Waiting for Fitzgerald

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I haven't seen any polls indicating they (a) invited us in or (b) want us to stay. And then there's that whole shooting us and blowing us up shit. But maybe I'm reading the message wrong.

Either (a) you haven't looked, or (b) you rely on the NYT and its ilk for your information. There were many sources of reliable opinion-samplings both before and after our invasion that directly support the thesis that the majority - the vast majority - welcomed us, wanted us, and, in fact, still want us. If there's a difference of opinion right now, it centers on, when should we leave - and none of the favorite answers include "soon."

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
What you don't seem to grasp is that IT ISN'T OUR RIGHT. We don't get to say who is and who isn't being sufficiently democratic.

It's not just a political label, you know. It means that people are free and empowered to have a say in the running of their own lives - that people can affect the course of their own existence, that people aren't just slaves to some powerful thug. I guess our basic disagreement, then, starts right here - it's not only our right, it's our duty.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
it's not only our right, it's our duty.

Then shouldn't we be raising taxes to pay for our invasions of China, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Burma (inter alia)?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
What you don't seem to grasp is that IT ISN'T OUR RIGHT.

It may not be a great thing but it is justified. It sucks to have to kill innocent people but some times it is the right thing to do. Bombing aushwitz would have killed innocent people but it would have been the right thing to do. It woudl have been better if we could have done it without klling innocent people but sometimes you don't have that optoin.

Originally posted by taxwonk We don't get to say who is and who isn't being sufficiently democratic.

Why not? If we don't who will? Wasn't it OK for us to assume that Hitler was not being sufficiently democratics. Stalin, Pol Pot etc. We have to make those moral choices. It is imperative because if we don't we just encourage evil.

Originally posted by taxwonk
Just as we don't get to play God.

I don't know what this means but if it means we don't get to kill people that is wrong. Like I said, sometimes it is a moral imperative to kill people. Especially if killing people will save innocent lives. More Especially if killing guilty people will save innocent lives. Sometimes it is wrong not to kill people.

Originally posted by taxwonk
Given that we don't have the right to enforce our ideals on anyone else any time we want to, acting as if we do makes us just a group of murderous thugs.

No sometimes it makes us enforcers of justice. We should missed a big chance in Rwanda. You think it was a good thinkg we stayed out of there and did not "impose our ideals on those people".

Originally posted by taxwonk
Vigilantism is illegal and immoral.

It may be illegal but it is not always immoral.

Originally posted by taxwonk
Why do you have the audacity to suggest that it's okay, BUT JUST FOR US, to do it on a global scale?

I have no problem with other people doing it. I wish more countrys would. When vietnam invaded cambodia to stop Pol Pot I was all for it. When Israel bombed Saddams power plants I thought that was a great thing. I wish some other western country had intervened in Rwanda. If France and England had invaded Iraq on their own to get rid of Saddam I would have been cheering them the whole way. If Thailand invaded Burma right now to get rid of the Burmese government I would support them 100%. Problem is that most of the time the US seems to be the only country with the moral center and cajones to do this stuff.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Which is why the liberals march in lockstep when this administration wants to sacrifice civil liberties in the war on terror.

There was a meeting of all of the librarians who ended up having to fork over information due to the operation of the dread "library clause" in the Patriot Act.

No one showed up.

Could be they were worried that the room was going to be taken by all of the judges who had signed the dread Patriot Act warrants that differed from the warrants available prior to the Act.

But that was silly, 'cuz no one showed up for that meeting, either.

There was some guy named Padilla in the room, but he sort of glowed in the dark and kept muttering Insha Allah this and Great Satan that, so even the waiters stayed out. Bad party.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ty might say that you shouldn't try to haphazardly change a culture, since government doesn't do that well.

The people at Treblinka were happy for a less- than-perfect result. So, apparently, were many Iraqis.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by bilmore
You still don't handle all of this well, do you?

the liberals are decompensating before our eyes. Like screaming Howard Dean.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ty might say that you shouldn't try to haphazardly change a culture, since government doesn't do that well. You might call this the "conservative" position.

Considering some of the people you have voted for, I might consider calling you are conservative reactionary (in certain circumstances).

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Then shouldn't we be raising taxes to pay for our invasions of China, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Burma (inter alia)?

Arguably, yes.

But is your point, do all, or do none?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
But the point that you are missing is that all peoples, even the Arabs et al, desire freedom and the ability to exercise their God given natural rights. In the Iraqis and other Arabs' case, certain oppressors are denying them that freedom. We are delivering it unto them. there is no cultural imposition, it is application and defense of the UMC.

2.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
There was a meeting of all of the librarians who ended up having to fork over information due to the operation of the dread "library clause" in the Patriot Act.

No one showed up.

Could be they were worried that the room was going to be taken by all of the judges who had signed the dread Patriot Act warrants that differed from the warrants available prior to the Act.

But that was silly, 'cuz no one showed up for that meeting, either.

There was some guy named Padilla in the room, but he sort of glowed in the dark and kept muttering Insha Allah this and Great Satan that, so even the waiters stayed out. Bad party.

And this whole ruckus about torture is completely overblown. If anyone was being tortured, they'd have a book deal and a regular slot on Air America.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
The people at Treblinka were happy for a less- than-perfect result. So, apparently, were many Iraqis.

It's uncanny, the way that you intuited that when I was referring to "changing a culture," I really meant "stopping a Treblinka." Wow.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
And this whole ruckus about torture is completely overblown. If anyone was being tortured, they'd have a book deal and a regular slot on Air America.

I was thinking you meant Franken, but then realized that he's the one doing the torturing, so that can't be what you meant.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's uncanny, the way that you intuited that when I was referring to "changing a culture," I really meant "stopping a Treblinka." Wow.

Why is that off-base? In both instances, the "culture" consists of one group with absolute power causing pain, death, and inconvenience to another, powerless, group. In each instance, we delivered that second group from a bad, bad time into a much better one. I think you know of what I speak, but you're still falling into sarcasm to substitute for logical argument.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Arguably, yes.

But is your point, do all, or do none?

I think all of those would be misguided adventures. But I do find it striking that most conservatives are willing to offer democratic principles as a post hoc justification for what has already been done and yet have nothing to say about all of the ways that George Bush has fallen short in the continuing struggle for freedome around the world. It's like they don't really give a shit about democracy, really.