The Barbarism Issue

There appears to be policy differences between the left and right on the barbarism issue.

The President recently made public certain documents in which barbarians from the previous administration discussed the kinds of barbarities they planned to commit. Prominent barbarians have reacted with outrage. Revealing our barbaric practices, they argue, makes it impossible to effectively practice them on our enemies.

Is barbarism effective? Experts in the cruelty community are divided. Many of them are arguing that civilization is better for our security in the long run, but proponents of barbarism are loudly accusing the President of putting us at risk by being a weak little girl.

“If your child’s life was at stake, you better believe that you’d rape whomever you had to, burn your enemies alive, eat their babies, whatever,” said talk show host Bill O’Reilly. “Hey, we were attacked. Descending into barbarism was what we had to do to protect the nation.”

Political observers are saying that the President is being torn between the urgings of angry civilized supporters and the caution of moderate barbarians who advise leaving the past behind and “moving forward.”

“Look, barbarism won’t come back. We’ve turned a corner now, and we shouldn’t waste time seeking retribution,” said an anonymous official wearing a moose pelt on his head. “These loony civilized people are just making it harder for us to deal with pressing issues.”

Primitive barbarism and bloodlust came back into fashion during the last eight years, and the President’s stance against them is perceived as a distraction by many pundits. On ABC’s This Week, Cokie Roberts said that she’s glad that videotapes of barbaric, cannibalistic rites have been destroyed, since they would be “great recruiting tools for our enemies.” George Will pointed out that no less an authority than Torquemada, one of the great intellectual figures of the Church, approved of the rack and the garrotte. Peggy Noonan appeared faint and said that her sensibilities were too delicate to discuss such things, and that these matters should be left in the dungeons where they belong.

“I’ve never seen such deep divisions in our society between civilization and barbarity,” said David Gregory of NBC. “People are worried that it’s being exploited for political reasons. There are many good Americans who think the President should be burned at the stake, or drawn and quartered. I don’t know what to think. You decide.”