I don’t particualarly want to get into a schoolyard name calling contest with you, A.L. (which I assume stands for Avid Liberal). I’ll agree that making a big deal about little issues on either side is stupid but you aren’t looking at the whole story, just the side that makes your argument sound valid. For example, during the “Clinton Affair”, he decided to start an artificial war with Iraq called Operation Desert Fox. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the exact same thing that you are accusing the Repubs of doing. Most of what goes on in any type of politics is getting attention away from the important issues that don’t correspond to your agenda. A great historical example happened just prior to the Battle of Thermopolaye. Domestecles lied to Athenian government officials in order to get more warships for the navy. Granted, had he not done this, the Last stand of the 300 would probably not have happened but the point remains that he lied.

By the way, I will apologize for directly condescending to you over what the Captcha quote was at the bottom of the entry for Nov. 12, 1:22pm.
That would be why I originally wrote that long response.

@Venom- I must have hit the nail somewhere to have been graced by such a lovely and long response.For starters,I never said that,you just did.I made that comment in response to what you said regarding government systems as a whole and the fact that you seem to think it’s ok for people to have to suffer miserably either because the person in charge doesn’t care about their asses or doesn’t care about their asses because they happen to be alittle different than them.

Further more,and I know these probably confuses alot of folks when I speak about this stuff,I could honestly care less if we’re going to assistance another country or not in efforts to squash out hostilities that may or may not pose a thread to us or the people of the country our country our helping as long as were doing it for the right reasons (and to be frank alot of those reasons weren’t very right to begin with).I’ve never felt war was right,but at the same time some folks could care less because to them it makes sense to “get them before they get us.”And having said that,I think we’re pretty much on the same page as far as this stuff goes.So I’ll retract most of what I stand in my previous post,but I still stand by everything else I’ve mentioned since most of what we’re discussing is basically the same thing,at least view wise.

Captcha: oratoy Columbia

Bet this news post makes people feel they’re on Capitol Hill.That or the elementary school down the street from it.

Therefore, Hussein and Kim Jong Il (or Kim Il Jong) are/were the “An’s” of Iraqi and Korean an-archy. You may have beaten us this time, but we’ll be back! We now have to go back to our secret base shaped like Darth Vader’s helmet and hold a meeting to determine when and how to launch our next volley. Last meeting we all opted for matching charcoal gray turtlenecks, and then Toyman started an argument with Lex Luthor about whether the embroidered “A” symbol should be upside down or right-side up.

Now, a rebuttal to (what I could decipher of) your ramble:
I’m not going to debate the merits of anarchy with anybody who uses the phrase “let anarchy rule” in an effort to disparage my worldview, since it’s the same as saying, “let pacifism attack.” The ideas are incompatible.

I will, however, say that I as an individual have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to get involved in “liberating” the people of Iraq from their bad dictator, any more than I have an obligation to “liberate” my neighbor from the clutches of Catholicism (were I opposed to Catholicism), or the members of a Koresh-style cult from their crazed leader.

Really, it’s a matter of subjective value. If I personally value helping other people overthrow their rulers, or if I believe that I am sufficiently oppressed myself, finding the circumstances to be unlivable in contrast to the alternative, then as a resourceful and thinking human being I’m going to find a way to liberate either them or myself, by whatever means necessary.

The messy business about nation/states overthrowing other nation/states is that the conquerors always see fit to mold the new state in a fashion they see fit, let alone the consequences of a group of leaders from the conquering nation/states ordering, on penalty of imprisonment, or even death, individual inhabitants of their nation/states to invade and kill on their behalf, whether the soldiers find that the cause falls in line with their individual codes or not.

One only has to look at the history of the United States international actions over the last 75 years to know that there is a universal destabilizing effect when an invasion occurs. I was working on a history of U.S. invasion problems but the failures are too numerous for this post.

A few other pertinent questions:
Do groups of individuals somehow have more rights than the individuals comprising those groups? Are they somehow “morally” superior because they have superior numbers? Is it therefore true that China, having 2 billion+ individuals in its collective, is more correct than the United States, having only one sixth that number? I mean, if we put it to a proper democratic vote?

Why is it that when a group of individuals who call themselves a “state” or “nation” decide to attack and kill other individuals it’s a war, but when a group of individuals who don’t make that distinction do the same it’s called “murder?”

Why is democracy valid while anarchy is for “loons?”

@A.L.
I’m sorry A.L. but the problem that I am having is that the Left’s best arguments tend to descend into the belief structure of a five-year old in as much as they tend to pretty much say, “I’m right. You’re wrong, so nyah!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the right isn’t doing the same thing but they don’t condescend to their opponents by directly calling them stupid. By the way, that little comment you made at the end of your paragraph pretty much proves my point, genius.

It doesn’t mean that another dictator should come along and depose them.

Stalin didn’t exist in a vacuum. His people, like Hitler’s, Hussein’s and Kim Jong Il’s rally around the fact that the United States and its allies pose(d) a palpable threat to their lives (and has done so for about, eh, 200 years) and support of the villains they know beats the hell out the \help\ they’d receive from Amuhrka, aka, death rained down from above, body counts in excess of 1 million, and then the fun stuff, like the U.S. installing a puppet dictatorship (one of which Hussein helmed until he went \rogue\ and decided to stop trading in dollars).

I offer the examples of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il as evidence that totalitarian control is by no means self-correcting. And Stalin, as you will recall, remained in full command until his natural death.

@Venom

Hey, more traffic for me! I will make this observation, however, and that is that the overall condemnation of Obama as a socialist is both contrived and, where accurate, is accurate in the wrong way.

By “contrived” I mean that the accusations began well before Obama was even elected, and were designed simply as a Republican strategy for the next election, insofar as massive government spending to offset the Depression was entirely predictable. This is pretty straightforward politicking: let the other side take the heat for what you yourself would have to have done in the same position. And remember, Bush DID sign off on his own massive spending, viaTARP. The trillion dollar debt was on his watch. No one is clean in the spending department or the disaster that preceded it.

You can see the truth of this in how the Republicans have been attacking Obama. Most of their fury has been leveled at the spending anticipated for health care reform. Very little actual hostility has been leveled at Obama for the Wall Street bailout, for obvious reasons. Oh sure, they will treat it as part of the same package, but by and large the Republicans have steered clear of attacking AIG, Goldman Sacchs, the banks, etc. When they do go after something besides healthcare, it is GM, since that at least contains the potential of union bashing (from a talking points perspective, this also allows for cross-referencing with “card check”, another Republican hot topic).

So you see, where the Democrats are most socialist–the bailout to the richest Americans–the Republicans are largely silent. The whole “war within the GOP” is due to the fact that the Republicans have no ideas for addressing the calamity that are more than cosmetically different than the Democrats. And unlike previous crises, this one undisputedly began while the Republicans held power. They are in it just as deeply as the Left. Better to let the ultra-right (Glenn Beck, the D-bags) dominate the airwaves and muddy the water lest anyone remember how badly Republican policies have failed us in the past decade.