What if George W. Bush had chosen the peaceful diplomatic route, the route of Martin Luther King Jr., toward eliminating terrorism?

No war in Afghanistan, no war in Iraq. Rather, after Sept. 11, 2001, Bush the pacifist announces his plan to create an open dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews. He holds a summit between the major industrialized powers and the terrorist-harboring governments and promises to stop imposing his country's cultural will on them. He signs free trade agreements with them; American businesses are elated about the new frontier of corporate hegemony. They are willing to cease their attacks if America withdraws its armies from Muslim holy lands. Bush, empowered by his success at diplomacy and sky high approval ratings, begins to issue sweeping propaganda against violence. He secures the homeland in a truly defensive way - more port security and immigration reform. There are no Abu-Ghraibs, no mission accomplished signs, no American soldiers dead. He strengthens social security and health care with an $87 billion infusion and preaches compassion and peace like Jesus did. He easily wins re-election. [Read article]

If the war of ideas is divided into factions, academia has chosen its camp. It should come as no surprise to anyone of this readership that university classrooms across the nation are dominated by leftward-leaning professors. Indeed, if a student on this campus were to reflect for one moment on the political convictions of her teachers, she would likely not think of a single conservative. This observation raises the typical cries of the need for political diversity on campus from the usual chorus of young conservatives. While the arguments these students raise are occasionally compelling, I submit that the wrong chorus is crying. Instead, it is those students with strong liberal convictions, and the larger group of political agnostics, that suffer the most from this academic monopoly. [Read article]

Liberal bumper stickers dividing too

Dillon Fishman yesterday, while decrying those who believe that longstanding social problems can be solved with simple formulas, posits his own simple formula in defiance of oversimplification. The unadorned formula reads, in its simplicity, that the key is to start an educated dialogue, presumably in opposition to those cretinous uneducated dialogues. [Read article]