Russ makes a fuss

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

...and yet, so many Libertarians leans towards a party that openly shreds the constitution, supports an illegal war and involvement outside the borders, allows the country to bleed away tax dollars, etc, etc.

Well, Kits, I am unpersuaded that the Republican Party is actually shredding any part of the Constitution, openly or covertly. The arguments presented for this idea satisfy the anti-Republicans, but no objective observer. The war is not only quite legal (except to anti-Republicans of a fringey nature), it is by definition right: it is being fought by democracy against dictatorship. It is inherently impossible for this to be wrongful. It might be destructive, it might be expensive and push up the national debt, it might be widely lethal.

So was World War Two. I fear, Kits, that your misapplied partisanship will forever make the concept of just war, known and understood by Christians anyway since St. Augustine of Hippo, something unknown to you. Fortunately, my vision is not so blurred.

Nor am I an isolationist, either -- it's unsustainable, and there's no going back to it in this day and age. American isolationism enjoyed a privileged existence for a century and a half or so, for most of that time because of the British Royal Navy's putting up a barrier other nations that might have been inclined to meddle in the Western Hemisphere found insuperable. Isolationism also worked better when the fastest way of moving anything, goods, people, or information, was the sailing ship at about five knots. The steamship and the transoceanic telegraph cable began to erode its viability, and the Roosevelt Administration was far-sighted enough to abandon isolationism around the turn of the last century. I am persuaded they were wise to do so.

So anyway, the Republicans, for all their manifold sins and wickedness (and these will happen to the Libertarian Party too, once it's actually responsible to make and execute policy to any large degree), are occasionally a lot nearer libertarianism in not only their thinking but also their doing than the entire pack of icky socialists clogging the arteries of the Jackass Party ever will be until they kick the socialists out and themselves embrace libertarianism. (Memo to self: Continue, do not interrupt, respiration.)

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Well, Kits, I am unpersuaded that the Republican Party is actually shredding any part of the Constitution, openly or covertly. The arguments presented for this idea satisfy the anti-Republicans, but no objective observer. The war is not only quite legal (except to anti-Republicans of a fringey nature), it is by definition right: it is being fought by democracy against dictatorship. It is inherently impossible for this to be wrongful.

So what's your take on Bush's displeasure in the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine? Is he inherently wrong for opposing the results of a democratic election?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by glatt

So what's your take on Bush's displeasure in the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine? Is he inherently wrong for opposing the results of a democratic election?

I seem to recall a fellow named Hitler getting elected too -- once, anyway. And Hamas has a similarly genocidal bent, just to enhance the resemblance! Surely you are not so naive as to expect something good to come out of the genocidal shitheads coming out on top?

Does anyone even expect civility and good order of a state run by Hamas? I'd say the evidence is all the other way: these are people who by their own words are committed to making a people vanish, and from a land they once had, yet, and had it before the current batch of "look at us, we're the victims here" bomb makers. (I don't buy it when somebody claims he's the victim, but behaves like the perp.) Anyone who thinks the Israelis will quietly go along with Hamas' genocidal program has slipped the bonds of reality in a large way.

It's absurd to get grabby over a former Ottoman province that amounted to nothing until a bunch of highly motivated Jews moved in and made a success of the place. Now, we get "give it back!"

[jinx]

Eddie Izzard

We stole countries! That's how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags! Sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain." And they're going, "You can't claim us. We live here! There's five hundred million of us." "Do you have a flag?" "We don't need a flag, this is our country you bastard!"

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The war is not only quite legal (except to anti-Republicans of a fringey nature), it is by definition right: it is being fought by democracy against dictatorship. It is inherently impossible for this to be wrongful. It might be destructive, it might be expensive and push up the national debt, it might be widely lethal.

My bad - we're not actually at war, anyways, so I guess this point didn't matter. The president is simply involved in a very large scale police action that involves the US military and didn't need an actual declaration of war or anything like that. Nope -- we're perfectly legal here! Carry on!

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

So was World War Two.

1. Axis powers attack American soil by bombing a Hawaii Naval Base. US enters WWII to fight them.
2. A "spy" we're not even sure exists provides false information about Iraq WMDs that did not exist and were shown not to exist by UN inspectors again and again. US enters Iraq.

I don't understand your comparison, here.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Nor am I an isolationist, either -- it's unsustainable, and there's no going back to it in this day and age.

I'm not all about isolationism, either. I just know that the US getting its grubby little hands into every country in the world is a bad idea. From the small scale CIA "interventions" in Central America that have gone oh-so-well to the bigger issues we're dealing with these days, it is very clear to me as to why the US is getting involved and it has zero to do with the administration feeling the need to spread democracy. We would have swept into many, many other countries long ago if we felt we were the great savior of people in need of fair government and we would have taken care of North Korea had we truly felt threatened by WMD. Hey, not only do we know the dictatorship of North Korea has a developing nuclear program, they were even threatening us with it before the Iraq ordeal began.

Who did we elect to use our military might against?

No matter how much the Administration is rolls this one in sugar, we're not in Iraq to "spread democracy" and "save the people". I fail to see how a true Libertarian can support these actions.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

...the entire pack of icky socialists clogging the arteries of the Jackass Party ever will be until they kick the socialists out and themselves embrace libertarianism.

I'd like to see the Jackass party at least grow a pair and stand up to what the administration has done (wiretapping, PATRIOT act, etc), but it seems they can't even stand on their own feet or actually express any solid goals at this point.