11/05/2004 07:46:33 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

NOTE This was supposed to be published yesterday, but due to technical problems was delayed.

Paul Krugman's latest column is the perfect summary of why Democrats lose. To skip the lame assertion that Democrats are as credible on issues of virtue and family as are Republicans (obviously not), the real clincher is the proprosition, which Krugman made not once, but twice in this column, that but-for 9/11, Bush would not have been reelected.

Whether this is true or not is up for debate. But the real tragedy for the Dispondent Left is that Krugman discounts 9/11 as some political aberration, and not as an event that should be central to the new Leftist philosophy. Krugman still doesn't get it, and won't, at least not until after yet another electoral drubbing. The issue of national security is central to the reason for being a Republican. It's not gay marriage, and it's not abortion (despite the evergrowing whines to the contrary). Ironically, those who live in Red States take the threat of terrorism more seriously than do the cultural elites in the Blue States. Why does the Montana rancher think terrorism is a bigger deal than the Manhattan socialite? One was obviously more affected by 9/11 than another. The answer lies in each culture, not the direct effect.

The people in New York don't know it, but the people of this country took the attacks on 9/11 personally. Al Qaeda attacking New York had the same effect on people here as if it were Nashville that was attacked. To say otherwise, as some have, is insulting to good people and exhibits a rather unimpressive rational process. The people of the Red States will continue to defend the people in the Blue States, no matter how unappreciative the latter may be, through their votes, and with their guns (the horror). We'll do it, because it's still the right thing to do, and we'll do it happily, even as the elites mock us for talking funny and being simpletons. It's not the social elite picking up his rifle and killing terrorists. It's people from the Red States (I should say, Red Counties), and their sons and daughters, who are doing the dirty work. They are people who understand you can't rationalize with religious zealots who want to kill you for merely existing, and who understand that the more terrorists we kill in Iraq and Afghanistan, ths safer our country will be. Someone has to do it - we know that the most vulnerable parts of our country don't have the stomach for it. The responsibility falls on us.

Those in the Blue Counties can't help it, and we know it. They complain of our Christianity, but theirs is a religion, too. It is a religion of humanism, where God is an abstract concept, but not a guide. They believe in no higher power, and for all the celebration of their own virtue, have a poor understanding of human nature. Their only guide is their own knowledge, reenforced by those around them and their lockstep agreement, with no tolerance or opportunity for critique. It takes a substantial amount of emotional immaturity and intellectual insecurity to unmercifully strike at those opposing you simply because you disagree. To call us dumb, as many have said, either directly or through insinuation, will be ignored. We know better. Our personal security lies not in our perceived superiority to our fellow man, but to the superiority of our values. It is those values that make us who and what we are, and that will defend this nation throughout this War and the division in this country spawned by those on each coast.

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