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wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Nate Perkins wrote:
SNIP

...

I agree with respect to Afghanistan. I don't agree with respect to

Palestine; I think you want to take credit where none is due.

Really? Do you seriously think the post-Yassar regime' would be
negotiating were it not for US pressure.

I think the death of Yassar Arafat was probably more beneficial than
any US 'pressure'. More than putting pressure on anyone in particular

If it were that simple the Israelis could have killed him at any time
and things would have improved.

I think the Bush administration enabled everyone to rachet up the
violence.

Yeah - it was *really* peaceful before Bush came into office. As I said,
I am no fan of Bush, but this is the kind of Lib frothing that cost you
guys the election. Bush is not the center of evil. He did not cause all
the problems in the world - or any of them actually. He is merely
responding to the world as he found it and as he believes will work. He
may be right, he may be wrong, but blaming him for the various
stupidities around the world that precede him by many years is simply
assinine.

The Dems/Left/Libs got shellacked over the last several election cycles
at most levels of government for two reasons: This kind of "blame our
opponent" mentality, and their general sense of elitism coupled with a
palpable contempt for Everyman. And they richly deserved to lose.

Note that there isn't much pressure on Russia or Turkmenistan
to move toward, nor on Pakistan to move back to Democracy these days.

Presumably because they do not, at the moment, represent any large
or meaningful threat to the US.

SNIP

So, just who was iraq going to invade next? Syria? Turkey?
They might have been able to take on Jordan. But I think
Saddam Hussein knew the US wouldn't let them get away with
that either. He wasn't terribly bright, but he wasn't
suicidely stupid either.

No - he was arrogantly stupid. His failure to open his kimono to a
superpower making threats on his front porch was pure ego and hubris.
The invasion was entirely avoidable up until the last moment. Setting
aside the prudence of the war generally, I think Bush was sincere in his
willingness to stand down our military had SH cooperated as we wished.

One of the fascinating psychological profiles of Bush-bashers is that
they inevitably use a double standard when assessing his actions in
contrast with, say, mass-murdering psychopaths. Where was the Left hue
and cry *before* Bush came into office as regards to SH's human rights
atrocities, for example. Bill Maher said it very well tonite on his
inaugural show of the season: Disagree with Bush all you like, but go
after the *facts* not the *man*.

...

Middle East peace and Jesus" it makes me even more nervous.

This is the disease of the neo-cons. They have some weird religious
version of Manifest Destiny running around in their heads.

I think Manifest destiny is merely a secular presentation of the
Protestant Doctrine of Predestination, similar to how 'Intelligent

Very few Protestant denominations hold a doctrine of Predestination as
firmly as you suggest. Only those in the strict Calvinist tradition -
orthodox Presbyterians, the various Reformed movements, and a very few
of the Reformed-influenced fundamentalist groups. The neo-cons large do
not spring from these intellectual roots. To the extent that you can
detect it, they seem most aligned in their theology with the various
Baptist and IFCA groups.

Design' is simply a secular presentation of the Protestant Doctrine
of Creationism. Consider the contrast between the Protestant

Baloney. My undergrad was in technology at a *very* Fundamentalist
school. My graduate degree is in the math/sciences from a nominally
Catholic school. Without resurrecting the entire ID v. Evolution
debate (a truly stupid debate with neither side properly
equipped to understand the other's point of view - both have
some merits and both have some serious flaws), the idea that
Intelligent Design equals Creationism is at least overstated,
and more usually pure paranoia from the scientific establishment
(that always needs a swift kick in the butt to ever make any progress).

Colonization of Eastern North America and the Catholic colonization
of Western North America. The Protestants simply supplanted
the Native Americans, driving them out. The Catholics herded
them into missions to convert them into Catholics and assimilate
them into the Colonial society. Around the world you'll find
various Protestant sects established in part on the doctrine
that the local natives had no souls.

Another vast overstatement, absent any historical context, and
utterly flawed logically. To whit:

1) The actions of these various religious groups was, on average,
no worse, and often much better, than their secular counterparts
of the same era. How many secular institutions of those times
ever brought large scale food, medicine, and humanitarian
aid the way the missionaries did, for instance?

2) The statement, as written, utterly ignores the human rights
atrocities and abuses practiced by the indigenous peoples
like the Amerinds. These abuses, in part, are likely why some
groups were led to conclude that the "natives had no souls."

3) Bad practice does not invalidate a given worldview. The fact
that some missionaries abused the natives does not inherently
disprove their religious position. Similarly, the lously philosophy
of science that surrounds much of the theory of Evolution
does not, in and of itself, discredit the theory.

The good thing
is that their deep religiosity makes it natural for them to be able

to

spot and name Evil - something the Libs largely don't even believe

exists.

Open your eyes man!

I challenge you to find a Liberal that doesn't quickly agree that
Saddam Hussein is evil or a neo-con who will admit to any evilness

Ward Churchill leaps to mind. Teddy Kennedy is implictly in the same
group, though he may be so consistently drunk these days that nothing
he says can be held seriously.

in Falwell, Robinson, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Limbaugh,
Limbacher or Gonzales.

I agree or disagree in varying degrees with each of the people you have
named. But you use the term "evil' in context with them in the same
breath that you named Sadaam as "evil". The implication, of course, is
that their "evilness" is of a similar degree to Sadaam's. These people
may be wrong, misguided, overly enthusiastic, mindless ideologues, and
so forth, but their wrongness (when they are wrong) does not begin to
remotely approach that of Sadaam's. And you wonder why fewer and fewer
of us take the Left seriously?

Lots of liberals will freely admit that perjury about a blow-job
is perjury, even if it's not 'bad enough' to justify throwing the
President out of office. But try to find a neo-con that thinks
torturing prisoners is worth even appointing a special prosecutor.

They weren't "tortured" except in the lexicon of the Left. They were
*humiliated* and placed under *duress*. No permanent physical harm came
to any of them as best as I have read. And "they" in this case, were
almost entirely non-uniformed combatants operating during a time of war
*which means the Geneva conventions do NOT apply to them*. At the same
time we made these people get naked and blush, their counterparts were
*beheading* uniformed soldiers and civilians. Once again, your inability
to practice that great Lefty skill of "nuance" in assessing degrees of
severity is breathtaking.

Far from being able to spot evil the neo-cons by and large are either
bland to or (given that they aren't ALL stupid) happy to deny the
most dangerous of evil men in their midst, those that attack the
moral priciples themselves

I don't agree that the Left, however defined (personally I find
such characterisations as Left, Right, Liberal, and neo-con to
be not particularly useful)

Another fascinating thing I have noted in many such debates, both
here on the Net in F2F, is that the Left has suddenly decided
it doesn't like "labels". It used to be that the Left was
proudly so, had a point of view that was clear and identifiable,
and clung to some bedrock of asserted principles. Now you
don't even like the name...

Which is why I fight them. I oppose them as a matter of moral
principle. Deceit and dishonesty are wrong. Torture and murder

I have no idea why you fight them, but "moral principle" cannot be it -
at least no consistent moral principle. If it were, the Left would have
been screaming for years about resolving the human rights abuses in
Iraq, the Palestinian suicide bombings, and so forth. One of
the reasons I have finally had it with the Left (which used to be
semi-useful in matters of civil liberties and free speech)
is that its "morality" is quite variable, and the Free Democratic
West is held to some impossibly high standard, but actual despots
and tin pot dictators mostly get a pass. Jimmy Carter - who I
think then and now is a well-intentioned, decent person - condems
US actions on a regular basis, but goes to Cuba and makes common
cause with a murderous despot who has caused the misery of
countless people in his own country. He is a poster child for what
I'm describing...

Lefties that lie, cheat, and steal are wrong too. They typically
do not engage in torture or murder though. That they leave to

No - they usually make nice with the people who *are* torturers and
murderers. As long ago as the FDR administration the US political Left
was openly in bed with avowed Communists. The KGB had people operating
in government with the tacit knowledge of the FDR folks (this is
documented in excruciating detail in "The Mitrokhin Archive"). Communism
in its various 20th Century incarnations was responsible for literally
millions of deaths and many more cases of vast human rights abuses ...
but the Left was always in love with it in varying degrees. The Left
also has - at various times - been in love with the human rights
paradises in Cuba, North Viet Nam, Maoist China, ad infinitum, ad
nauseum. No, they don't actually *do* the torture and murder - they (in
some degree) enable the hitmen who do it ...

the craven cowards and pucilinious wimps among the neo-cons.

The "neo-cons" are neither conservatives nor are they new in any
real sense. They are also not craven - the are ideologues, they
operate from a consistent set of declared principles. At least
you can have a fair debate with a neo-con - you know their point
of view without a lot of guessing. But Lefthink is the "morality
of the moment, the "principle" of the day, the "whatever gets us
into power" movement of the era. Bush bet his Presidency on
this war and on the bet that a free society of some kind could
emerge - he may be right or wrong, but at least we all know
where he stands. The Left stands wherever the footing is best
at the moment - in the case of Teddy Kennedy, he staggers on
whatever footing is available...

Tonight on Bill Maher's show, no less a leading light of the Left than
Sen. Joe Biden from DE admitted that while there are Rightwingers who
oppose anyone on the Left, there are just as many Lefties in government
who hate Bush so much they oppose him, even when what he suggests is
good for the country. To Biden's great credit, he stipulated that the
elections in Iraq were a clear win for Bush policy. We need more people
in government willing to step outside their narrowly defined ideologies
and speak in the interest of Freedom like this - and I do *not* in
general care much for anything Biden has to say.

Iran and North Korea are exhibiting their fear by making nukes as
quickly as possible.

And that, of course, was not happening under previous administrations
right?

Under the previous administration the North Korean program was
stopped dead in its tracks. Dunno about Iran. But, no evidence
of NPT violations by Iran has emrged. Thus far if Iran has any
violations, they have kept them well-hidden while being quite
bold about their actions within the NPT limitations.

Another logical fallacy. The absence of proof is not the same
thing as the absence of the action in question. It is impossible
to believe that the Koreans were "stopped dead in their tracks"
under the previous administration - this would mean that they
spooled up an entire nuclear weapons program from whole cloth
in only the last 4 years - this is very unlikely.

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Tim Daneliuk
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