Another Sarah Palin Thread

True. But my position was not that "exporting democracy" was any sort of justification for foreign wars.

I was just responding to his particular rebuttal

The originasl comment to which he came up with the "China invades" reply simply pointed out that - whatever the validity of the motivation for the war we engage in - the notion that we somehow destroy a country and leave it in ruins is not in fact the case.

In other words, if the notion is "we'll invade iraq so that the people there may have western style democracy for which they should be grateful" then even though the form of government left behind WILL be better, I would disapprove of the effort.

If, on the other hand, the notion is "we will invade Iraq to keep crazy people from getting a nuke that will kill millions of Americans" (laying aside for the sake of this comparison whether or not it turned out there were nukes there) then that is a rational and reasonable position- WITH the added benifit that once the dirty work is done they will be left with an improved infrastructure and form of government. The latter is not the justification for the action - but it is meritorious and it does fly in the face of the canard "they should thank us for blowing up there shit?" or whatever it was he said.

To circle back around to the original point - if I was unclear - being a mostly-isolationist, my position is that we intervene oversees only when it is in our CRITICAL national interest to do so. I do not believe in doing so to save anyone from communism or whatever else BECAUSE history has shown that if you try to save people from themselves they will be quite unappreciative of it.
THAT was what as was saying vis-a-vi lack of gratitude.

I merely cite for illustrative purposes that when we HAVE invaded - for good or bad reasons - and HAVE left things better than we found them....that there was still a distinct lack of appreciation for the effort to make things better (even if one should expect no appreciation for the actual war itself)

In any case, the remark was not meant to defend any particular war or war in general, it was meant to indicate my position that "saving people from themselves" is generally a bad idea.

This is not the case, as your victims will attest to.

"exporting democracy" is a legitimate foreign policy, national defense goal of the United States because generally, democracies are less likely to wage war against other democracies.

Not always but generally.

Unless they're "exporting democracy."

I couldn't possibly disagree more, and this shows once again why people like you are dangerous, not only to the rest of the world, but to the values that are supposed to be ours as Americans.

It is fortunate that the Founding Fathers did not have your outlook. It is unfortunate that you want to pervert their vision into something so radically opposed to it.

The founding fathers are dead.

Even then, they were just men like the rest of us.

Not gods.

Looking at those pie charts, it appears that all we need to do is slash all of our social programs and adopt an isolationist military doctrine.

Of course, I may just be saying that because I absolutely relish the idea of anti-US military, "no blood for oil" douchebags put in a position to beg us to come blow the fuck out of someone's country. Maybe they can do their pleading from their new UN headquarters in Geneva or Paris after I kicked them the fuck out of New Yawk.

They weren't men like you. They did not propose invading other countries in order to try to impose our way of life on them.

You stand in opposition to the values that made America great. That is your right. But don't expect the rest of us to back you up in it. You, and others like you, exemplify all of what is wrong with the far-right in America.

Of course they didn't.

They were the founders of a very small, weak nation that was just hoping to survive and avoid the conflicts between major powers like Britain and France.

Don't think for a minute they were governed by some form of superior morality or foresight.

As disastrous as the Obama Administration has been - and make no mistake it has been - I shudder to think what a Palin Administration would be like.

He's an empty suit, she's an empty blouse.

About time America got some real candidates, not novelty acts.

What is it with your persecution complex?

You have no idea what my thoughts are on Bush. Further to that, I also said I want a real candidate to come and knock our socks off, and that certainly includes the GOP.

I think your pathetic little boy crush on Palin completely clouds your judgement.

This!

Washington warned against foreign entanglements, but noooooooooo... we didn't listen.

The graph you posted still makes my point. Military spending is a massive chunk (still the largest on that graph as well) of the bloated federal budget. And these terrorst-finding turned WMD-finding turned democracy-spreading wars are helping bankrupt the country in addition to getting a lot of people killed.

As for the rest of the spending you're taking about, I don't like it any more than you do.

Fine, not the Chinese then. Make it X government that you find morally superior. They don't have the right to invade and force their gov't upon another nation. (Which Async got to before me)

In what way is this pejorative?

As for "umistakeable bias" it's obvious from the article that Gottfriend doesn't like Pailn. That doesn't invalidate his points and it doesn't mean that Christian Zionism is used pejoratively, which it is not in this case.

As you just said. It's no justification.

You shouldn't expect those people to be grateful just because the US built some things for them after the carnage.

I think it's possible she'd surprise us, but also certainly possible she'd be bad - but I'd still wager she would be bad in less dangerous (to the long term future of the country) ways.

If she's bad, she "Bush bad" which is a lot easier to recover from than "Obama Bad"

Wait... what? How on earth is Dayton "far-right?"

It isn't, but nice try.

Look at it like this - if someone on the left hears me say (or write) "Obama is a socialist"and they know my contempt for socialism, then they can infer - possibly correctly - that I use the term against Obama as a pejorative.

I find that MOST (if not all) people who describe someone as a "Christian Zionist" outside of a purely academic discussion harbor contempt for the positions of those they are describing with the term - thus a pejorative intent.

Even if perhaps subconscious.

I said the improvements were not justification. to my knowledge, no one sold the war too us based on the idea that we'd leave Iraq with better roads and schools.

Carnage?

You realize we killed fewer Iraqis per year than Saddam was killing while he was in power, right?

You realize we bent over backwards - and still do - to confine our "victims" to military targets in a fashion no other nation has bothered to do in the history of human conflict, right?

Yes it is, that you can't see it probably is just because you've got your leftie blinders on again.

The liberals are almost singularly identified with the intellectuals (even popular media like the Watchmen has Nixon and his conservative asshole buddies glad that intellectual ivy-coated east coast will be nuked into oblivion, hahaha very fuckin funny joke about heartless conservatives). Or, in other words, intellectual is professors at university is liberal propaganda factory so anti-intellectual is anyone that talks like me and recognizes what Ramen so wisely - and so pithily - observed (the conservative university exceptions like perhaps Claremont McKenna College that nobody's ever heard of prove the rule).

So? "...[P]rovide for the common defense..." it's right there, smack dab in the middle of the first sentence of the US Constitution. The military is one of the things the government is supposed to spend on.

He's just your average Neo-Con.

He has consistently, over a number of years, advocated military action, not just to defend our country from invasion, but to make it what we want it to be, for our own advantage. He has often made it clear that deaths of non-Americans are of less importance to him than deaths of Americans simply because they are not Americans. He has regularly said that the Constitution is out of date and that the vision of the Founding Fathers should not guide us today. He is a neo-con among neo-cons. I wouldn't classify him as "extreme right," but in my mind he certainly fits the definition of "far right."

I'd classify him as a dumbass when it comes to foreign policy, but that's just me.

I'm pretty sure it's either a kind of lite-cookie pastry or a roughage that's reminiscent of a grass-lettuce blend.

It could be another thing altogether, but one of those two is most likely imo. A friend pointed it out behind the glass in a deli 20 or so years ago - I don't recall whether I ever went back to him for precision since I may have just forgotten.

But lord, I'd never eat it or anything (unlike those smartass college professor-types).

[?=She's back!][yt=The Sarah Palin Network]Q9t9HH_uavs[/yt]

Parody?

Documentary?

Who knows?

But I do know that the tonight Show with Jay Leno definitely belongs on that network.[/?]

Actually, I find her far to the right of Bush II. The only thing that gives me pause is that I think she'd be far more likely to pick a fight with a REAL bully like Russia or China, rather than some insignificant Middle Easterners and go in under in the belief that "God" will bring us through the storm. Now if she paid any attention in history, she'd know that God really doesn't seem to care about interfering in mortal affairs anymore. But I'll tell you this much: we wouldn't have this abominable healthcare overhaul under Palin, nor would we have seen something like McCain-Feingold.

Lame. Maybe you'll get some pos-reps from PGT, but seriously bub, get over it, John McCain and Sarah Palin lost, no need to be a sore winner.

What the fuck is the matter with you?

Another winning response. Is this the best you can do?

Come on people, at least try and be funny.

What's the point in trying to be funny when you are being both dour and obtuse?