Are We Seriously Still Doing This Song & Dance?

Bear wrote:
Morrolan wrote:

Is that the ultimate goal? Brownie points?

Yes it is..of sorts. Sometimes events give you tokens that you can spend whenever and however you see fit because the tolerance for response is largely predicated by your position. On 09/12/01 we could have invaded Pakistan in an effort to get Bin Laden and no one of any importance would have said a thing. Hell, half the world would have joined us. We had the opportunity to go and get the people behind the terror, to send a message that would last a century and we pissed it away for a trumped up game of "finish daddies war".

You're arguing against someone who is not me. All I said is that condemning something because the world didn't like it, or praising something because the world did like it, is just not compelling. The argument that the Iraq war has engendered negative feelings towards the US is simply not a valid point about the right or wrongness of that war. It's not a valid point about anything, really.

There is a very large portion of the population of the world which would be ecstatic to see us adopt Sharia law - so what? I don't care. It means nothing.

There are a lot of valid reasons to criticize the Iraq war both before and after the invasion. So, stick with those. Because if the US gets a president that makes decisions based on world opinion, you'll very soon see just how stupid the world can be, as a collective. Sometimes, in fact many times, the best course of action is not always the one that will get you the most love. International politics is not Civilization, and you can't get a popularity victory.

But, you do have to agree that a US president also can't ignore the world majority. There's a line between individuality and just giving the world the finger.

I think you're saying that we can't sacrifice our values to please other countries, and their saying that we can't piss down people's backs and tell them it's raining.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

But, you do have to agree that a US president also can't ignore the world majority. There's a line between individuality and just giving the world the finger.

I think you're saying that we can't sacrifice our values to please other countries, and their saying that we can't piss down people's backs and tell them it's raining.

Well, actually we can. That's why we're capable of getting in messes like this.

Robear wrote:

Nos, Fascism as propounded by Mussolini (and Hitler, via his poorly named "National Socialism") was the opposite of Socialism. As Mussolini noted, it could better be called "Corporatism". 1930's Fascism was not a leftist movement, it had as it's sworn enemies Socialism and Communism, which are left-wing movements.

To me the difference is a matter of semantics, In Fascism the state sponsered corporations run society, in Socialism the state owned corporations run society. Both are abhorant to me, as they offer no recourse or alternative for the populace should they desire something not offered by the leader of the state. Communism and Socialism were a far left enterprise and lassaiz-faire capitialism *was* a left enterprise (although now considered a right one) and it finds Communism,Socialism and Fascism all as it's sworn enemies.

Also part of the problem is that the word Fascism has no concrete difinition it has been describe as both anti communist and anti capitialist and anti democratic. Using a quote from the man who coined the term and founded the system :

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State
Bear wrote:
Morrolan wrote:

Is that the ultimate goal? Brownie points?

Yes it is..of sorts. Sometimes events give you tokens that you can spend whenever and however you see fit because the tolerance for response is largely predicated by your position. On 09/12/01 we could have invaded Pakistan in an effort to get Bin Laden and no one of any importance would have said a thing. Hell, half the world would have joined us. We had the opportunity to go and get the people behind the terror, to send a message that would last a century and we pissed it away for a trumped up game of "finish daddies war".

Sadly enough I concur, I aslo forsaw that we would end up in Iraq regardsless of the reasons, the only reason we hadn't been back is it would be a Pain in the Ass to put an army in the Middle East just for Iraq (and harder to justify the expense to the American people and congress), but serendipitously for GW some nutter from an area close enough to Iraq to make it less of a logisitcal issue to send troops into Iraq presented an opportunity by motivating the American people against his government and country. GW been a frustrating president, he's done things really well, and then turns around and screws the pooch on something else (For example the deliberation we took when going against the Taliban, then he turns around and decides to settle a score with Mr. Hussein (and no I don't mean Obama).)

Staats wrote:
Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

But, you do have to agree that a US president also can't ignore the world majority. There's a line between individuality and just giving the world the finger.

I think you're saying that we can't sacrifice our values to please other countries, and their saying that we can't piss down people's backs and tell them it's raining.

Well, actually we can. That's why we're capable of getting in messes like this.

Perhaps shouldn't would have been a better way to say that.

Morrolan wrote:

There is a very large portion of the population of the world which would be ecstatic to see us adopt Sharia law - so what? I don't care. It means nothing.

There are a lot of valid reasons to criticize the Iraq war both before and after the invasion. So, stick with those. Because if the US gets a president that makes decisions based on world opinion, you'll very soon see just how stupid the world can be, as a collective. Sometimes, in fact many times, the best course of action is not always the one that will get you the most love. International politics is not Civilization, and you can't get a popularity victory. ;)

Actually, I didn't mean it to read as I was arguing against you as I don't really disagree with your post. This phrase "brownie points" just reminded me of something I was talking about with friends last week. Perhaps a better phrase would have been "political collateral"! The events of 9/11 gave us infinite amounts of it. It basically gave us the ability to say that we're going after these animals and we're not paying a lot of heed to what borders they're hiding behind. I believe most of the sane free world would have followed us into battle because they realize that we wouldn't be the only target. We should have been intensely myopic about going after the individuals that planned and sponsored the terrorism. That should have been the war on terror and we could have spent those brownie points building a coalition unlike any the world had ever seen. Think of the power that message would have sent to any future terrorists or their sponsors.

Morrolan wrote:

...
All I said is that condemning something because the world didn't like it, or praising something because the world did like it, is just not compelling. The argument that the Iraq war has engendered negative feelings towards the US is simply not a valid point about the right or wrongness of that war. It's not a valid point about anything, really.
...
Because if the US gets a president that makes decisions based on world opinion, you'll very soon see just how stupid the world can be, as a collective.

Ironically, what is being said in the video is that we should vote/choose our president based on what the rest of the world thinks.
It doesn't suggest that he will capitulate to world opinion. There is no mention of Obama's possible actions. It's all about how it will look to one small portion of the rest of the world based on the way he looks and his name.

We could have actually made things safer, instead of more dangerous. We had a blank check, and we wrote in "One Trillion Dollars, payable to Halliburton.[size=10]*[/size]"

Just think of what else we could have written there.

[size=10]* -- a little hyperbolic, but not as much as you might think.[/size]

I'm just happy everyone understands that this guy is a colossal choad.

Prederick wrote:

I'm just happy everyone understands that this guy is a colossal choad.

The colassalest.

Prederick wrote:

I'm just happy everyone understands that this guy is a colossal choad.

Everyone on this forum. The rest of the world, I don't know.

Malor wrote:
Is that the ultimate goal? Brownie points?

In a word, yes. You can spend brownie points to get what you want. We could have spent ours on building police-level cooperation with suddenly less-hostile countries so that we could actually investigate, pursue, and catch terrorists.

We could have made the world a safer place, and we chose not to do so.

One problem is that many people in this country, probably, and this administration, certainly, can't seem to separate enhancing security from vengeance. The think that the only way to create protection from "terrorists" is go stomp on someone.

I'm sure that given the choice between an action that proud and forceful but may or may not be effective, and one that is sure to be effective but requires some swallowing of pride, they will choose the former every time.

Beating a populace into submission does not work. History has plenty of examples of that. I am not talking about the morality of it at all. I'm talking about its effectiveness. Funny thing is, if you ask the people doing the beating if it would work on them, of course they say no. But they seem to think it will work on their adversaries, because those people must be weaker or something.

I don't think there's any way you can reasonably argue, given what we've seen since 9/11, that the Bush administration ever really intended to fight terrorism. They have consistently chosen things that impair civil liberties and set the ground for a police state, and have repeatedly ignored tactics and strategies that would actually catch terrorists.

We've spent a trillion dollars, and people are now saying that the total cost of the war will likely exceed three trillion.. and we haven't even caught bin Laden.

We've pissed away a trillion dollars and we have absolutely nothing to show for it... while our infrastructure falls to junk and our cities drown.

Nosferatu wrote:
Robear wrote:

Nos, Fascism as propounded by Mussolini (and Hitler, via his poorly named "National Socialism") was the opposite of Socialism. As Mussolini noted, it could better be called "Corporatism". 1930's Fascism was not a leftist movement, it had as it's sworn enemies Socialism and Communism, which are left-wing movements.

To me the difference is a matter of semantics, In Fascism the state sponsered corporations run society, in Socialism the state owned corporations run society. Both are abhorant to me, as they offer no recourse or alternative for the populace should they desire something not offered by the leader of the state. Communism and Socialism were a far left enterprise and lassaiz-faire capitialism *was* a left enterprise (although now considered a right one) and it finds Communism,Socialism and Fascism all as it's sworn enemies.

You're conflating all authoritarian movements under one banner here. There's other components to fascism, such as militarism and xenophobia, and yes, corporatism, that distinguishes it from communism.

To me the difference is a matter of semantics, In Fascism the state sponsered corporations run society, in Socialism the state owned corporations run society. Both are abhorant to me, as they offer no recourse or alternative for the populace should they desire something not offered by the leader of the state.

Nonetheless, some political movements come from the left, and some from the right. Fascism comes from the right, even though as you note Totalitarianism can arise from either side of the political spectrum. (The difference between corporatism and Communism is that in corporatism, the corporations essentially run the state. In Communism (not socialism necessarily) the state runs the corporations, against their will. So there's a clear difference between the two.)

It's hard to argue that Fascism has no definition. It's got several pages of it in an encyclopedia written by it's founder. I can understand you might not agree with it, or find it compelling, but it's there. My problem with your assertion is that it's been used by others to argue that Democrats and others who disagree with conservatives in a democracy are actually Fascists, which is nonsense. I understand you aren't doing that, so perhaps that's where we stand.

That video makes me so angry I don't know what to say. Maybe I'll have less rage later.

Scaphism wrote:

That video makes me so angry I don't know what to say. Maybe I'll have less rage later.

Don't hold your breath on that one.

Edwin wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I'm just happy everyone understands that this guy is a colossal choad.

Everyone on this forum. The rest of the world, I don't know.

Yeah, that's why I said I know people who are likely applauding the guy for what he said.