"Iraq had been painted as our enemy with nuclear programs and WMD's for years before Bush came into office."

I don't remember that at all. On Sept. 10, if we had an enemy, it was China, with all their spy-plane-stealing and steel-dumping and general Oriental wiliness. Saddam was "in his box," according to the Secretary of State, and "bottled up" according to the Vice President.

It must suck to have to rewrite history to make your points.

I completely agree with you, and I would really like to be invited to your 700th birthday. I'll bring the tequila.

Seriously, though, I think your numbers might even be a little low. "According to Altemeyer's calculations, the percentage of students with authoritarian tendencies has increased since the early '70s. At that time, 45% of the students scored above the midpoint of the scale. By 1987, 80% scored in that range."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n2_v23/ai_7400245

help...

Economic Left/Right: -8.13

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.64

Phat.

I first took the Nolan quiz when I was pretty young... I've pretty much been nutating in the same quadrant for the past few decades.

I'd have been closer to Paul's score if I didn't Disagree with statements like "Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation." I don't want to "regulate" corporations... I want to abolish them.

I'm all for more political parties... what this country needs, rather than a "permanent majority," is a parliamentary gridlock on the Italian model. Let a million factions bloom!

Sounds like a perfect description of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to me.

I reserve my highest outrage for such morally repulsive acts done by my government, with my tax dollars. By my lights, I share culpability for acts such as these that are done in my name, and thus the responsibility for righting these wrongs is primarily my own.

The willful inability to see the crucial and self-evident distinction between crimes done by our government and those done by others, and the offhand dismissal of our proper outrage as "blaming America first," is, in my opinion, the most serious moral failing of the hard-core Right.

other forms of war in a similar metaphoric vein, such as the "War on Melancholy" and, perhaps, the "War on Ennui." But I digress

You digress with the best of em, sir. It's not a new meme but I like your formulation.

"Don't keep working that soul-destroying job - don't you know there's a war on?"

Thanks again.

Congress funding the war on a conditional basis, setting timetables... the question becomes at what point are they infringing on the powers of POTUS granted in Article II

That question might be best posed to politicians like Dole, McCain et. al. who did just that in Somalia:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-wanted-to-cut-and-run-from-somalia.html

I don't remember anywhere near the amount of hostility for Clinton coming from the general public as you find today toward Bush.

Yoiks. Please tell me you're kidding.

When Bush gets accused of murder (not of sending troops into battle, mind you, but actual, personal murder), gets called a "scumbag" on the floor of the House, has his personal sexual habits endlessly derided on the news, then Bush-hating will start to reach the depths of Clinton-hatred.

Right how I think the scales tilt the other way. But maybe that's just me...

100% disparaging about a group, be it blacks, jews, gays, or Republicans.... it's a sure sign of prejudice

Say what?I can't see any parallel between gender/racial prejudice and political opinion. I'm sorry, this just seems self-evident to me.

With unending respect to the families who lost loved ones on 11 September... how does it honour their memories that we should become a nation of timorous sheep?

More people died of drowning in 2001 than died in the attacks. The reason there's no ban on swimming - or smoking cigarettes or driving a car, both much more lethal activities - is because there is no benefit to the Homeland Security State in so doing.

Hate to be cliche, but I don't think my grandfather escaped Fascist Italy so that I could be a slave...

Whenever anyone mentions Krauthammer, I'm reminded of M.J. Rosenberg's account of his behaviour at shul one recent Yom Kippur:

The rabbi had offered some timid endorsement of peace -- peace essentially on Israel's terms -- but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi, from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to "shush" him. It was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?

Anyone familiar with the DSM-IV who would care to try their hand at a diagnosis of this man?

Unless this is some reactionary screed against pastry, one can only assume that nazalbbbwtf wants us all to live in a land where children are disemboweled by pool pumps and patients suffer brain damage from doctors overprescribing powerful drugs.

The sad part about it is that nazabrfmxyzptlk is probably not one of the plutocrats who came up with the whole "tort reform" canard - he/she is probably an ordinary Joe like the rest of us, but who got sucked into the right's stern vision of a self-reliant citizenry, too proud to go to lawyers when they have a problem needs solvin'.

However, it's just a myth... they want rights for them, and responsibilities for everyone else.

Like I say, sad.