Buyer's Remorse

[dar512]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I'm happier than all of you put together. [Snoopy Dance]

UG - Ambassador for the right.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

This ambassador inquires: why be unhappy, then?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

This ambassador inquires: why be unhappy, then?

Hell, UG, I wish more right wingers were like you. Even the people stupid enough to have voted for Bush would be given pause. It would then me doing the snoopy dance as the liberals won by landslide votes. :p

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

At worst, they're socialists.

Or ... Democrats. Taking the terms literally, Republican means giving up complete authority to elected officials. Democrat means giving a direct voice to the people.

Right now the system is breaking down because people have stopped watching and trying to understand what elected officials are doing. The Democrats are at least pretending that people should be able to make their own decisions.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I voted for Bush twice. He's a good choice for me, being a Republican with Libertarian instincts. I also see that he and his are doing a tough, cranky job about as well as anyone could expect to be done at all, and without the Clintonian sin of treating the Bill of Rights as a stumbling block to its ambition, nor of subverting the Department of Justice into running interference for the Administration. Chills on chills, that.

I'm happier than all of you put together. [Snoopy Dance]

Put down the crackpipe you loser. Bush is as far from being a libertarian as Josef Stalin. He has no libertarian instincts, but I can see how you'd get confused since you have no clue about what it means to be a libertarian and because you are as far away from being a libertarian as is humanly possible.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Radar, you cannot convince me I'm not a libertarian no matter what you say, so shut up.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Radar, you cannot convince me I'm not a libertarian no matter what you say, so shut up.

I don't know if you are or aren't, but if you are and you think Bush is, you certainly can't identify fellow Libertarians. It's like watching a porcupine trying to cuddle up to a hairbrush.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Radar, you cannot convince me I'm not a libertarian no matter what you say, so shut up.

I couldn't convince you of anything. You would have to actually think in order to be convinced. You're a fucking moron without a clue about libertarianism (or foreign policy, history, science, politics, literature, and most other things). I don't have to convince actual libertarians. We all know you are no more libertarian than Josef Stalin.

What I can do is make the LP very unconfortable for you and your ilk until you want to leave.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Nope. The broader, greater vision will prevail -- and your ilk can go off and be selfish, xenophobic, or whatever. We can keep you uncomfortable in your belief that human liberty is only for Americans. You will remain uncomfortable until you arrive at the greater epiphany.

[Radar]

I don't believe human liberty is only for Americans. I think it is for all people. I am the well-wisher of freedom and liberty to all people. I hope the entire world will have it, but I will not send Americans to win it for them. America is not the champion of liberty for anyone but ourselves and is not the world's police, ruler, or the entity who chooses which weapons other nations may or may not develop or have or what kind of government they will have.

I'm at a level far greater than you will ever achieve because only fools or liars claim to be libertarian while supporting unprovoked force for political gain or social engineering as you do.

[mrnoodle]

"I'm better than you."

"nuh-uh. I'm better. Far better."

"Wrong. You are a fool."

"Sit and spin, asswipe."

"Made you cuss. See how superior I am?"

Politics 101

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I don't believe human liberty is only for Americans. I think it is for all people.

Then stop sounding like you believe only the former and not the latter. Passivism does not win liberty -- anywhere. And if a native libertarian movement should arise -- something the free peoples of the world should start in every unfree place there is -- there's no wrongness in giving 'em an assist, be it "lawyers, guns, and money," or combined-arms strikes. The thing you simply can't get right, Paul, and you've said very loudly that in the name of libertarianism you will leave totalitarians to perform their unlibertarian oppressions (to me, an insupportable paradox), is that the destruction of totalitarianism is a beautiful and righteous thing. You flinch at this righteous thing; I do not.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You flinch at this righteous thing; I do not.

The non-ideological response is this: For this war to have been righteous a reasonable chance of success would have been required. My expectation is that the now unstable Iraq will now become a wellspring of Islamic terror. The neo-con assumption that the three main slices of culture in Iraq would feel compelled to make democracy work rather than blow it apart is shocking in it's blindness.

The war in Iraq will play out and we'll see how it ends up. Back home, it is time to think like an ideologue. My ideology says that war is one of the ratchets that increases government power. Our failure in Iraq will be over-shadowed by the further degradation of the Republic. Bush does not think like a libertarian. He thinks like a statist. Look at the growth in Federal control over education. Do you know why Kennedy was supportive of NCLB? Because he knows that the Democrats will get the keys to the oval office again, he is willing to give Bush power that only local boards of education had. We are building to the day where the Feds will be having these stupid fights about teaching religion in science class instead of isolating the contagion in pockets around the country.

[warch]

I also see that he and his are doing a tough, cranky job about as well as anyone could expect to be done at all, and without the Clintonian sin of treating the Bill of Rights as a stumbling block to its ambition, nor of subverting the Department of Justice into running interference for the Administration.

Strange.
I expect more from the leaders of the free world. I expect planning, debate, assessment, and correction. I expect thoughtful, realistic projection. I expect diplomacy, and respect for basic human rights. I expect responsibility and strong, tough, honorable leadership. And I'm not seeing these things. Call me "picky". I still have hope that something good can come. But I'm not seeing it. And I'm not alone.

Clinton's numerous personal sins pale in comparison to this mess.

And I believe the Justice Dept (and the GAO) has been unfortunately diverted into running a breathtaking number of adminstration-related investigations about criminal violations, breaches in national security, and financial corruption.

I would like to see Cheney impeached as a start.