Kitt the liar: I see that you and I agree that Bucky was almost certainly being dishonest rather than dense. Too bad about that dishonest streak.

I see you hide behind others to slime people. Grownups can not talk here for slime balls like you poisoning the well. I am sure that William can take care of himself; and we all know that your only function here is to make personal attacks. You do not need to prove that each day.

Although I don't want to get in the middle of the intense debate going on about various topics around the core makeup of US and philosophically liberal societies, such as the role of violence in government, or the ability of Constitutional democracies to surpass prior wrongs, there is one thing that occasionally gets forgotten.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the society created in the USA and surviving for over two centuries is the basic model for all future societies and the endpoint of humankind and its societal evolution.

How correct you are. There is no evidence that America is 'good' or ever has been. I work with a very nice lady from Columbia whose family fled some of the Reagan horrors in the 80s. She certainly does not think American foreign policy towards South America has ever been a 'model' for humanity to follow.

apologies to Coleridge. It is a loaded gun to me.

Thanks for that. I always did like the rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Cheers,

... I wasn't attacking antiwar.com at all. I was attacking your logic (or lack thereof) in touting them. ...

Ah, just another attack on me simply because you are full of hate. Fine, and thanks for the clarification.

It is odd that you claim to like antiwar.com but did not respond when LWM slimmed them in vile ways --- you only responded when I defended them as credible and non-partisan. Come to think of it, perhaps it is not so odd, considering the source.

...I read what you wrote and responded by cutting to the quick. The libertarian laissez-faire ideology was in full sway in 1900, it was supported by McKinnley/Hannah Republicans. And Bourne was not one of them. ...

Then you would be ignorant of history. Wikipedia says, "...In the United States, laissez-faire was mainly present up to the American Civil War, although various protectionist measures were passed by the North against the South before that time ..." but even they are wrong. We have never practiced pure laissez-faire economics in this country. We have given lip service to it, but never practiced it.

Besides, "The laissez-faire means that the neoclassical school of economic thought holds a pure or economically liberal market view: that the free market is best left to its own devices, and that it will dispense with inefficiencies in a more deliberate and quick manner than any legislating body could."

As I keep saying, it is classic liberals that were correct, not the socialist liberal like yourself.

They also listed as heinous torture having a beard shaved and being forced to pray in their underwear. Oh, the inhumanity...

No. It's unarguably "degrading" treatment, particularly for those of certain religious persuasions. If this treatment was inflicted on them because it was known that such would be considered objectionable by people of certain religious persuasions, we have scienter and mens rea.

"shooter", of course, knows this (or should know it), but still trumpets the innocence of such treatment.

Cheers,

From today's McClatchy:

While the U.S. presses its war against insurgents linked to al Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, senior U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials said.

The threat from the radical Islamic enclave in Waziristan is more dangerous than that from Iraq, which President Bush and his aides call the “central front” of the war on terrorism, said some current and former U.S. officials and experts. Bin Laden himself is believed to be hiding in the region, guiding a new generation of lieutenants and inspiring allied extremist groups in Iraq and other parts of the world.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/17387.html

Al Qaida have ALWAYS been in Pakistan. THAT'S WHERE THEY LIVE. We ALWAYS KNEW they were in Pakistan. We didn't attack Pakistan because Musharraf has been one of our very best friends in the whole world (even though Pakistan remains a terrorist nation and is still responsible for the proliferation of black market nuclear weapons technology throughout the area) since right after 9/11 when we got up in his face and basically threatened to bomb him into the stone age (which we ended up doing to Iraq instead). Musharraf doesn't go after al Qaida in his own country (or let us go after them) because his government might be overthrown by Islamic militants who would then have access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons as a result.

Now that's a fine kettle of fish.

This is totally off topic I know, but I thought it would be OK since the last few pages of comments (bebop-o excepted) have been assorted versions of "Jane, you ignorant slut!" (Dan Aykroyd to Jane Curtin on SNL for those old enough to remember).

President George W. Bush: The American president who officially introduced gay raping in the name of the American people.

From the Tao Te Ching (6th century BCE):

Chapter 17: "In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them."

Chapter 30: "He who would assist a lord of men in harmony with the Tao will not assert his mastery in the kingdom by force of arms. Such a course is sure to meet with its proper return ... Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up. In the sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years."

Chapter 57: "A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one's own (only) by freedom from action and purpose.

Chapter 58: "The government that seems the most unwise, Oft goodness to the people best supplies; That which is meddling, touching everything, Will work but ill, and disappointment bring."

Chapter 60: "Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish."

Chapter 75: "The people suffer from famine because of the multitude of taxes consumed by their superiors. It is through this that they suffer famine."

Chapter 78: "There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong, there is nothing that can take precedence of it."

---

Note: added much later was Mao's statement that, "all government flows from the barrel of a gun." ;-)