, even fought the basic language necessary to understand my explanation, and I was not being esoteric. As I observed in recent thoughts, they don't want truth; they want their narrative. They don't want peace; they want allegiance. And, it's a tough (red) pill for an idealist to swallow, but morality is plastic, as plastic as the narrative.

My countrymen let me down.

Thus I turn my focus towards MGTOW even as my INFP heart continues to tug me towards the good fight of the idealist. My gut still wants to wade into the arena, champion a worthy cause, and do what I can to set things right, an impulse I embraced as a student activist with mixed results. I tried, but the serial of pettiness, debased sacredness, exposed shibboleths, betrayed trust, even senseless evil, have roiled the ground under my feet. What's wrong is too much and amorphous for my simple ethical prescriptions; I'm feeling Yeats. I'm disappointed and disillusioned. I need to save myself before I again consider saving anyone else, let alone my country and the world.

Eric