Do you really believe that “boomers” are invisible to spy satellites in orbit? Wake signatures, magnetic anomilies, clear water, etc. In a way the September 11th attacks were a culmination of the previous 1400 years of power politics in the Middle East not the last 50 years. Face the facts there are real dangers in the world today and they will not go away by Americans wearing flowers in their hair and flashing the peace sign. Bush has at least recognized the danger but his competence has been suspect.
The Democratic Party has been taken over by marxists and who will commit any treason to achieve power. The Republican Party has many of the same power grubbers but it is still the best vehicle to re-establish the Republic and limit central power. If you do not want the Republicans to go the way of the Democrats and probably cause another world war then you better hold your nose and get involved.
I’m a Canadian which makes me a third class American. Canada has been ruled by the neo- or just plain marxists for just about my whole life. I get really sick of Americans whining about how they have got to restore their respect in the world and how it’s all Bush’s fault. It’s time to get your heads out of your butts. The United States is all that has stood between the mass murdering cemtral planners since WW2. I get sick when I hear the bleating about Guantanamo and Abu Graib. So what if a few murdering dickless wonders said they were humiliated by women. Where are the death camps? Where are the meat hooks? Give your heads a shake and get it together.
It’s not about the Russians or whether we should liberate Russians living under whoever’s yoke. The real issue is the viability of Mutually Assured Destruction. If Russians feel they can not be guaranteed a second-launch sucess, they will feel itchy and need to launch first while they still can. It’s back to the age before submarine-based second-launch ability. That Cold War period was a lot more dangerous than the later period when both superpowers were assured of second-launch success.
That was a most excellent speech! Bravo. It seems more and more it’s taking ‘outsiders’, people exposed to the heroes of the left, to give some Americans the perspective they need. While I’m probably a bit more radical than you, I stand shoulder to shoulder with you. Thanks!
How can a nation so ambitious to defeat its foreign enemies not have strong ambitions to oppress its own people?
China isn’t likely to invade either a fellow thug or one of its enemies. China doesn’t allow critique because it is run on tight margins. China doesn’t allow dissent because dissent may be all that is necessary to blow that stack of cards down.
If your ideal is anarchy, then you should be happy. We live in a state of anarchy now. People in a state of anarchy are free to form governments. To the extent that this government operates with your consent, you are free; to the extent that this government operates despite your consent, you are enslaved.
We can’t fail but to retain such natural rights because they are inalienable. The government cannot take away rights; we are incapable of giving them away; they are inalienable. If you believe that our natural rights are not inalienable, then that explains your belief that we don’t live in anarchy.
We live in anarchy, because our natural rights are inalienable.
They’re not here yet, of course, but with an attitude like yours, death camps can’t be far behind. Are you really so ignorant to believe that all the people the government has in custody are guilty. Let me clue you in on something you might not know. Any time there is an abrupt change in the government, people play a game. The name of the game is Find the Loyalist. Ever read The Crucible? After the Revolution in the US, 1/2 of Toryland (ie the South), were exiled, most to Canada, some to Great Britian. Fact is they fled for their lives. How many of those people were not loyalist, their only crime being that they angered someone, or someone hated them and denounced them? I get sick when I hear of the callous indifference to suffering.
Guess that’s where the US will be in about 10 years or so.
I’m not drunk enough to want to try to defend “missile defense”. I thought it was a boondoggle in the 80s, and it’s probably a boondoggle today. I’m more afraid of Washington than I am of Moscow, but if Moscow wants to nuke Washington I wish them the joy of it. I’ll just watch for an increase in prick-waving on the Kremlin’s part so I know when to pack up my wife and head for Australia.
Imp03 - What people that the government has in custody are you talking about? If it’s the people at Gitmo then they are damn lucky that they were not summarily executed on the battlefield in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. The woulda, coulda, shoulda school of history doesn’t always accomplish much. It is often necessary to determine “What is” and then act accordingly to protect yourself.
Western liberal democracy has been under assault for at least 100 years from so-called progressives and now also from Islamists. I don’t believe that all cultures are morally equivalent and that you can successfully reason and negotiate with them. How would you reason and negotiate with a person having the mindset of the taxi driver in Texas that murdered his teenage daughters last month? It is not noble to lay down and let tyranny prevail..
Yes, and the post-Soviet regime in Russia hasn’t done enough to merit my concern compared to the gorram Feds. The Soviet Union is dead. Now, if you had asked me this question prior to Gorbachev, my answer would be different.
‘Islamists’ are not assaulting some theoretical political system like so-called ‘western liberal democracy’; they are attacking a foreign nation which has very real non-liberal, non-democratic ideas about how some people’s society should be organized. Western liberal democracy is safe as long as the US continues to ignore its precepts while it plays power politics with nations that are so poor and under-equipped that they are unable to really fight back with conventional means.
As far as reasoning and negotiating, have you ever tried to negotiate or reason with a government agent? It is impossible to negotiate or reason with anyone who believes that they represent justice or the law, but that doesn’t mean that we should shoot judges or police officers. It is not noble to embrace tyranny to oppress dissent.
We went into Iraq to 1. dipose Saddam, and 2. uphold UN resolutions concerning WMDs. We have achieved both of our mission objectives! Even if we are trying to get even for the ‘tyranny’ of the hi-jackers, I think we have ‘tyrannized’ enough civilian muslims with our bombs, depleted uranium, and trade sanctions! When are we going to stop helping them?
rhys, dont you ever question your assessment when it keeps leading you to take the side of Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, etc? These are the countries you’d rather not be subject to, but somehow they’re always in the right with these countries deal w/ the US. You dont think this is the least bit weird???
Rys it seems that you have decided that the US is the source of all evil and that the whole world is its victum. Well if that’s what you wish to believe against all common sense and evidence so be it. If you really wish to know why the US went to Iraq look at a map and forget all the canards put out by the left. Remember if the US goes home the war is not over.
I take the side of the victim. I never take the side of the aggressor. But, morally, there is a porportional degree of violence that may be used to dissuade further victimization. I believe that the US government reserves for itself the task of holding those people responsible who collaborated in the 9/11 terrorist attack. It has the authority to co-ordinate international efforts to bring the terrorists, who were responsible, to justice. I don’t see the national security risk posed by Saddam as anything other than insignificant, while the amount of money his deposition costs, as we find more and more soldiers with dibilitating brain injuries, is all too significant.
I think it’s weird that we should worry more about other government’s misbehavior than our own. When I was a child, I would try to defend my own bad behavior by pointing out the bad behavior of others, but my mom told me to worry about myself first. Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” When are we going to demand that our Federal government be limited by the Constitution?
The reason why the US has been a more desirable place to live in the past couple hundred years than much of the rest of the world is because we have a constitutional limited government. If those running the government gets the power to do whatever they want in the name of national security, we’d be no better than Iraq, Iran, Russia and China, all of which have a history of running bureacratic national security states.
Back to the issue of missile defense. It’s not about taking whose side, it’s about taking a course of action that’s most beneficial to ourselves. If the Russians can not feel secure in their second-strike capability, they will be tempted to launch missiles first ask questions later when they are confronted by a computer glitch or a rogue launch. That’s not good for ourselves. Not to mention the enormous amount of wealth spent on such a project of dubious value. The “rogue states” are not going to use ICBM’s against us when they have all sorts of ground transportation available to them. The likely victims of their ICBM’s are their fellow “rogue state” neighbors. Then we get into the touchy issue of who gets to come under our umbrella, who doesn’t; and whether those coming under our umbrella get to tount their neighbors. Do we really want to get into that?
Rhys whenever I hear stuff like I’m always for the victum I think that somebody has bought into the marxist claptrap. Who is the victum.
As Robert Frost once said a liberal was a man so broad-minded he refused to take his own side in argument.
You obviously don’t believe that there is any danger in the current world situation other than the US defending itself. It doesn’t really matter who was right or who was wrong in a chicken or the egg situation, what matters is the survival of free markets which are the basis of all personal freedoms.
I agree with this statement. However, I think you should base your critique on the US’s actions upon principles and not upon their actions as it relates to other nations actions. If you choose to examine nations actions toward one another, be honest about it. You’re being biased because you’re judging each instance of nation-to-nation exchange in light of your anti-interventionists objective and not upon the particular facts of each case.
The evidence you have, that makes any assessment begin to even be possible, is evidence that comes to light because of America’s less-oppressive nature when compared to it’s combatants. The countries of Iran and China REPRESS this evidence. So if one combatant hides 95% of it’s potentially culpable actions and the other combatant hides 50%, who are you most likely to decide in favor of. It’s not like the evidence in a free and open trial. It’s a kangaroo court.
Yes, I too believe the US is WAY too involved abroad, but I truly question it when the US is ALWAYS in the wrong when discussing it’s relations with other countries. Unfortunately though, sometimes the badness of others forces the better people to involve themselves in things they’d rather not be involved in. My going to a rowdy neighbor and requesting quiet doesn’t mean I’m trying to deny my own bad behaviors.
Judges are imperfect. Can they judge others? Police are imperfect. Can they arrest suspects?
Victim: a person who incurs loss or harm as a result of a crime. This has nothing to do with Marx; most people understand that victims are not responsible for their hardship and are owed retribution by the aggressor. It is almost a tautology to claim that the side of the victim must be defended to have a just society.
I believe that there is much danger in the world in addition to the US ‘defending’ itself at its citizen’s expense. I could die driving to work tomorrow.
While I don’t agree with you, that it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, I do agree about the survival of free markets, which can only happen to the degree to which we are able to spend our money in markets as opposed to spending it on American and Iraqi deaths. How much money should we spend goading terrorists into attack us?
This is exactly my point. Why should we base our judgement of the US’s actions on what other nations do? We shouldn’t. We should only base our judgement of our national policies on the principles which our government is charged with the task to uphold.
I am not deciding in favor of anything. I am only judging US foreign policy based upon the principles our policy is supposed to uphold. I don’t care if China represses all of its culpability. That is no excuse for US foreign policy to fall into lawlessness. We have invaded a foreign nation without any chance that we were in imminent danger. That is wrong, and no amount of Chinese, Iraqi, or Iranian under-handedness can erase this fact.
I would not disagree. But would you be justified in shooting him if he spat on your car? No, defense must be proportional. Was our policy of defense against Iraq proportional to the threat they posed to us?
Yes, but when they do thier job poorly, we don’t apologize for it by claiming, “But look at how rotten the defendant was?” Instead, we challenge the authority of the judge to preside. Even one little mistake can allow a criminal to go free. The State must be held to the highest standard of ethical behavior - even higher than individuals, which means that even highly ethical people may be dismissed from public service if they make a small error in ethical judgement. We shouldn’t dismiss the mistakes of policy and government action because other governments are bad, any more than we should dismiss the behavior of crooked cops or judges just because criminals are bad.
No, I’m not talking about what America did and then what China did. I’m talking about the scenario that takes place between them being judge based upon what they did. If you want to oppose ANY actions America takes against China, then your criticism should pretend to objectively discuss the facts of each interaction. In other words, if two bad guys came together and you opposed their fighting but they fought anyway and you judged the fight, that judgement should be based on the actual punches or you shouldn’t comment about the actual fight. You can say, American shouldnt do this or that because it complicates matters, etc., but if you wish the judge the ACTUAL exchange between America and China, judge it objectively. America did this. China did that. Did America really do this? Did China really do that? You just seem to be saying, Yes, America did this and China didn’t do that, regardles of the facts, simply because you dont want America there in the first place. Which is a perfectly legitimate argument.