Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 992 Editor's Choice: 3
-
Oh, and also, WT
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]exactly!
I don't think LWM and I disagree though. He seems to support a standing army and moderate interference in the world, and so do I. As I've commented before, the difference hangs on how you perceive the job of "world's policeman." I do believe our taxes should go toward "policing" some parts and aspects of the world (trade, technology, smuggling, piracy), within the same strict limits that restrain a cop on the beat from beating indigents, lynching the nonwhite, breaking into people's homes, providing "protection," and raping schoolgirls.
In other words, "policeman" doesn't mean "thug." Or shouldn't. If we show a bias toward trade, it's to be expected, as long as the police force is responsive to the desires of the taxpayers. And to the UN, which can't happen as long as the UN is structured the way it is (with the US practically in charge---but that's complicated).
We owe it to the world, because we take a large part of the world's resources and turn it into a vast army and navy (and trash). As long as we continue to do that, we should provide money, resources, diplomacy, and, ultimately, force, wherever it is needed but insufficient, and if it is invited.
I'd rather not have that contract at all, but it would be better than what we have and have had for a century.
-
@LWM
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't have time to respond to your entire comment now except for this:
(1) I didn't accuse you of fetishism. I was actually following up on a comment of Mooser's, which he has now almost retracted. (!)
(2) I specifically asked about fighting for our rights. That rules out the actions of the National Guard, though I did (and do) acknowledge the point. I never meant to suggest the Guard doesn't follow orders (another discussion going on at the time).
(3) Regarding my last comment, I realize that acting properly as the world's policeman is no less problematic than, say, achieving world peace without the use of arms. So, I do repudiate Bush's imperialistic stance specifically, but also all American imperialism. Still, some of our adventures have been understandable---just not in defense of American citizens' rights, and not worthy of fetishism.
-
@LWM
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A lot of the terms in play here are semantically murky. "Fight" is just one of them. I actually can't say for sure how the term is meant when military fetishists use it, because I am sure they are lying. It may well mean that marching in formation or in parades is sufficient to keep the baddies away---I don't know. Some seem to use it to mean "type a lot of manly words," as has often been noted. But I am using it in the traditional sense of shooting war or at very least "firing over their heads."
Another murky area is that of whose "rights" we protect when we keep a dictator in power in a place like Cuba, as we did for so long. Certainly not the same rights or citizens the Guard protected in Alabama. But you know that.
-
An excellent counterexample
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And Baldie, I would say that the use of Douglas M. on the bonus marchers was a far more typical use of the military here at home than was defending the black students at Little Rock High. I don't disagree with L.W.M.'s basic premise any more than RMP does, but I think his defense of it is -- shall we say -- overly ardent.
Along with Kent State, although that was due more to poor training than anything else.
At any rate, I feel sure that neither example is intended when the militarists argue (as that poem does) that we owe all our freedoms to "the soldier." We owe our freedom from Britain to the citizen-soldier, and I think that's as close as one can get to a case for that argument.
The army IS a tool, and for the most part it behaves that way---and it's probably dangerous to argue differently, just because we fear its further misuse.
Derbig is right to wonder---and worry---about the corporate "paramilitaries."
-
So, Elephant
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You admit to being neither idealistic not pragmatic?
What are you, then?
-
Quiz time
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Say a candidate believes the US should bomb people who "don't look like us," but that we should not make pyramids of their skulls.
Where does that put him/her?
Hint: Genghis Khan was religiously and racially tolerant but politically intolerant; he disliked organized religions that declared themselves the only religion, as well as anyone who defied him---a libertarian authoritarian?
-
And further, William
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]he calls it "idealism."
Is it the kind of nose that honks when you squeeze it?
-
A note about pragmatism
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's impossible for a nation that is becoming a ravening monster to perceive true pragmatism in its foreign policy, let alone execute it.
-
@Aych
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]ALL THREE are well outside the American main stream, which is VANILLA. Only VANILLA is really OK.
Remember this, and you will survive the coming chaos and civil war.
-
Dear old Elphie
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Does LWM have to explain to you the difference between satire and satirized?
Please, don't make him do that.
-
Elphie's true heart revealed
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No it's the fact that their GDP is about 1% of ours, and that they couldn't defend themselves without our assistance from any of the totalitarian powers of the last century.
He hates their freedom ... from the military-industrial welfare state.
Thought so.
-
BTW, elphie
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am what you might call a "lazy progressive." Not a Kennedy liberal. Not normally moved to engage in jock/rich kid/cheerleader politics. But firmly convince that we would have been better off spending billions on butter vs guns, since, oh, about 1950.
Yet I plan to vote for Obama, twice if I can.
Why?
(Hint: See Glenn's post.)
-
Well,
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]not too many [frat hazings] have people giving high-five signs for the camera next to the corpses of people that have been beaten to death.....
that's a really good frat hazing. Rush misspoke.
-
And so I shall!
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It just dawned on me that tomorrow is April 1st. On April Fool Day, you can be a ornithologist.
;)