Speaking of getting along though, I'll reiterate that I think the biggest enemy we face isn't people who come by incorrect opinions honestly, but rather those who put self interest before any opinion whatsoever.-- Paul Dirks

Opinion is the EXPRESSION of self-interest.

LOL. This is one reason, I enjoy the blog. Left-wing loonies. You all have a real way with worlds.

Pooter desperately would like to avoid the fact that Republicans did, indeed, control all 3 major branches of government. Not forever. But for years.

Your admission of error is acknowledged, but if you try a bit harder, I think you can weasel a bit more.

But it is too late, the absolute control of government by Republicans was a terrible, terrible failure, a giant mess, and try as they might they cannot blame anyone else for it.-- El Cid

On the other hand Republicans have secured the country from additional attacks, cut taxes, raised revenue, lifted the economy from the Clinton-9/11 recession, deposed a tyrant, reshaped the Middle East, gotten the NK and Iran to the table, and gotten two excellent Supreme Court judges passed.

Meanwhile the meager offerings of accomplishment by Dems to date are non-performing. The litany of Republican sins are well known and pretty stale at this point, but I wonder how well being the national nags will get you all. At some point you'll have to face real questions like, what have you done for me lately?

I could keep typing all night but the point is clear. One's opinions are an expession of what is RIGHT not necessarily what will get you ahead. That you don't realize that speaks volumes about why you continuously fail to understand what takes place here!
It's all about self interest Uber Alles.-- Paul Dirks

Just to make sure you understand my point, I use "self interest"in the literal sense of doing what is what is best for ones self, overall. Not as a synonym for "greed". You want to maintain an ideological perspective which I understand. It is part of what makes you feel good about yourself, and that, rather than your job is your self-interest. At least until it's in your self interest to make hard choices regarding your production. At some point principles may have to give way to practicality because of the self interest keeping a job. The kind of woman you married was a matter of self interest, as is the car you drive, as are the vices you have. Your preferences in life, what it is that suits you own interests, form your opinions.

L.W.M. eloquently confronts a fifth-columnist ersatz anti-Republican: "Piss off, Bucky Either you are a goose-stepping tosspot, or you too stupid to know one when you see one. Either way, who needs ya?"

LaL: How anti-authoritarian, again, do you consider yourself? More or less so than O'Reilly? It's difficult to tell.Ken Rogers -- Libertarian at Large

Pomposity skewered! Mr. Rogers, welcome to the neighborhood.

Unknown: Actually, Paul's was a more comprehensive and penetrating answer. He said that the greatest evil we currently face is the "doctrine of pre-emptive war."

... Can anyone name a single greater evil in any government's tool box of satanic instruments? I'm at a loss to.

Bucky: Bingo!

My apologies for jumping in on the first comment I see this morning, but I have to ask whether anyone knows whether the wars of the 20th Century have more casualties then the pogroms of the USSR, the massacres of Mao, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

The flip side of forbidding pre-emptive war is that it becomes the Totalitarian Thug Protection Doctrine. If one measures the worth of an action by how many people die, the correct path is not so obvious.

I've often written that the US should pull all it's troops from everywhere and let the rest of the world fight it out amongst themselves. Does anyone want to conjecture to what extent that would happen? Especially now that quite a few countries have nukes?

Darfur is always an interesting litmus test. Quite a few people that preach the evils of pre-emptive war, are also queasy about letting thousands die in internecine conflict. That friends, is the real world one must deal with, not the neat constructs of what "should" happen to make everything well.

...as much as we think we know about the range of controversial Bush policies, it is almost certainly the case that what we do not know, what remains concealed, vastly outweighs what we know.--Glenn

Translation: Boo!

Well let's see, Glenn et al. has been wrong about Plame, Katrina, Swift Banking Scandal, Telephone databases rather than eavesdropping, The actual effect of signing statements and Club Gitmo. In short, the hue and cry of injustices imagined do not measure up to reality. The incendiary use of a synonym for killing, in conjunction with children, is a sure sign of a story that needs a juicy headline to get attention.

Whatever remains concealed is absolutely less than you people think. How could it not be? To most here, Bush is nothing less than Satan personified.

Has anyone noticed...

That whenever the Iranian President is talking about the peaceful use of nuclear power, he is being deceitful and dishonest but when he's making threatening noises against he's neighbors, he's totally honest and should be taken at his word.-- Paul Dirks

People that are peaceful, don't threaten their neighbors with extinction. May the saints preserve us, because people like you certainly won't.