But don't you enjoy :brikwall: ?

She meant me, MTP.

'xactly

And now we get study sheets from the White House having students write essays about "what I can do to help Barack Obama?" This detail was hurriedly withdrawn under fire, as were a few others.

This kind of personality cult stuff is astonishing in America. It's much more the thing in Gaddafi's Libya or Castro's Cuba.

And yet somebody in the White House thought it would be a good idea.

"Was that all you've got?" someone asked, potvaliant in unwisdom. It's enough for a wise man. It's not enough for the dull-normals that voted for Obama in the first place. For such, a two-by-four will be more the proper tool. Have to get the mule's attention...

One point you'd best not dodge, Rich, is that there is absolutely no reason to believe ANY Democratic candidate for the office would have done better, and ample reason to suppose ANY Democratic President in the period 2001-2008 would have done much worse, for the Democratic Party leadership has never understood the United States is in a war. Their ostrich attitude tells me the whole crew is both untrustworthy and pro-fascist, which gives the lie to their party's very name. Not being able to figure out the country's in a war is a clue the Democratic Party is the abode of morons.

So, they don't merit either votes or contributions.

Fair enough, though peripheral. I voted for Bush twice, the first time after observing Clinton/Gore and how they simply never offered anything I wanted to buy or sign off on, and the second time after observing Bush -- and observing his Democratic opposition: completely vitiated, largely irrelevant to my interests, unable to prosecute the war, enthralled by socialism, hardly an ounce of wisdom in the whole bunch. The one worthwhile Democrat on Capitol Hill was Joe Lieberman. A hundred more Liebermans on the Hill would make my choices more difficult, to be sure. As it is, no Democratic candidate for any office has received my vote since... hmm. Nineteen eighty-something. Since then, they haven't offered anything I'd want. Anywhere. That's a looooong time for any party to be so completely on the outs in a representative democracy.

Oh, really? Is that what you kids are calling this bad choice these days? Well heck if you call it that: I had no idea it was so serious. :right:

You and the entire national leadership of the Democratic Party, Shawnee.

The bad choice was made in the undemocratic enclaves of the more benighted precincts of Islam: the antiglobalists, the antidemocratic, the resentment-is-everything claque yowling for revenge for fancied slights, the abusers of women. Antiliberal the lot, and to a degree hard to believe. Having sown the wind resorting to terrorism, why should they not reap the whirlwind? They are so hostile to practically anything that makes a life worth the living that they could hardly be anything but bitter enemies of all mankind.

The decision to clean out and disinfect these abscesses in the global body politic is a good choice, and one made by people we can safely assume are rather to the right of you, not so? It's the choice made by the people of freedom, and I approve of it. Have they, at the end of the day, any reason to thank you? Do they?

Seems to me the least you could do is sedulously avoid that bad habit of the Left of always, whenever the choice between democracy and totalitarianism presents itself, of crying leave totalitarians alone. There's the specious claim that how foreigners go abusing each other is not our business. It's only not our business if we're not human, or we're amoral. I don't think either condition applies. I do not raise that cry of the Left, and therefore I am more humane and better than the entire Left is. I submit that this is true humanity.

It is an act of great compassion to lift oppression's yoke, and one should not disapprove of such compassion -- no matter who claims oppression's yoke should remain right where it is, and no matter what level of violence they bring to support their illegitimate claim. No matter how they try and guilt-trip you, they are still acting on evil's behalf, and they must be snuffed for doing that, that they may do it no more; you know they'd never give it up. White liberal guilt is not the road of virtue; it is the road of fascist sympathizing, which is by definition undemocratic. Alas, it is not also unDemocratic.

The Republicans, whatever their flaws, do have this figured out, and they acted like it while in the Oval Office. Loud were the bellowings of those who thought differently, and I just cannot see that those people had a leg to stand on. The Bush Administration concentrated the Federal effort on foreign policy, which is within the Fed's Constitutional purview. This is performance! That it's an imperfect world, and never more so than when there's shooting, left checkered results, and it would be unreal to say otherwise. It would be unrealistic to expect otherwise. Yet for all the flaws, warts and rotten spots, abundantly pointed out by the pundit cottage industry for good money, somehow the sky never falls in, nor does an earthquake swallow up the world's shitheads either. I do not presently expect the kingdom of God on Earth, and I don't think I ever have.

It may also be counter-productive if one does not consider the unintended consequences.

In the case of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq:

* the worst refugee crisis in the Middle East in 50+ years....with more than 4 million displaced persons, more than 1 million of whom, are left to live in refugee camps or in slums in neighboring Jordan and Syria.

Five years into the US military intervention in Iraq, the country is dealing with one of the largest humanitarian and displacement crises in the world. Millions of Iraqis have fled their homes – either for safer locations within Iraq, or to other countries in the region – and are living in increasingly desperate circumstances. Failure to address the needs of Iraqis will have dramatic impacts on security inside Iraq

http://www.refugeesinternational.org...ddle-east/iraq

* political alignments than strengthen the most dangerous force in the region (Iran). Most recently:

Major Shiite parties with close links to Iran announced a new coalition Monday that excludes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a development that appears to make him the underdog in the coming national elections.

If the new coalition remains intact and secures a majority of parliamentary seats in the Jan. 16 vote, Iraq's next government probably will be run by leaders with deep ties to Iran....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...082400647.html

How do either of these consequences further democracy and stability in the region?

Beyond the Iraq debacle, if the cause is so just, why not "lift the yoke of oppression" and invade and occupy North Korea? Myanmar? Cuba? Zimbabwe?

US should support internal democratic movements....not create them by force of invasion and occupation.

Shush. They meant well when they did ill.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions! (That's a statement the religious right should be able to support.)

Redux, I read one, repeat one, sentence of your latest anti-goodness screed. I must say my reaction was, "Jesus, any sleazy excuse will do for this guy to counsel against following the virtuous road!"


You always argue for tyranny to persist, for America to do nothing about it. (Don't believe me? Reread your posts in Politics and my replies which from time to time put my finger on that particular point.) I say virtue lies in making it extinct. My values are therefore golden; yours manifestly suck by comparison. It may be you are actually a good enough person to adopt golden values, but last week would have been a very good time to start, son. Last century would have been even better.

Your values do not suck because you hold them; never that. They suck because they are non-virtuous -- abysmally second rate stuff. Not, in short, good enough for me to hold. I make you very uncomfortable, more than you will ever admit publicly -- otherwise you wouldn't fight me so hard and so desperately so much of the time.

A nutshell example of how your brummagem, totalitarian-supporting "values" fail of virtue. How can one support without actively destroying the fascist/communist/all-purpose-shithead opposition, eh? Support against the genocidal sorts comes with reeking tube and iron shard, ´Dux-for-brains. Those people, after all, are well supplied with reeking tubes and a will to use them. How then should the democrats remain disarmed, eh?

It is a shibboleth of the totalitarian-symp Left that we "create them," but the political-science fact is we simply don't. They become, springing from the human desire for a better life, when a population is no longer so beaten down that they may think beyond mere survival and CYA wrt their government, when a population can aspire to a democracy. This often requires the noose and gibbet for the practitioners of less-than-democracy. Firing parties will do nicely too.

Lacking the white liberal guilt that racks and paralyzes you, I can face this prospect not only with equanimity but with optimism. Most Middle Americans can, even if they don't quite think of it so explicitly. America's foes come from undemocratic places, and they have some idea this is so.

Conversion of fascists to democrats conserves lives and ammunition, but there is no relying on it. I do not. But I laud it should it happen. East Germany had an attack of good sense like that some years back. Conserved a bunch of lives there.

I shall happily demolish your ignorant contention that it's bizarre that gun control should connect to genocide in a following post. It's a routine thing. I have the knowledge at my fingertips, though it does take a little while to compose the essay and supply you with links -- this is really the JPFO's concept, and the case they make for it is formidable. And unrebutted.

UG....I dont argue for tyranny to persist. I support indigenous democratic movements over invasion and occupation, particularly when you dont consider the unintended consequences as I noted.

I'm curious, what is your criteria for forging democracy by force of invasion and occupation?

Why Iraq over North Korea. Kim was and North Korea still is a greater threat?

Or why is creating a potential Iran/Iraqi alliance resulting from replacing a dictator with Shia extremist parties in leadership positions in Iraqi in Israel's best interest as opposed to Iran/Iraq as buffers against each other?

This is not about me as much as you might like it to be....believe me, you dont intimidate me.

It is about defending your own position.

Ahhh..you left again.

Have I? Soooo sorry to disappoint.

Unfortunately for you, you do argue for tyranny to persist, but your ideology hides that fact from you. Doesn't work so very well against me, for I am perceptive.

The "unintended consequences" are frankly nothing next to the benefices and prosperities attending on democracy, as any comparison of the democracies' economies and the undemocracies' economies can show you hard numbers for. Yet these unintended consequences are enough for you to counsel inaction. Outrageous.

Your so-called support for indigenous democratic movements is transparently a pose, and will never be anything more. It doesn't call you to any perceptible action or palpable result. It certainly did not call you into military uniform. It did call me. While I wouldn't say I was in any way distinguished in military service, I am proud of my couple of awards of the Navy Expeditionary Medal.

No, Redux, to visibly be a partisan of democracy and one who understands its goodness to humanity, you've really got to act a lot more like I do.

So no response to the direct questions? Just one of these please?

If the benefits are so great, why not invade North Korea...come on, Kim is worse than Saddam. Or even Myanmar, the military junta may not be as bad as Saddam, but hell, that would be easy!

How is creating a potential Iran/Iraqi alliance resulting from replacing a dictator with Shia extremist parties in leadership positions in Iraqi in Israel's or the region's best interest as opposed to Iran/Iraq as buffers against each other?

Then, I wanna do this one next.....So you can explain to me how a democratic government with reasonable gun control and a system of checks and and balances, including an independent judiciary, is by any stretch of the imagination comparable to Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and will lead to genocide.?

But it will have to wait...early meeting in the morning. I'll look forward to any direct response!

UG...please point out to me where the framers of our democracy ever envisioned the US as the nation-builders of the world? Or where the Constitution even allows for such a role.

Our Constitution should serve as a model for self-determination in nations where the people enjoy less (or no) freedom, not as the blueprint to invade and occupy those sovereign nations that pose no direct threat to the invaders/occupiers.