Jonah Goldberg: "America Is The Corleone Family"

How can it be that people can vote based on "moral values" that seem to have little relationship to, you know, values? How can moral values mean no to gay marriage but yes yes yes to a meat-grinder war based on lies?

If this confuses you, you should immediately run to a book store and buy Life and How to Survive It by John Cleese and Robin Skynner. No, there is no time for you to put on clothes beforehand. There is also no time, if it is the middle of the night, for you to wait until the stores opens. You must break in naked and READ THIS BOOK. This is important, the police will understand.

Cleese and Skynner spend a great deal of the book discussing moral values. Their main points are these:

(1) Everyone everywhere shares the same values: loyalty, honesty, caring for others, etc.
(2) BUT -- people interpret these values according to their level of mental health.

"Mental health," as Cleese and Skynner define it, is a measure of how in touch you are with reality. Thus, people more in touch with reality interpret these values in healthier ways. Those less in touch with reality interpret them in unhealthy ways.

What does this mean in practice -- say, concerning the value of loyalty?

Robin Skynner: Each person will bring their own family attitudes and feelings to their interpretation of myths about loyalty. So if they come from a very unhealthy family, they'll feel that the group should all hold practically identical views, and that anyone who questions these views is a "trouble-maker" who is being "disloyal"; they'll feel hostility toward outside groups, and a disregard for the rights of such "outsiders"; and they'll feel intense and demanding dependence on all the other members of the group...

John Cleese: In other words, loyalty, to unhealthy people, is simply paranoia dressed up and relabeled.

Robin Skynner: That's what it amounts to, seen from a level of health above it. Remember the Mafia refer to the requirements of silence about all their crimes as omerta -- honor! And of course it does represent a higher level of health than disloyalty, where everyone in a society is betraying everyone else.

Cleese and Skynner say that all this, on a larger scale, applies perfectly to politics. But can they be right? For instance, are there really people who view America as one big crime family?

YOU BET THERE ARE. Cue Jonah Goldberg, scion of Lucianne Goldberg and something-or-other at National Review:

On the worst day in a string of exceptionally bloody days for U.S. troops, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, serving as John Kerry's designated rhetorical bomb-thrower, said precisely what our enemies wanted to hear.

He shouted: "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam, and this country needs a new president"...

Remember why Vito Corleone was gunned down in The Godfather? It was because Sonny let it slip that the Corleone family was divided -- just a tiny bit -- on a minor issue. This was all the incentive that opportunistic enemies needed to pounce.

It's not the best analogy in the world, but it does capture an important element of how our enemies think.

Note that even Goldberg draws back from the brink, and blames the necessity to act like the Corleones on "our enemies." You see, it's not that we want to squelch all internal disagreement, but what else can we do when surrounded by merciless killers waiting to strike?

Of course, Saddam Hussein -- whose favorite movie supposedly was The Godfather -- would tell you exactly the same thing.