What You Expected:
What You Got…
What you Expected:
What you Got:
What you Expected:
What you Got:
What you Expected:
What you Got:
The next: What You Expected, What You Got.
What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas.
Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, the Media
Support RoughlyDrafted! (PayPal link now actually works!)
Bookmark: Del.icio.us Slashdot Digg
RSS feed for comments on this post
TrackBack URI for this post
246 comments ↓
Haha great image blog, I especially loved those last 2 images.
Oh and while I’m here commenting anyways, I can’t access the forums at all. roughlydrafted.com/forum takes me to that special page you created, and forum.roughlydrafted.com/forum takes me to the same page (and so does clicking the link).
Sebastian
The forums are gone? Just for the moment, I hope. There wuz bunches of good conversation in there.
I hate to compain but the thick red type in the comment area (here) is awful. Is it a missehavior in my browser?
Thank you for this revisit to ’60’s anti war propaganda. It is as illogical now as it was then. It was always preaching to the choir.
It does bring up an interesting question, though. How different would life be if Al Gore had won in 2000? Would Gore have gotten awards from leftist organizations? Sure, they protect each other.
Would we still be at war with al Qaeda? I think so. Osama bin Laden hated Bill Clinton, or Al Gore, as much as he does President Bush. Most of al Qaeda’s terrorist plans were made during the Clinton administration.
But, the Democrat’s attitude would be different if a Liberal were in high office. Much of the Left’s anti-war tactics were to prevent victory, because that would expand the power and influence of the Republican Party. Can’t have that, can we?
Of course, the Democrats have a right to be angry with President Bush. He stole their war with Saddam Hussein. Only democrats are supposed to favor extending democracy to the rest of the world. President Bush campaigned against this in the 2000 election.
Of course, Al Gore would have never had much opposition from the Mainstream Media, the UN or Europe, no matter how much he mismanaged the war. Tens of thousands of American’s could die and they would still defend him.
I both reluctantly favor the war as a necessary evil and favor the Left’s attempts to prevent it. I just wish the Left were more logical about it. Complete denial just gets American’s killed.
Daniel,
The new look is an improvement.
I love to complain and the thick red type in the comment area (here) is awful.
,dave
Johnny,
Yeah, they’re down for now but hopefully not out. It was kind of annoying when I found out because I was going over to the “Ballmer Dellicious” thread to see if there were any new posts before I submitted my own, of course that post is now gone.
UrbanBard,
If Al Gore was president it would be something like this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AYuqoKxRhMg
Sebastian
UrbanBard.
Necessary evil is just being too lazy to do good (all along). If Al Gore had been president, there would still be a Republican Congress; therefore, there would have been some check and balance. That Congress would not have just give Gore a blank check to go to war and subvert the Constitution. By the way, Bin Laden got pissed off by GHW Bush when Bin Laden was denied a place to defend Saudi Arabia during the first Golf War. Before that, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. It goes way back…
TS.
Sorry, but why does a very good, well informed, subtle and entertaining blog about tech and Apple need to resort to this type of tacky, political character assassination?
Rise above this level Dan please, or alternatively put it on a separate site, because all you have done is offend between 49 and 51% of your readers…
Yours respectfully,
Jonathan
The Forums are available at http://forum.roughlydrafted.com/forum
However, when I link to that from within WordPress, something intercepts the URL and it is redirected back to “www.rd.com,” which does not work. You may need to manually plug the new URL in and update your bookmarks.
It will also make you login again (with your same password) because the URL is different. Note that the existing Forum (run by Vanilla) and WordPress (which happens to be on a different server) use independent accounts, so you can’t login to WordPress with the same username and password.
I think it needs to be stressed that you can NOT be on the Roughlydrafted site when you type in: http://forum.roughlydrafted.com/forum. I had to go to another web site and type it in before I was able to get it work. Otherwise, Wordpress redirects you to a 404 type screen. Have a good day.
TS, By necessary evil, I mean that we must make choices when we are confronted by enemies. Most likely, we must try something new. Ignoring our problems won’t make them go away. We have tried diplomacy with our Islamic foes and gotten nowhere. Our enemies just thought we were weak. Appeasement just makes our enemies stronger.
So, after all other measures have been taken, we have proceeded to force– to war. There will always people who will say we haven’t tried long enough or hard enough. And that the onus is on our shoulders because we are the one’s a fault.
The question is whether those people have the credentials to lend them any credibility. What results can they point to? The Democrats lost us Vietnam by ending military aid in 1973 and losing Vietnam cost two million Vietnamese dead and a similar number in Cambodia. I’ve never known of a Liberal to accept responsibility for what the Conservatives said would happen if we abandoned the Vietnamese– a bloodbath.
Some enemies cannot be reasoned with, bought off or placated. They want us dead or to be our masters. If it is a choice between Americans dying and them dying, I choose them.
You may volunteer to have your head cut off, but I do not.
“By the way, Bin Laden got pissed off by GHW Bush when Bin Laden was denied a place to defend Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. Before that, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. It goes way back…”
It didn’t happen that way. Osama bin Laden was Anti American and Anti Saudi government before he went to Afghanistan in the 1980’s. I suggest that you read, “The Looming Tower” by Richard Wright.
I suspect that the current war is merely a different front of the “Cold War.” Sayed Qtub’s comments are strongly influenced by the communists. The Islamists have strong resentments toward the West. Most often, they repeat the talking points of the Democratic Party, not because they wouldn’t kill the Democrats if they had the power. Their own culture is stagnant and has no ideas to draw from. So they borrow the worst ideas from the West.
Tilneys said, “Rise above this level Dan please, or alternatively put it on a separate site, because all you have done is offend between 49 and 51% of your readers…”
Yes, I’m sure all those people who got a Gateway Profile All-in-One are furious. There may well now be more of them than people who still give a positive approval rating to George W. Bush.
“What you expected” and the comments provide an impressive reminder that we each have developed unique links within our brain to our most powerful observations, experiences and prior thoughts!
After reading your earlier autobiographical pages still linked to Roughly Drafted, it seems appropriate that your graphics have indeed stirred up strong concerns in some of our minds. It does us all good.
As a science teacher, I’ve discussed evidence for the greenhouse effect and global warming for several decades. And with a Christian upbringing, I am strongly opposed to thinking of people in other cultures as our enemies. So your images brought a pleasant grin to my face. I regret that the President and his party have seemingly accomplished much of the declared objectives of Bin Laden. Some of them are very touchy about that.
Keep up the great work.
Sorry man, I just don’t approve of this type of thing. You may be very politically minded and very intelligent, but this just eeks of childish prejudiced opinions. If you are going to blog about political things, do it the same way you do your Apple-related blogs. That way at least I can see where you are coming from and form a well informed opinion of what you are saying. This however is just telling me, rather forcefully, what you already believe.
I don’t really care what you believe in, but I do want to know why you believe it. If I were to tell you, “MAC’s SUCK AND PC’s RULE!”. You would say that I was stupid and not listen. You are doing the same thing with this.
Please. Leave personal politics out of this site.
@Tilneys: Are you referring to the “character assassination” of the Whopper or of Jar-Jar Binks?
The idea really occurred to me as a tribute to Al Gore, who was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I also admire his push to get the US to fund the development of our Internet as a social and economic program.
That’s in part why the US is the center of net technology today, and why our current acting president could so easily spy on the world’s information traffic–it all runs through out networks. It’s just too bad Bush can’t do anything useful with all that spy data apart from setting up a fear state and torturing a lot of innocent people.
Think about it: the handling of Katrina, a bungled war, a prison police state, spending US taxes to fund right wing fundamentalist killers like Blackwater… they are all criminal power mongering not too different from any of the other horrific regimes of the previous century such as Stalin’s Russia, or the fascist Axis nations.
With so much obvious crisis and bloodguilt sprayed around, its no wonder the NeoCons (which really have nothing to do with true US conservatives) are writing so many books of fiction to spin reality around a central lie. NeoCons fool the middle class into thinking that they benefit from fascism, when really nobody who outside of the top 1% (ie, billionaires) benefits from such destruction of the economy, the environment, and social well-being of the country.
I don’t think giving people something to think about is wrong. I think as citizens, we need to challenge ourselves and think more often, not cower to whatever message is being funneled to us from those who control the status quo.
Al Gore is as politically centrist as Clinton. Calling either a “leftist” is something only a brainwashed NeoCon repeater would think of doing. That kind of jingoism is what “character assignation” is, something the NeoCons have cornered the market on. Drawing a line between points of truth is not.
As for UrbanBard, he writes me long missives at regular intervals blaming the world problems on the invented idea of “American leftists” who start all our wars and waste all our money on feeding the poor. It all streams verbatim from the NeoCon bookshelf as is as transparently laughable as the Windows Enthusiasts with their “Apple is the Monopolist” table turning spewage.
Having said all that, if you don’t occasionally disagree with those you listen to (including me), you may be in danger of being brainwashed. If you choose to only expose yourself to things you already know or agree with, you aren’t being educated or informed. You’re being indoctrinated. That’s never a good thing.
Very funny blog entry.
Entering the address ” forum.roughlydrafted.com/forum” manually on a Mac that’s never visited RDM forums still re-directs me to “www.roughlydrafted.com/forum/”.
I’ll comment on the article later. At first glance, um, ya, Al Gore ain’t no leftist. He’s not exactly Steve Jobs on stage but politically he’s pretty moderate and responsible. I’d “hire” him.
Right now I’m up to my elbows in 4 quarts of Wild Rice Soup, a Minnesota favorite! Dan, Sebastian, anyone, if you’re in the neighborhood stop by, there’ll be plenty.
“…if you don’t occasionally disagree with those you listen to (including me), you may be in danger of being brainwashed. If you choose to only expose yourself to things you already know or agree with, you aren’t being educated or informed. You’re being indoctrinated. That’s never a good thing.”
Thank you for saying this. Daniel.
I love you too, Daniel, We just disagree on politics. I like your technical articles. I’m not crazy about your propaganda though.
I used to be a Democrat, but even then I was a “Scoop Jackson” type Democrat– I believe this country was worth defending.
After 1972 when the New Left took over, there was no room for me in the Democratic Party. Since then, I have come to dislike Socialism. Each year, I think the government is less qualified to do anything besides killing people or threaten to. That means that the courts, the police and the military are acceptable. Redistributing income is not.
Al Gore is no more a centrist than Bill Clinton was. Clinton was pretending to be a centrist to steal ideas from the right, since the Left has nothing but warmed over socialism. And the voters are rather tired of that.
Al Gore is a leftist since he believes that the government should redistribute income. Golly, that makes you a leftist, too, Daniel. You believe that the government should take from the rich and give to the poor, I don’t.
I’m quite happy that you Leftists, have confined yourselves to the big cities. The reason I like you ghettoizing yourself into leftist enclaves is that you have less influence that way. The nation is evenly divided. If you spread yourselves out more you would win more elections. Who wants that?
I’m no Neocon, Daniel. But we probably have different definitions in mind. A NeoCon is a Former Trotskyite, mostly of Jewish origin, disenchanted with Socialism and had no place to go but to the right. You probably think NeoCon= Conservative. How simplistic of you.
There are five different interest groups calling themselves Conservatives. I place myself among the “Small Government Conservatives.” That means that I favor substituting voluntary organizations to take the place of governmental activities. I don’t much like the activities of the Big Government Republicans, like President Bush, but he is way better than a leftist. At least, he won’t wreck the economy.
I apologize that this missive is too long. Wading through Left mire takes time. So much ignorance and bigotry; so little time.
JohnnyApple, Whether or not you see someone as a Leftist depends on where you stand on the issues. If you constantly read Moveon.org or MediaMatters, then, of course, you see Al Gore as a centrist. But, these people think Provda is to the right of them.
The question is how you measure these things. If you go by how people voted in the last election, then Al Gore is far Left of center. The 2006 election was a typical sixth year reversal of a two term presidency where the president’s party loses 40 to 60 house seats. The Republicans lost 41 seats and they were mostly to “Blue Dog” Democrats running to the right of Republicans.
I seriously doubt that the political center of America has changed; it has been slowly been moving toward the right as the older Democrats die off and new ones are either not born or reject it in high school or college. 50 to 60 year old teachers are the establishment to these students; They are NOT cool.
Any coming election is a crap shoot, but usually the majority party, in this case the Republicans, regains the seats that they lost. It’s not as though the Democrats will have issues that they can win on. A socialist domestic agenda like Hillary is talking about will not sell. The war in Iraq will be off the table since there is just not enough bad news coming out of Iraq these days.
Ummm, how do you “pretend” to be a centrist (or left/right for that matter)? You are what your record is. I’m always amused by defeated atheletes who proclaim “we were the better team, they just happened to score more points than we did.” Accepting reality is hard.
I think Daniel makes the wrong analogy about Bush/Gore and how we did not get what we expected. President Bush has done almost nothing that Candidate Bush promised. What happened to being a “uniter, not a divider”? Why is there no compassion in “Compassionate Conservative”?
Never argue with a fool; they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
“UrbanBard,” please truncate your comments and/or go away. Leftist, rightist, innocent-cutey-pie or belligerent knowitall, I don’t care—nothing you say is your own idea. I come here to read Roughly Drafted, not your re-hash of half-assed neoCon propaganda.
I love it when apologists of the current administration defend our recent history by citing the need to defend ourselves in the face of being attacked by enemies. Forgetting of course the inconvenient fact that until our involvement, there was NO link between Iraq and Al Qaida, and that only in the power vacuum that WE created did they achieve a foothold in Iraq. Simultaneously, we have neglected putting sufficient resources into fighting our enemies in their true homes, those being Afghanistan and our “ally in the war on terror” Pakistan.
Bush may be a moron, but you can’t actually blame him for the war in Iraq. I’m very liberal and left wing, but I can’t help but blame the war on the people who voted to approve it, people like Hillary Clinton who had the power to prevent it by voting “no” and instead voted “yes.”
At any rate, I like Al Gore a lot more now that he’s not trying to be president. If he hadn’t lost the election he wouldn’t have done all the great things that lead to him winning the (sympathy) votes that lead to his Oscar and his Emmy and his Nobel Prize. He’d be fighting the War on Terror and mired in low approval ratings.
Anyone willing to do what it takes to be elected president should by no means be allowed to do the job.
What I expected was great tech commentary.
What I got was more tired political swipes.
There are plenty of political blogs, I think this blog is a whole lot better if it sticks to the tech.
As a non-American, I’m always surprised at how far apart the political parties are.
Have you considered dividing the country? The middle would be one regime and the coasts another.
I think the electoral system has not kept up with technology. This running around from state to state, with polls and spin wasn’t considered when your system was created. Primaries should all be done on the same day! Get it over with, stop the soap opera.
Publish manifestos? How about deciding on policy rather than personality?
Special interest lobbies seem to have more power than the electorate, so it doesn’t matter if your party wins anyway.
Americans don’t seem to remember that their great country was founded by people searching for Truth Liberty and Justice. Unfortunately their descendants only value popularity, the sound-byte and avoiding the hard questions.
I hope this doesn’t come over as un-American, but I think the system needs to evolve
Johnny,
When you get to the page “www.roughlydrafted.com/forum” go up to the URL bar and delete “www” and retype “forum” and then if it works just drag the URL down to the bookmarks bar so you don’t have to keep going through that little pain. I was finally able to somehow get onto the Forums this way. A lot of other people must be having trouble because only Oliver, Luis, Tom, lightstab, roz, and dorotea posted anything and most of that was on “Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth”.
Sebastian
Gus2000 said:
“Ummm, how do you “pretend” to be a centrist (or left/right for that matter)? You are what your record is. ”
If that were only so, Gus. You know that politicians lie, don’t you? All politicians– left and right. They will go before different groups and tell them what they want to hear. But, this is getting much harder than before the internet.
A politician will tell certain interest groups, or the public through the Mainstream Media that he is a centrist but his record will show that he is not. The Media will try to hide his record, but this is getting harder.
Bill Clinton pretended to be a centrist. National health care is not a centrist position; Nor is Gays in the Military. Nor is a wide varieties of issues that Bill Clinton favored but could not get through congress. Bill Clinton called this pretending to be a centrist “triangulation.” He didn’t use it during the time he had a Democratic majority in Congress, but after 1994 when he did not.
Gus2000 said:
“What happened to being a “uniter, not a divider”?”
Governor Bush had a good record of working with Democrats in the Texas legislature. But, they were “Good ol’ Boys” close to the voters. President Bush ran into a buzz saw of leftist opposition in Washington. If you want to be a uniter, you have to have someone you can unite with. Big City Leftists want it all their own way. Too bad they can’t get to voters to go along with that.
Gus2000 said:
“Why is there no compassion in “Compassionate Conservative”?”
As a small government Republican, I’m not in favor of Compassionate Conservatism: that looks too much like “triangulation” to me. I’m not in favor of redistributing wealth. I’m against persecuting people because they are rich.
Every nation that tries that ends up poor and in chains.
Gus2000 said:
“Never argue with a fool; they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
I was hoping for a discussion of ideas, myself. Too bad that the Left can’t do that these days.
AEChadwick said:
““UrbanBard,” please truncate your comments and/or go away. Leftist, rightist, innocent-cutey-pie or belligerent knowitall, I don’t care—nothing you say is your own idea. I come here to read Roughly Drafted, not your re-hash of half-assed neoCon propaganda.”
How long have you been in favor of censorship, AE? This is supposed to be an open forum, so that a diversity of ideas can be presented.
The Left really opposes “Political Diversity.” I really would wish that Daniel would stick to technology. He, at least, makes some sense there.
Shorter UrbanBard: “When you tell me not to write about my idiosyncratic political beliefs on a website because you disagree with them, that’s typical leftist censorship. When I (and others) tell the owner of the website not to write about his political beliefs on his own website because we disagree with them, that’s OK because we are not leftists.”
Oh, thebob. “Americans don’t seem to remember that their great country was founded by people searching for Truth Liberty and Justice. Unfortunately their descendants only value popularity, the sound-byte and avoiding the hard questions.”? Sure, there are Americans who don’t remember this. But there are PLENTY of Americans who do. You’re right the system does need reformed. But I know a lot of liberals in the middle and conservatives on the coasts who would be really pissed off if we just cut up the country based on stereotypical geographical ideas.
I think Daniel should say whatever he ants to say. It’s his blog. If you don’t like it, there’s a handy dandy address bar on your browser that will take you somewhere else. Or say something that’s at least mildly thought out.
I thought it was funny…You’re right Dan, I didn’t expect Jar Jar! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Nicky G said”
” Forgetting of course the inconvenient fact that until our involvement, there was NO link between Iraq and Al Qaida, and that only in the power vacuum that WE created did they achieve a foothold in Iraq. ”
Unfortunately for you, the some 200 thousand documents discovered in fall of Saddam’s regime prove you wrong. But, the Leftist Media will not publish them, so you may not know this. But, that doesn’t excuse your ignorance. Your ignorance is self generated.
“Simultaneously, we have neglected putting sufficient resources into fighting our enemies in their true homes, those being Afghanistan and our “ally in the war on terror” Pakistan.”
True. The terrorist’s true home is in Saudi Arabia; that is where the Wahabi/ Salafi clerics are promoting this war on us. Too bad that Geo-political considerations must intervene. We can’t go to war with Saudi Arabia because that would close the straits of Hormuz. The Europeans would freeze to death.
Blaming the Pakistan government is futile. Much of their territory is not under their control. Often it takes many years to effect change. Years that you will not give to these governments.
War is often hard. We have to do what works, not what we want to do. That is why the US invaded North Africa in World War Two rather than Continental Europe. The British had been almost been destroyed at Dunkirk.
Dear UrbanBard,
Listen to me carefully, since this is the last time I will ever address you: when I said “do not argue with fools” I was referring to you specifically. Since I was apparently too subtle, I will now state clearly and emphatically “you are a fool”.
You have no desire to participate in an adult discussion, but rather use inflammatory language to get lots of people mad enough to respond. Somehow, you think this makes you popular. It does not. And since it seems to give you perverse pleasure, I will no longer provide you such validation.
Personally, I will no longer be feeding this Troll. Those of you that take offense at his diatribes would do well to do the same.
The Bob said:
“As a non-American, I’m always surprised at how far apart the political parties are. Have you considered dividing the country? The middle would be one regime and the coasts another.”
Why should American Conservatives do that? In twenty years the Liberals will have emasculated themselves. They are not reproducing; their birth rates are as low as Europe’s. The Left have no ideas attractive to the voters. Let them die a natural death. Let them go the way of the Whig Party. Then we Small Government Republicans can turn on the Big Government Republicans.
“I think the electoral system has not kept up with technology. ”
The last thing we Americans want in government is efficiency. Why has the American Republic withstood the assault of the Socialists when all the European states went Social Democratic or Communist? The US Constitution is very hard to change. That is why the Left tried to make an end run around the Constitution through the courts.
“Publish manifestos? How about deciding on policy rather than personality?”
You want to take way the fun and the drama of an election? Phooey.
“Special interest lobbies seem to have more power than the electorate, so it doesn’t matter if your party wins anyway.”
There are long term trends at work here. The Reagan Revolution worked, but has not yet resulted in legislation. “Government is not the solution, but is the problem,” is believed by most Americans now.
But, getting the electorate to give up the “goodies” promised by the left is hard. The political spoils for the special interests are quite entrenched. The Democratic Party would lose a third of their voters if those went away.
“Americans don’t seem to remember that their great country was founded by people searching for Truth Liberty and Justice. ”
Sad but true. A big problem is that the public schools don’t teach history any more. Too few people know what ideas that our republic was founded on. The leftist propagandists have done a good job of confusing the issue, too.
“Unfortunately their descendants only value popularity, the sound-byte and avoiding the hard questions.”
That is a Mass Media Generated problem that is being overcome by the internet. The Left have degenerated to the point where I can’t get a good argument from them. All they can retort with is propaganda and ad Homenim attacks.
“I hope this doesn’t come over as un-American, but I think the system needs to evolve”
No, I think you are one of the few intelligent people to post here.
Coffeego said:
“When you tell me not to write about my idiosyncratic political beliefs on a website because you disagree with them, that’s typical leftist censorship.”
I’m not telling anyone to go away; I’m not censoring anyone. I like a free and open discussion of ideas. I merely disagree with you and you cannot stand that.
“When I (and others) tell the owner of the website not to write about his political beliefs on his own website because we disagree with them, that’s OK because we are not leftists.””
I never said to Daniel not to write about this. I merely called it what it was: Leftist propaganda. You have something against free speech?
I even said that I like Daniel personally and just disagree with his politics. I like his technical writings. He is quite intelligent when talking about the Mac, but he applies no intelligence to his politics. He cannot question them.
I’ve noticed before that Leftist’s act like a false religion. Their response is emotional rather than reasoned. I would love to get a reasoned argument from Daniel, but he has resisted.
Gus2000 said
“Listen to me carefully, since this is the last time I will ever address you: when I said “do not argue with fools” I was referring to you specifically. ”
Well.. Da.
Of course, I knew that you were insulting me. But, why should I respond? Why should I value your opinion? Have you said anything that was intelligent? Not so I can see. Have you given a reasoned argument? No.
The first thing that Leftists do when they realize that they are losing an argument to to start on the personal attacks and insults. I tend to ignore them.
“You have no desire to participate in an adult discussion, but rather use inflammatory language to get lots of people mad enough to respond. ”
What inflammatory language have i made? I have not insulted anyone. Words like Leftist and Socialist have meanings that I am using correctly. I am making reasoned arguments. But you don’t want to hear them. Tough.
“Somehow, you think this makes you popular. ”
Why would I want popularity when I can have truth?
” And since it seems to give you perverse pleasure, I will no longer provide you such validation.”
I enjoy a discussion of ideas with a knowledgeable person. Too bad that you don’t qualify.
“Those of you that take offense at his diatribes would do well to do the same.”
There you go again trying to suppress free speech.
UrbanBard, you really are clueless aren’t you.
“There you go again trying to suppress free speech”
No-one’s stopping you from posting…
We’re just not going to read it.
john
ps Johnny, maybe we should have a RDF Minneapolis get together. I believe there are several posters in this area.
limey said:
“UrbanBard, you really are clueless aren’t you.
“There you go again trying to suppress free speech”
No-one’s stopping you from posting…”
I just like pointing out the cognitive dissidence of the Left. They love to proclaim themselves as freedom seekers and lovers of the 1st amendment. But, the only freedom they seek is for them to express their views. Any other opinion gets accusations, threats, insults and personal attacks. This is a classic case of suppression of speech.
There is soft and hard censorship. Hard censorship is when a government throws into jail anyone who disagrees. Soft censorship is to try to drown people out. The typical way is to own all the Media, the press and organs of information transfer such as the Schools.
The Left had that capability to drown out the Right 20 odd years ago, but not now. The sad result is that the Left have forgotten how to debate. Or events have caught up with them, because the results of their beliefs have been tried elsewhere and failed.
If you don’t like what I write then give me a good argument why I am wrong. Back it up with good logic and facts that can be verified. Just don’t tell me I am wrong; why should I agree with you? Don’t just tell me to go away. Nothing makes me more stubborn than that.
“We’re just not going to read it.”
I love that. Keep it up. Silence yourselves.
Nobel is a leftist organization? Amazing.
“Would we still be at war with al Qaeda? I think so.”
Maybe we would have still had them as an adversary, but we would have been in a much better position. If we have stopped after invading Afganistan, put the resources into finding and killing Osama Bin Laden, we would have been a pretty good position to reducing the threat from Al Qaeda significantly. I have heard a couple analyses that Al Qauda was in a pretty bad state before we went into Iraq, but Bush’s war in Iraq gave them new life, a new mission and a rallying cry.
“Of course, the Democrats have a right to be angry with President Bush. He stole their war with Saddam Hussein. Only democrats are supposed to favor extending democracy to the rest of the world. President Bush campaigned against this in the 2000 election.”
Yes Bush did campaign against nation building in 2000, it only goes to show how little he knew/knows about foreign policy.
“Of course, the Democrats have a right to be angry with President Bush. He stole their war with Saddam Hussein. Only democrats are supposed to favor extending democracy to the rest of the world. President Bush campaigned against this in the 2000 election.”
Democrats are angry with Bush because he started this disaster of a war in Iraq, with no preparation, no thought and no need. He also failed to act upon the advice from Clinton officials to be prepared for a terrorist attack. That might mean if you have intel that says a target might be US airplanes, tell the FAA. Read memo’s by people who warn that they have found out about Islamists learning to fly planes in the US, and they are not interested in learning out how to land. Etc.
“Of course, Al Gore would have never had much opposition from the Mainstream Media, the UN or Europe, no matter how much he mismanaged the war.”
First, he would not have invaded Iraq, and whatever he did would have been managed better than Bush has done. Second, why do you say the press is too critical? The press helped beat the drum for the war in a totally unquestioning fashion. Its only years into with the public seeing it as a huge mess has the press become critical. Poor republicans always wear the clothes of a victim: “The media hates us, wah wah!” No they are just trying to get a bit of accountability.
“I just like pointing out the cognitive dissidence of the Left.”
Funny, I like to do the same with the Right:
They say Small Government, government spending grows, they create new entitlements, new secret government spying on the public. How again is that small government?
They say Fiscal Responsibility but they run up huge budget deficits and create all kinds of give-away earmarks. Government is more out of control under them and getting sold to the highest bidder.
They say Family values when we all know its a lie. Newt Gingrich divorces his wife with cancer. Pedophiles protected. Give me a break.
They say no nation building and we have spent hundreds of billions in Iraq. We spent a life’s earnings for a typical Iraqi.
They say Free Markets, but Bush backs protections when it suits him. Steel protections, corn subsidies, drug industry subsidies, oil industry subsidies. No bid contracts in Iraq. The list goes on an on.
Conservatives are supposed to be careful, they are supposed to protect our founding values, like separation of state and religion, not undermine them. Conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt sought to protect the environment, not destroy it or ignore our affect on it.
The sad truth is that the conservative movement is intellectually bankrupt because they have shown they can’t govern. They don’t honor their own principles and most of all, they don’t believe in good government. Why would anyone want them in office? Would you go to a restaurant where the people working there hate the idea of eating out?
UrbanRad, the USA is not at war with EL Qaeda, it’s has invaded Iraq, and abandoning El Qaeda.
yes, maybe if Al Gore would have been elected by the supreme court the US would still be at war with Al Qaeda, but don’t pretend it is today.
Iraq never had anything to do with 911, El Qaeda etc…
and u KNOW that !
@limey
“maybe we should have a RDF Minneapolis get together”
Sure, maybe we could have some reasoned arguments about technology and market share. I’m open for political debate too. You sound like a knowledgeable person I could have a discussion of ideas with.
~John
LOL@John. Just for that, I’m buying the first round.
Roz said
“Nobel is a leftist organization? Amazing.”
Leftists can infiltrate and control any organization. Hey, even the Ford Foundation gives the bulk of its donations to leftist groups. I consider Nobel a Social Democratic organization. Any organization that gave a Nobel Peace prize to Yasser Arafat is no friend to freedom.
““Would we still be at war with al Qaeda? I think so.”
Maybe we would have still had them as an adversary, but we would have been in a much better position.”"
America has more than just al Qaeda to worry about. After all, al Qaeda is just a financier, strategic planning and training organization for thousands of terrorist organizations world wide.
We needed to transform the Mid East and the only way to do that was to plant a free economy and a republic in Iraq. That meant the Saddam Hussein had to go. It wasn’t as though he didn’t deserve being overthrown. Bush was merely carrying through with Clinton’s goals in 1998.
“If we have stopped after invading Afghanistan, put the resources into finding and killing Osama Bin Laden, we would have been a pretty good position to reducing the threat from Al Qaeda significantly. ”
Since we have killed or captured 80% of al Qaeda that is doing rather good. Finding Osama bin Laden is unimportant except for propaganda purposes. Keeping al Qaeda off balance is what is important.
These are all Leftist canards. The Left have no strategy for fighting the war on terror. They think that when the Republicans are out of high office then the Muslims will be placated. But, that is when our guard goes down and the real blood bath begins.
“I have heard a couple analyses that Al Qaeda was in a pretty bad state before we went into Iraq, but Bush’s war in Iraq gave them new life, a new mission and a rallying cry.”
That is life. It’s a fact of war that people choose sides, but they do that anyway. If we do nothing– they kill us. If we do anything to hurt them, their numbers grow and they kill us. There is a limit to even the numbers of suicidal Muslims. The point is that the war is not over. We do not know who will win. But, your plan is for us to lose.
““Of course, the Democrats have a right to be angry with President Bush. He stole their war with Saddam Hussein. Only democrats are supposed to favor extending democracy to the rest of the world. President Bush campaigned against this in the 2000 election.”
Yes Bush did campaign against nation building in 2000, it only goes to show how little he knew/knows about foreign policy.”
It was a different world. Clinton had soft peddled the Islamist threat. Bush had to wake up and smell the roses on 9/11. When will you?
“Democrats are angry with Bush because he started this disaster of a war in Iraq, with no preparation, no thought and no need.”
We disagree. There was a year and more of preparation before the invasion. Saddam was given chance after chance. We disagree on the need.
“He also failed to act upon the advice from Clinton officials to be prepared for a terrorist attack. ”
Clinton had no plan. He passed on no messages.
“That might mean if you have intel that says a target might be US airplanes, tell the FAA. Read memo’s by people who warn that they have found out about Islamists learning to fly planes in the US, and they are not interested in learning out how to land. Etc.”
The Clinton administration had erected “the Wall” keeping the FBI and the CIA from talking to each other. Might-have-beens are just conjecture. The Clinton administration had plenty of chances to hit al Qaeda and chose not to.
““Of course, Al Gore would have never had much opposition from the Mainstream Media, the UN or Europe, no matter how much he mismanaged the war.”
First, he would not have invaded Iraq, and whatever he did would have been managed better than Bush has done. “”
True, he would have not invaded Iraq. Whether that would have helped America neither of us know. I suspect not. Al Gore is not a decisive person; he would dither.
“Second, why do you say the press is too critical? The press helped beat the drum for the war in a totally unquestioning fashion. ”
What have you been smoking? I was talking about the Mainstream Media. The Washington Post, the NY Times, The LA times, The Boston Globe, ABC, NBC. CBS are all anti war. Who are you talking about?
“Its only years into with the public seeing it as a huge mess has the press become critical. ”
Afraid not. You don’t know your history.
“Poor republicans always wear the clothes of a victim: “The media hates us, wah wah!” No they are just trying to get a bit of accountability.”
So, that is why the NY Times act as a traitor by revealing the Swift Program? The only conclusion is that they want the Bush administration to lose. Unfortunately, America loses too.
Arafat was fighting for the freedom of his people.
“War on Terror”, i’m really worried every time i read that.
u can’t fight terrorists with violence, there is no war on terror, that’s a public relation invention of the Bush administration, no other country is stupid enough to call it like that.
u can fight terrorism, but it’s not a war.
Roz continues”
“I just like pointing out the cognitive dissidence of the Left.”
Funny, I like to do the same with the Right:
They say Small Government, government spending grows, they create new entitlements, new secret government spying on the public. How again is that small government?”
It isn’t. The voters aren’t ready for that yet. They don’t want to give up their special interests.
Evidently, You cannot read, either. I said that President Bush is a BIG Government Republican. I am a Small Government Conservative. I don’t agree with his position on many things. Why do you imply that I do?
“They say Fiscal Responsibility but they run up huge budget deficits and create all kinds of give-away earmarks. ”
You are an ignoramus. The national debt is dropping rapidly. It will be gone in several years.
The congressional spending, of course, is relative in comparison to the Democrats. Since the Democrats hold both houses this is THEIR budget deficit.
Hillary says that she has millions of ideas on how to help people. Everyone of those ideas will cost money. She would break the treasury if she were elected. Even so, I agree that we should throw everyone out of office who abuses earmarks.
“Government is more out of control under them and getting sold to the highest bidder.”
The Democrats are no pikers here. Do I have to remind you of Rep Jefferson and his 90 thousand dollars of cold cash in the freezer?
“They say Family values when we all know its a lie. Newt Gingrich divorces his wife with cancer. Pedophiles protected. Give me a break.”
What are you– a gossip columnist? A preachers? None of our politicians are free of taint. The Media protects the pedophiles on the Left. They don’t spare the one’s on the right.
“They say no nation building and we have spent hundreds of billions in Iraq. ”
Grow up. You are repeating yourself. Times change and politicians must respond.
“They say Free Markets, but Bush backs protections when it suits him. Steel protections, corn subsidies, drug industry subsidies, oil industry subsidies. No bid contracts in Iraq. The list goes on an on.”
I have to agree with you, but so what? Are Democrats squeaky clean? Of course not. You are merely being partisan.
“Conservatives are supposed to be careful, they are supposed to protect our founding values, like separation of state and religion, not undermine them.”
What in the world does that mean? Oh! There is no separation of Church and state enshrined in the constitution or in the federalist papers. The supposed “wall” between the church and state that Thomas Jefferson wrote about in a private letter has to do with the Establishment of a church in America. There is no Tax Paid, established church in America.
What the Left are doing is something that would have horrified the founders– the removal of religious practice from the public arena. You can only do that by denying people’s freedom of religion.
“Conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt sought to protect the environment, not destroy it or ignore our affect on it.”
Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, but was a progressive, a reformer, a socialist, and no Conservative.
“The sad truth is that the conservative movement is intellectually bankrupt because they have shown they can’t govern. ”
Given that you have shown no signs of even knowing was Conservative values are, I must disagree.
“They don’t honor their own principles and most of all, they don’t believe in good government. ”
Define was “good Government” is, please. I believe that the best government is the smallest and the closest to the voters. What do you believe in?
“Why would anyone want them in office?”
The fact is that the electorate does. Why? Because the Democratic party wants to regulate and tax us to death. There is no freedom in that.
Martin said
“Arafat was fighting for the freedom of his people.”
Ah. That explains why he stole a billion dollars of aid money and placed it in a swiss bank account.
““War on Terror”, i’m really worried every time i read that.
u can’t fight terrorists with violence, there is no war on terror, that’s a public relation invention of the Bush administration, no other country is stupid enough to call it like that.
u can fight terrorism, but it’s not a war.”
Apparently, you as competent with Global Strategy as you are with spelling.
Martin also said:
“UrbanRad, the USA is not at war with EL Qaeda, it’s has invaded Iraq, and abandoning El Qaeda.
yes, maybe if Al Gore would have been elected by the supreme court the US would still be at war with Al Qaeda, but don’t pretend it is today.”
Of course, You are a God so you know everything. LOL
“Iraq never had anything to do with 911, El Qaeda etc…”
No one in the Bush administration ever said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. But, the 200 thousand documents captured after Saddam’s regime fell say that Saddam’s government and al Qaeda did cooperate. Many leading al Qaeda leaders and terrorists would vacation or recuperate in Iraq.
“and u KNOW that !”
No, you have your facts wrong. You can’t believe everything that you read in the Mainstream Media.
You are insulting me, not convincing me.
Hey Martin,
Ignore the flame. It’s not warm or inspiring or intelligent. Don’t go into the lite.
~johnny
Martin, you are not convincible because you are not open to change, are you? An ignoramus usually remains one. Wisdom requires both facts and logic; you have neither. The pursuit of knowledge requires a humble spirit, not one of arrogance.
Johnny Apple, are you going metaphysical on us? Shall we speak of the afterlife? We’d better not. Leftists are rarely evil people; they lack the necessary courage to do great harm. That is why they insist that the government do their evil for them. They are lost souls; doomed to wander endlessly in search of impossible dreams.
Just kidding Guys, Your comments were so bizarre that I couldn’t resist.
gus, you too are a minneappleoid? Cool, I’m ready for that free beer. I’ll toss my wallet in for round two.
Would this constitute a “Daniel Fan Club”?? Is he flattered or creeped out?
Theoretical explanations of the origins of the universe leave me questioning. Face it, if you believe everything you’re ever told you’ll never discover anything new. Dark matter and red shift and expansion theory leave me wondering. There’s a thing or two missing in the finished picture. Einstein admitted as much seventy years ago. I find it challenging and exciting. I think red shift is a misinterpretation. Subject changed?
I just said that u insult me instead of trying to convince me with information, argumentation, facts.
give me a link about those 200 pages that proove that saddam was inviting Al Qaeda members in Iraq.
and explain why being in Iraq is part of the so called “war” on terror.
sorry, i’m stupid, i don’t get it.
i just see that there are more terrorist attacks today than ever before.
Martin, I think you may have fallen victim to an Urban Legend. The best cure is to ignore it. It will eventually go away. Keep an eye on your temperature. If it hits 103 or more, see a doctor immediately. You’re not stupid.
I’m 40, i know who i am
I’m 39. That makes you pretty dang old from my point of view. What’s your thought on red-shift? I think it might have something to do with dark matter (not to be confused with the dark side… different subject)
do u mean the red shift that is the visual equivalent of the doppler effect, and shows that the universe is expanding ?
or is there another red shift related to dark matter ?
(i’m not up to date, too old …
I think that - perhaps - red shift is an observerd illusion caused by high frequency photons (the blue ones) traveling billions of years through space being intercepted and bounced off of dark, dusty particles that we can’t see or measure. There’s a lot of mass in the misty steam between observable objects. I’m likely wrong but it’s fun stuff (for me) to think about. I got a D in high school physics but have since read “the elegant universe” a few times, often getting lost. Ain’t physics fun!! Science is fun and the sky is amazing.
Is the subject changed? Cool!
i think red shift is caused by a fast movement away from us.
it’s just like the sound of a car passing by, when it approaches the engine has a higher pitch than when it drives away.
just like the sound waves are contracted and expanded by the movement of the car, the lightwaves emitted by stars are expanded, turning to red (longer wavelength)
But, short wavelength photons are much more likely to be intercepted and bounced out of our plain of view than long ones. Blues cross the plane of view more often - so the likelyhood of red freqs reaching us are far more likely than blue freqs. I think interstellar smoke explains a lot of this. I don’t think it’s doppler (my opinion) it’s scattered photons.
that’s what i remember from school, and wikipedia confirms it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift
“America has more than just al Qaeda to worry about.”
If you are saying the so called War on Terror is important, then of course we should have a focus. I think most would agree that Al Qaeda should be the focus. As you say: “After all, al Qaeda is just a financier, strategic planning and training organization for thousands of terrorist organizations world wide.” Seems like a good target to me.
“We needed to transform the Mid East and the only way to do that was to plant a free economy and a republic in Iraq”
Why do we *need* to do that? Nothing requires us to transform the Middle East. Is it better to have a democratic Middle East? Sure. Should we bankrupt the US and devistate the US military, and indirectly recruit a new generation of terrorists for that goal. Uh, no. Lets be wise with the use of force and how we select our goals. At the very least we should have a national debate on what our goals should be. Nothing required us to invade Iraq when we did. We did not need to do that. And even if you say that we should help change the Middle East, on what basis can you say its the only way to do it?
“But, your plan is for us to lose.”
You don’t know my plan, don’t try to speak for me. Our problem is that we went in without a plan and with out preparation, now we don’t have good options. Don’t blame people on the left who opposed a losing war for its failure. Take responsibility for the fact that your people got us into this mess, its your mess. Don’t pin it on others - take responsibility for the failure that your side created.
“It was a different world. Clinton had soft peddled the Islamist threat. Bush had to wake up and smell the roses on 9/11. When will you?”
Clinton did not soft peddle Osama’’s threat. It was the Republicans who said that Clinton was trying to wag the dog when he was going after then.
Take responsibility for Bush absolutely dropping the ball and failing to activate the government in response to the threat during his administration, its his administration. He had the warnings, he and is ideologically blinded cabinet was busy with non-threats like advocating missile defense. Don’t blame Clinton for that - this was 9 months into the new administration.
“Clinton had no plan. He passed on no messages.”
Dishonest or ignorant - which are you? Well detailed the warnings to Bush from the prior administration, the urgent intelligence alerts, the carried-over head of anti-terrorism - all ignored.
The Republicans cant face the fact that they screwed up, so they look to blame everyone else. They blame Clinton. They blame the American people and seek to invade its privacy. They try to find a way to blame Saddam Hussein. They blame the intelligence community. When really, they failed to respond, failed to figure out the signs and act. They did not even warn the FAA.
“What have you been smoking? I was talking about the Mainstream Media. The Washington Post, the NY Times, The LA times, The Boston Globe, ABC, NBC. CBS are all anti war. Who are you talking about?”
Yes, now! You think they should not tell the truth about the war? Its not going well - face it. Don’t blame the media because we were not prepared and invaded a country of 26 million people with too few troops and no plan. That is not the media’s fault.
You said that there is cognitive dissonance on the Left. My point that the right is much worse. And they say one thing, and do another. They have a moment to govern their way and they do the opposite.
To me that is a major dissonance. Republicans have been talking about this whole small government stuff for decades. They get in there, have the Congress and Presidency and what do they do - grow the government! You know who shrank the government - CLINTON and GORE.
And you are wrong about Bush - he says he is a small government Republican. Yet he grew the government. You can say whatever you like but he is the leader of the right and he does not govern based on his own supposed political beliefs.The Congress ran with it too, they all of the Republican are to blame and they were removed for it - totally discredited as a party. Either the ideas are bad or the Republicans are a fraud. Face it. That is the fake conservative right in action. Sorry it hurts, but its true.
“It isn’t. The voters aren’t ready for that yet. They don’t want to give up their special interests.”
Again, you blame the public for Republican failure? Blame others, but Republicans had the power and opportunity and proved themselves unworthy. Now they lash out at the Democrats. But look at every point of criticism and it applies much worse about the Republicans themselves. Cognitive dissonance - ha! The conservatives are intellectually bankrupt and don’t want to see it - they are the agent of the kind of government corruption they supposedly despise.
“There is no separation of Church and state enshrined in the constitution or in the federalist papers.”
Hello, First Amendment? You recognize the amendments right? The point is that real American conservatives should not want to bring religion into policy. They would want to govern on fact and principle - not anti-science not by imposing morality on people.
““Why would anyone want them in office?” The fact is that the electorate does.”
Uh, you must have been asleep the last year, have you checked Congress lately?
“You are an ignoramus. The national debt is dropping rapidly. It will be gone in several years.”
Huh what? The debt is growing under Bush. The annual deficit may be reduced over time but that is not the same thing. Again I find that the attacks you launch at me, perhaps this one especially, more aptly apply to yourself.
Martin, I was only trying to change the topic. Didn’t work any better here than it does at the Thanksgiving table.
and i was helping
Martin said:
“I just said that u insult me instead of trying to convince me with information, argumentation, facts.”
Sorry about that. Insults are catching, you know. All I said in the beginning was that Daniel’s pictures reminded me of 60’s anti war propaganda. I got a considerable number of insults and slurs on my character from that. I try not to be affect by it, but I fail.
My comments were that I think an Al Gore Presidency would be little different from a George Bush Presidency. Oh! There wouldn’t be an IMPEACH GORE sign; the Republicans learned not to do that with Clinton.
What I disputed was the rosy impression which Daniel’s pictures fostered that, if Al Gore had become president, all would be perfect. Radical Muslim terrorists have been at war with us since 1979. They hate Democrats just as much as they do the Republicans. They parrots the Democratic Party line because that divides us. I suspect that more Americans would be dead with a Gore Presidency than with a Bush one, but we will never know.
“give me a link about those 200 pages that prove that saddam was inviting Al Qaeda members in Iraq.”
It’s 200,000 Iraqi government documents that are slowly being translated. Fascist and Communist governments, like Saddam’s, are great record keepers. I’ll have to check up on them. I haven’t heard much about them lately. But, The war is slowly dying out in Iraq too. You can tell this because there is no daily bad news in the Mainstream media.
The picture I got from the document’s that I read were that Saddam’s government was not part of al Qaeda, but that they had a common enemy– America. Saddam gave refuge to many terrorists. They went to Iraq when they needed surgery. Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda were friendly only because they were on the same side.
The various terrorist groups had things that kept them apart too. The Saudi al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were Sunni. The terrorists financed by Iran were Shia. Al Qaeda is a “headquarters group” that financed, trained, and did strategic planning for about one to two thousand terrorist groups.
Saddam allowed an al Qaeda training camp up by the Kurdish zone and Iran. The pretense was that Saddam couldn’t send a thousand troops with Russian armor up to wipe them out whenever he wanted to. Clearly, he didn’t want to.
“and explain why being in Iraq is part of the so called “war” on terror.”
It’s simple: it divides the enemy.
After we took the Taliban down, there were a number of centers of terrorist action in the Mid East– great and small. Iran supplied money, a refuge, training and arms to terrorists all across the Mid East. The Wahabi/ Salafi clerics of Saudi Arabia supplied money, indoctrination and soldiers. The Egyptians supplied soldiers. Iraq gave money, mostly.
The Bush administration could have attacked Iran, but it had no cause that would stand up before world opinion.
Iraq was a natural strategy for us because if we could place a free economy and a representative government in Iraq, then the Muslims would eventually defeat themselves. The, restless and unemployed, young men in the Mid East, who now fight us, would be drawn to Iraq, where they would get jobs and married. They would stop fighting us, although they wouldn’t like us any better. They would choose a political solution, rather than a military one. But, this would be a very long term solution.
Taking down Saddam’s regime was natural, too, because the UN was at war with Iraq. There was a “Cease Fire” from the Gulf War that was dependent on Saddam keeping his agreements in UN Resolution 687. There were 15 other UN Resolutions documenting that Saddam was NOT keeping his promises. The UN inspectors found, through the aid of Saddam’s sons-in-law, hundreds of thousands of tons of WMD that Saddam had hidden. Where that WMD went is anyone’s guess.
The point was that finding this illegal WMD in 1995 was a cause for restarting the war. The will just wasn’t there to do that, so the issue smoldered on. Then, Saddam threw out the UN inspectors in 1998 which was a direct provocation to war.
The war was still going on; America was spending a billion dollars a year to maintain the “No Fly” zones. Saddam’s military would occasionally shoot down one of our planes. President Clinton intended to do something about taking down Saddam’s regime in 1998, but there was no political will and his personal problems intervened.
“i just see that there are more terrorist attacks today than ever before.”
That is because we are more aware of it. There have been many planned terrorist attacks that have been foiled, sometimes at the last minute.
America has been lucky, or our anti-terrorist people have been effective, that we haven’t been attacked in the US. But, it is from no lack of trying; Terrorist attacks have been going off where we have no control– like Africa, Europe and the Mid East.
If we pretend that we are not at war and slacken off, then The terrorists will strike closer to home. The Democrats seem unprepared for that.
Roz said:
“”America has more than just al Qaeda to worry about.”
If you are saying the so called War on Terror is important, then of course we should have a focus. I think most would agree that Al Qaeda should be the focus. ”
I wish we had the luxury of picking our enemies. The War in Iraq is a long term strategy that could save us problems twenty years down the road.
“As you say: “After all, al Qaeda is just a financier, strategic planning and training organization for thousands of terrorist organizations world wide.” Seems like a good target to me.”
We are doing that. It’s just not enough.
Look. In WWII, we were at war with Germany, Italy and Japan, so where did we first fight? In North Africa, which had done us no harm, and an ocean war in the Pacific. You try to fight where it gives us the most advantage.
““We needed to transform the Mid East and the only way to do that was to plant a free economy and a republic in Iraq”
Why do we “need” to do that? Nothing requires us to transform the Middle East. ”
This is a very long term strategy that short sighted people can dispute. Nothing “requires” any particular tactic. It just the best way to handle it.
“Should we bankrupt the US and devastate the US military, and indirectly recruit a new generation of terrorists for that goal. ”
America is in no danger of bankrupting itself over the war on terror. The war costs us about one percent of our Gross Domestic Product. It is one of the cheapest wars in human history in lives and treasure.
Could Hillary’s planned domestic agenda, if she wins the presidency, bankrupt us? Sure.
“Lets be wise with the use of force and how we select our goals. At the very least we should have a national debate on what our goals should be. ”
We had that debate before the war: the Left lost.
“We did not need to do that. ”
We disagree.
“And even if you say that we should help change the Middle East, on what basis can you say its the only way to do it?”
Tell your plan. The only ones I see from the democrats is for the Republicans to lose. And that means that America loses.
““But, your plan is for us to lose.”
You don’t know my plan, don’t try to speak for me. ”
Then speak up. Tell us your plan.
“Our problem is that we went in without a plan and with out preparation, now we don’t have good options. ”
You are speaking without knowledge. We had plenty of plans. But, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Events change and plans go out the window.
“Don’t blame people on the left who opposed a losing war for its failure. ”
We haven’t lost the war. The surest way of losing is to surrender like you are doing.
““It was a different world. Clinton had soft peddled the Islamist threat. Bush had to wake up and smell the roses on 9/11. When will you?”
Clinton did not soft peddle Osama’’s threat. ”
We disagree. Neither party took the terrorists seriously. The Democratic Party still doesn’t.
““Clinton had no plan. He passed on no messages.”
Dishonest or ignorant - which are you? ”
Half hearted plans are meaningless. Clinton’s administration set nothing into motion that the Bush administration had to carry through with. A coming Democratic administration will have difficulty backing away from Bush’s war agenda. If they did, and the terrorists struck, then they would be sunk politically.
“Well detailed the warnings to Bush from the prior administration, the urgent intelligence alerts, the carried-over head of anti-terrorism - all ignored.”
At least the Republican are trying to do something now. The Democrats have dug in their heels against the war.
Success has a thousand father, failure is an orphan. Politics as usual, Roz.
““What have you been smoking? I was talking about the Mainstream Media. The Washington Post, the NY Times, The LA times, The Boston Globe, ABC, NBC. CBS are all anti war. Who are you talking about?”
Yes, now! You think they should not tell the truth about the war? ”
If only they only knew what the truth was. Right now, they are not reporting anything from Iraq because the news is too good.
Iraq, in the 2008 election, will be a non-issue. Our troop levels will, if everything goes according to plan, be at 60 to 80 thousand troops with more planned to leave. Iraq won’t be peaceful, but it won’t anything that the Iraqi Defense Forces cannot control. We will maintain a force in Iraq, like we did in Germany after WWII, about 40 to 60 thousand troops to confront Iran.
Someone open a window. It’s getting stuffy in here.
Ahem,
I doubt changing the topic is possible just yet, but allow me to suggest engaging another section of our brains & get back to the possibility of an alternate-Earth where Gore assumed the office. With a track record like this administration it’s all-too easy to compare and contrast the previous Clinton-era responses to natural, terrorist, budgetary disasters…
‘Spiders’ is an entertaining on-line comic that assumes a much more open-source, pro-active, _competent_ engagement with ObL and his ilk, http://e-sheep.com/spiders/ rather than the crony-capitalism and fear-mongering foisted upon U.S. so far this millennia.
‘UrbanBard’ obviously savors the the Cliff Notes version of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged forgetting her critique of graft, incompetence, and waste in cartels, cabals, large companies and other hierarchies. I found her work thrilling and bold as a budding architecture student, but now merely juvenile and of limited range - much as our bellicose friend here. If he’s so all-fired sure of what we ought to be doing, why doesn’t he stop pounding out blog re-comments like a one-note Samba and sign up to go extend the Green Zone?
[crickets]
Why are the UrbanBards of this world so damned scared of every bogeyman, trial-balloon, shadowplay, rumor, feint and fart these clowns throw into the media-mix? In the forty miles of bad road I grew up in having someone _else_ go fight and die for your fervent beliefs is called “coward.”
On the rare chance you’ve served somewhere besides the Fighting 101st Keyboarders I gotta wonder why you oxycotin-deprived reich-wing types _still_ haven’t gone whole-hog for the capitalist gold and sought that neo-con wet-dream of an Iraqi tax-free contractor income… See and conquer the world, haul away palette-loads of American $100 bills, shoot up brown-skinned streets for fun and profit! The implied slight that limited-vision sorts like this guy often miss is that our troops can’t be BOTH the very best in the world, YET not good enough to protect our diplomats - that’s for no-bid mercenary armies started by those Friend$-Of-George.
Of course, it also gets downright embarrassing when you have to consider these plumb Free Market {?} reforms to our military require one to stick their metaphorical head under the belly of the beast to suckle at that mother of all tits - the Government.
LoL.
‘UrbanBard’ is just another adrenaline junkie looking for a fix.
Anyway… all this is interesting only because Gore entering the race now would completely flummox Clinton’s {the Mrs} corporate-centrist game plan to harvest the wide-spread social discontent for her monied backers: she’s a sphincter to contain the ever-growing poor bubbling into a froth for change that might spill Blue Blood. The Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves & deserve the political exile approaching as witnessed by the as-we-speak drowning puppy-love of Law&Order farce Fred “Fog-Horn Leg-Horn” Thompson proving the paucity of so-called Conservative offerings.
No man is an island, nor economy - we are all in this together and sorting out how we divvy the collective pie _IS_ politics whether you recognize it or not.
Ciao, dah-links…
Roz said:
“You said that there is cognitive dissonance on the Left. My point that the right is much worse.”
You have a right to your opinion. I disagree.
The Left are living in a dream world. That was what all the propaganda photos that Daniel inserted was about. You on the Left have this dream that life would be wonderful if only a Democrat was in the Presidency. Not so. Good tasting burgers often look like crap, Movies routinely disappoint us and enemies choose us rather than we choose them. Life is made up of disappointments. I’d rather deal with reality than live in a dream world like the left.
“And they say one thing, and do another. They have a moment to govern their way and they do the opposite.”
That is true of politicians in general. You can’t trust any of them. So, giving them more power is dangerous. That is why I want smaller government. They can’t do as much damage that way.
I don’t imagine it will be easy or quick. Often, we have to turn on the politicians that we send to office. We did not get into this mess in a hurry, nor will we get out of it fast. Don’t be so impatient.
“To me that is a major dissonance. Republicans have been talking about this whole small government stuff for decades.”
Yes, but Politics is the art of the possible; we have to deal with reality. The electorate is not yet ready for the change toward smaller government. They vote people out of office who touch their entitlements.
Do you think that Social Security in any jeopardy? I don’t. But, thirty years down the road Social Security will bankrupt the US economy. I don’t like that idea, although I will, most likely, be dead at the time. We Republicans just need to get our points across better. And elect better candidates.
“They get in there, have the Congress and Presidency and what do they do - grow the government! You know who shrank the government - CLINTON and GORE.”
Yes. But Clinton did not have a free spending Democratic congress and he did not have a war to run. Most of the fiscal restrains were due to the Republican congress struggling with a Democratic President.
Now, the Republicans have to buy off the Democrats to get anything done. Fortunately, we have a deadlocked congress. Consequently, the National debt keeps plummeting.
“And you are wrong about Bush - he says he is a small government Republican. ”
I disagree with him.
“Yet he grew the government. You can say whatever you like but he is the leader of the right and he does not govern based on his own supposed political beliefs.”
So, the Republicans are falling down on the job, right? What beliefs do you want to replace them with? Hillary wants hundreds of billions of dollars for entitlements. I’m sure you agree with her. So, you don’t really favor smaller government, do you? This is just a verbal ploy. Right?
” Either the ideas are bad or the Republicans are a fraud. ”
The individual Republican office holders can a fraud; we Conservative, often, are fighting them. The Democrats are just a disaster waiting to happen. America isn’t getting good candidates to run.
““It isn’t. The voters aren’t ready for that yet. They don’t want to give up their special interests.”
Again, you blame the public for Republican failure? ”
Yes. In a Republic, the electorate is always ultimately responsible for the people they send to represent them. When the officeholders screw up– throw them out of office. Are you opposed to democracy? You sound like it.
” Republicans had the power and opportunity and proved themselves unworthy. Now they lash out at the Democrats. ”
We have had an almost deadlocked Congress since Bush took office. Neither party has had sixty members to take control.
Again, you can complain all you want, but what is your plan? I don’t see that the Democrats have one.
“The conservatives are intellectually bankrupt and don’t want to see it - they are the agent of the kind of government corruption they supposedly despise.”
The only new ideas are on the right. The Left only has Socialism. The voters have rejected that.
““There is no separation of Church and state enshrined in the constitution or in the federalist papers.”
Hello, First Amendment? ”
The Amendments are not part of the Constitution. They were voted on later. That is what amendment means. There were two amendments that did not get approved by the voters, so they are not law.
What the First amendment does is to deny the establishment of an official, governmentally supported and tax paid, Church like the Church of England. The Founders never intended to forbid the free exercise of religion in public buildings. Before Thomas Jefferson was confirmed to the presidency he attended church services in the capital building. Removing religion from public buildings is a Leftist usurpation of the people’s freedom.
“The point is that real American conservatives should not want to bring religion into policy. ”
Spoken like a true atheist. You are anti-religion like most of the left. So, you violate the First Amendment because you would prohibit the free exercise of religion.
““Why would anyone want them in office?” The fact is that the electorate does.”
Uh, you must have been asleep the last year, have you checked Congress lately?”
As I said elsewhere, the 2006 election was a typical sixth year reversal of a two term presidency. This was despite an unpopular war.
You Democrats did not win on your issues. Many of your candidates were “Blue Dog” conservative Democrats who ran to the right of the Republicans. You were merely Anti-Bush administration. The electorate was luke warm.
““You are an ignoramus. The national debt is dropping rapidly. It will be gone in several years.”
Huh what? The debt is growing under Bush. ”
You have been listening too much to the mainstream Media. They are telling you lies.
“The annual deficit may be reduced over time but that is not the same thing. ”
When I say the national debt; I mean the national debt. Go on the web to the GAO– the Congressal Govenment Accounting Office. They will tell you what the nation debt is and what it was. The last I heard was that is was $158 billion and dropping. The commerce department can give you the budgetary figures. You don’t know what you are talking about.
Encolpius said”
“Someone open a window. It’s getting stuffy in here.”
The window is open. That is reality that you smell. Sometimes, it isn’t pleasant.
In response to the previous posting:
I find this discussion utterly confounding, not because the arguments presented are difficult to respond to, they are inane. The issue for me is the indifference to deceit that is tolerated by those who advocate it. We are subjected to lie upon lie upon lie upon lie. Its disgusting and corrosive to democracy. The Neo-cons say they want to spread democracy but the truth is they don’t want to live under democracy and for that we should reject them.
I am sick of the obfuscation so, in the interest of transparency, a value they reject but we must defend, lets just lay out their case as simply as possible. The crux of the issue for them is oil and power. Neo-cons realized that in the post-cold war system whoever controls oil will control power in the world. If not the US then someone else they reasoned, so how could the US do it? Iran, once an ally was lost to extremism. Fearing the same trajectory for Saudi Arabia, the notion was that Iraq represented a relatively non-extremist country between the two other oil-rich countries. Iraq in this crucial geographic position could serve as a keystone for American dominance of the region. Controlling Iraq would be the key to the Middle East in the same way that the US position in Germany maintains stability and US influence in Europe.
So the concept of the US controlling Iraq was hatched long before 9/11.This is not a conspiracy argument, this was the accepted public Neo-con agenda. That is why US energy companies were strategizing about the Iraq’s oil fields well before 9/11. 9/11 just created an opportunity for enacting this strategy. That is why, Bush shortly after 9/11 asked Richard Clarke to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11. And this is why our friend argues that the US should keep 60 - 80k troops in Iraq in perpetuity - its the realization of this plan.
Now to be clear, taken in isolation, as a strategy, the Neo-con agenda has some merit. US control of Iraq would give us a control point in that crucial region. And it may be in time, as oil runs out, the strategic value of our presence there will go up. This is why Neo-cons argue that we will all thank them later for lying their way into Iraq. And, so they think, no matter what other people say now, we’ll stay if we can, the same way we stayed in Japan, Korea, Germany, etc.
This process of accepting the lies that have been propagated on us is part of the seduction of power, and people like Cheney, and our fellow here, get so wrapped up in it that it warps their judgement of right and wrong, truth and fiction. If their plans leads the US to incredible power in the future, so their logic goes, why bother with niggling moralists today? What’s a little propaganda in service of a larger cause? And why be troubled with people today who bother with things like not being evil in the way we treat people. And they are getting away with it, its only elections that limit their power and we have seen how brittle that system is given enough pressure.
There are some complications to their strategy:
They have been totally inept in the actual execution of the plan. They were arrogant and blinded by ideology going into Iraq and they misunderstood what happens in a state with no government. Libertarian bliss? No - violent chaos! If you have any doubts about this go watch No End in Sight for a small measure of their ineptitude. As we have it, a patient who went in for supposedly a simple operation, is still on the operating table with a massive infection. He may survive but its not clear, and it certainly represents a huge risk to our security. The potential of a failed Iraq, one where we must exit, even if small, is enough of a danger that it would have warned clearer heads from going in in the first place.
Second, global warming, which they falsely reject, raises a case argument that maybe we don’t want to burn all that oil in the ground after-all. So is it really worth what they think it is? Does it really represent the same strategic value that they intended if we can’t use it? Maybe it does, but only in an effort to stop it from being used for green reasons, that would be the ultimate irony.
Finally, its tough going propagating the lies they needed to produce in order to get their way. No one would permit this type of effort without some sort of overarching mantel of justification, like a hysterical War Against Terror. Any reasonable person would accept Bin Ladin as the critical target for our fight against those who perpetrated 9/11 but clearly for our writer here, Osama is small potatoes. He says we don’t “Have the luxury of choosing our enemies”, when that is precisely what we have done! So dressed in the clothing of 9/11 he now argues for Iran as our biggest threat. The need for a continued presence in Iraq a natural consequence. Its insane and the rest of the world rejects it and sees it for what it is. Most of the US is basically in the dark, but the public knows the war is wasteful and not run well, they accept the explanation that our leaders are stupid and want them to be stopped. Maybe the American pubic, though blunt, is not that far off. Then we have the few who cling to the ideology who see a dangling prize are rabid and predict dark consequences for not listening to them. And who is to say when we will have the next terrorist attack, when we leave the principles in place and create new basis on which to hate us.
So there you have it my unadulterated response. Its deeply sickening to me to hear this sort of propaganda spread. Lets stop the lies, its insulting and offensive and start trying to realize a path out of here. What’s my plan? To expose and reject you and try to save our democracy in the process.
“Yes. But Clinton did not have a free spending Democratic congress and he did not have a war to run.”
Free spending? Your ideology says that, fact say otherwise. Bush had a Republican Congress and non-war spending grew, new expensive entitlements were created under Republican leadership. Democratic budgetary discipline is far better.
Clinton said the era of big government is over - I agree with him. Why not join us and actually enact this idea, instead of allying yourself with pretenders. I would also say though that our industrial competitiveness is harmed by our failure to deal with health-care. its a huge problem and our collective failure to create an efficient alternative demands reform. This probably will require government involvement of some kind.
Honestly I think the Republicans are so wacko and off the ranch a real conservative should be a Democrat at this point. If you value reason, you can’t ally yourself with religious fanatics. Clinton led with market oriented policies, government restraint and fiscal responsibility. That is your conservative ideology in practice, why not embrace it?
“We have had an almost deadlocked Congress since Bush took office. Neither party has had sixty members to take control.”
Oh please. The Republicans had the power and they allowed it to be put up to sale to the highest bidder. Medicare Drug Benefit - nice idea, but a huge subsidy for drug industry, that was a feeding frenzy under Republican rule.
“The only new ideas are on the right. The Left only has Socialism. The voters have rejected that.”
Clinton signed Nafta and embraced fiscal restraint. He was no socialist.
“The Amendments are not part of the Constitution.”
Of course they are! The issue is not removing religion from buildings or coinage - its blocking stem cell research to please a few fanatics. Its not permitting federal dollars for explaining the use of contraceptives. Its imposing morality that does not accept gay people as having equal standing in society.
“The point is that real American conservatives should not want to bring religion into policy.”
Who is against free-exercise? Just don’t have the government funding church programs. My conservatism believes that faith based programs don’t need or what government support, I think the founders would agree.
“When I say the national debt; I mean the national debt. Go on the web to the GAO– the Congressal Govenment Accounting Office. They will tell you what the nation debt is and what it was. The last I heard was that is was $158 billion and dropping. The commerce department can give you the budgetary figures. You don’t know what you are talking about.”
No - when you say debt, you don’t know what you are talking about:
Deficit:
“A year ago, the CBO’s forecast for the 2007 fiscal year called for a deficit of $270 billion. In the annual outlook released last month, the 2007 gap is projected at $172 billion.”
Debt:
Wikipedia (whose source is the Treasury Dept) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt):
“The United States public debt, commonly called the national debt, gross federal debt or U.S. government debt, is the amount of money owed by the United States federal government to creditors who hold U.S. Debt Instruments. As of October 9, 2007, the total U.S. federal public debt was >>>$9.04 trillion.<<< [1]” (Emphasis added.)
Why don’t you turn off right wing talk radio go outside and get some air, go for a walk.
Hello Roz,
It’s nice to hear from you. I hope we can discuss this without rancor; I do enjoy a lively discussion. It doesn’t matter to me if we disagree. Just say so on any point, and we can move on.
We have different viewpoints. I may have facts not in your possession. I have no emotions binding me to a position. This just my conclusions after studying all sides and arguments.
“Roz said:
“The issue for me is the indifference to deceit that is tolerated by those who advocate it. We are subjected to lie upon lie upon lie upon lie. Its disgusting and corrosive to democracy. ”
I agree, but who is doing the lying? You say it is the Republicans. I say it is the Democrats. So, how do we resolve this?
“The Neo-cons say they want to spread democracy but the truth is they don’t want to live under democracy and for that we should reject them.”
I’ve seen no evidence that the Conservatives (or Neo-Cons) want to end democracy in America. I’ve seen leftist propaganda alleging this, but it never stands up to reason.
Neo-Con is a word used by Liberals as a swear word. They do not use it correctly as a group of influential, mostly Jewish, Trotskyites who rejected Socialism and slowly drifted toward the right. I can list names of them, but why bother? There is no essential difference between them and a Conservative now.
A Conservative is an ideology. The Republican party is a political party. Often, Conservatives are fighting for control of the Party.
Why not use the word Conservative or Republican instead of Neo-Con and I will refrain from using pejorative names. Leftist, Liberal, Democratic party, Social Democrat, Fascist, Socialist and Communist are not swear words to me, since they are political positions. I can define them.
“I am sick of the obfuscation so, in the interest of transparency, a value they reject but we must defend, lets just lay out their case as simply as possible. The crux of the issue for them is oil and power.”
I’ve heard that accusation from the left that the war is about oil, but it never stands up to reason. If the Left could prove anything in a court of law, people would have gone to Jail.
Regarding this being about power, That is partly correct. After 9/11, the American people wanted their pound of flesh. Any political party that refused to satisfy that need for revenge risked being turned out of office. That is why the Democrats went along with the War on Terror for about a year and a half. When the American flags were no longer flying, then the left could start to oppose the war.
Don’t get me wrong. The Republican Party wants to remain in power while the Democrats desperately want to win high office. What is at stake is not just the war, which the Democrat are in denial of, but also about the Domestic agenda.
The Republicans want a smaller government and lower taxes. The Democrats are fighting that tooth-and-nail, because this will end their entitlement programs. The Democrats have been quite successful in halting the Republicans aims. Don’t blame that on the Republicans.
“Neo-cons realized that in the post-cold war system whoever controls oil will control power in the world. ”
That sound like paranoid fantasies, Roz. There is more oil been found than there has ever been. The current high prices, from a terrorist fear premium, will produce a world wide oil glut in five years. The same thing happened after OPEC jacked up oil prices in the 70’s. The North Sea oil reserves had not been drilled yet. Sweden and Russia became the two and three oil producers. They weren’t even close then. Now, it’s Canadian tar sands that will be king. There is twice as much oil in Canada as in Saudi Arabia.
“Iran, once an ally was lost to extremism.”
What’s your point, Roz? Muslim extremist took over in Iran. They now fund many of the terrorists. That was none of our doing, except for the incompetence of the Carter administration.
“Fearing the same trajectory for Saudi Arabia, the notion was that Iraq represented a relatively non-extremist country between the two other oil-rich countries. Iraq in this crucial geographic position could serve as a keystone for American dominance of the region. Controlling Iraq would be the key to the Middle East in the same way that the US position in Germany maintains stability and US influence in Europe.”
Jesus, Roz, this is strange stuff. It takes some true facts and twists it into a paranoid fantasy.
Does the US want to influence the Mid East? Sure. Why would America need to control Iraq to do that? We will be leaving Iraq a free country fairly soon. The Iraqi’s want us out, but not until the country is more secure. We don’t need direct control. The fact that Iraq has a representative government and a free economy will marginalize our other enemies, Syria and Iran.
“So the concept of the US controlling Iraq was hatched long before 9/11. ”
Sure, by the Clinton administration. Regime change in Iraq has been US foreign policy since 1998.
“This is not a conspiracy argument, this was the accepted public Neo-con agenda. ”
Saddam was an embarrassment. He was making fools of the UN. He had dismissed UN Resolution 687 and the other UN Resolutions. He was a regional threat. He was buying off UN officials and reporters. He was making payments of $25, 000 to the families of suicide bombers. Why wouldn’t people see him as a threat that needed to be taken care of? No conspiracy here. Just foreign policy.
“That is why US energy companies were strategizing about the Iraq’s oil fields well before 9/11.”
Saddam was selling Iraq’s oil to the French, the Germans and the Russians. They became a power block in the UN to try to get the sanctions removed. They had billions in contracts to win if they did this.
Do the American companies get Iraqi oil now? No, it is sold on the open market and the money goes to the Iraq government. Where do American companies gain from that? The amount of money is chicken feed to EXXON.
“9/11 just created an opportunity for enacting this strategy.”
Did the Bush administration want to end Saddam’s regime before 9/11? Yes. But not for the reasons you name. I’m sure you have no proof of any of this.
“That is why, Bush shortly after 9/11 asked Richard Clarke to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11. ”
The administration has never said that there was any direct connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Why wouldn’t Bush ask to see if there was one after 9/11? Are you suggest that Bush wanted to fake evidence? May I have some proof, please?
“And this is why our friend argues that the US should keep 60 - 80k troops in Iraq in perpetuity - its the realization of this plan.”
I guess that is also the reason we kept 80 thousand troops in Germany after WWII for sixty years: to steal all their beer?
We will be keeping troops in Iraq, because of Syria and Iran. Those two nations represent a threat to the region. Keeping American soldiers there will keep a short leash on those countries.
“Now to be clear, taken in isolation, as a strategy, the Neo-con agenda has some merit. US control of Iraq would give us a control point in that crucial region.”
I agree with that.
“And it may be in time, as oil runs out, the strategic value of our presence there will go up. ”
As long as there are people in the Mid East who want to Kill American and have the money to afford it, we will keep troops there.
“This is why Neo-cons argue that we will all thank them later for lying their way into Iraq. ”
There were no lies, Roz. Just some mysteries. We do not know where the WMD, that the UN inspectors said was there in 1995, went.
“And, so they think, no matter what other people say now, we’ll stay if we can, the same way we stayed in Japan, Korea, Germany, etc.”
When there is no threat to the region. I’m sure will will leave. America is slowly disengaging from its bases it set up during the “Cold War.” The American people want our troops to come home. This is ha