This mutual admiration society where 99% of the readers all say and repeat the same things to one another over and over and over and where one can look at each day's front page for maybe 10 seconds know exactly what every article is going to say and what every letter writer is going to respond.

(detects distinct odor of rancid Cheetohs and stale Red Bull)

(looks around for the three billy goats Gruff)

Just wondering, does your handle describe your resume, your mind or what comes out when you onanize?

I suspect a three-fer..

This makes about as much sense as... something typed by a monkey.

That was my impression as well. Good, we have a consensus.

Cheers,

Even monkeys don't use typewriters anymore. Maybe that's your problem, you need to switch to a computer...

...the liberal hawks like you are not the ones getting all the press, not to mention increases in salary and career status.

Nope. The ones getting all of the recognition are the ones without any inclination for self-reflection.

They, like me, honestly thought the war might do some good, and they had good reasons for thinking that way.

Correction: "[T]hey had reasons". Apparently not very good ones. Perhaps "well-intentioned". But not "good".

I, for one, would be very sceptical of any claim that "[a] war might do some good", even as an abstract proposition. Tends not to work that way. Given the circumstances, that scepticism should have reached a certainty. Amongst other things, pre-emptive invasions of other countries to "help" them is simply a "bad" idea in the first instance, no matter how much you want to "help".

Cheers,

But since I did have some hope that the war would work,

Good news. The war worked out fine and ended five years ago.

Its the occupation and everything that's happened since then that has put paid to whatever might have been accomplished.

I can understand the "liberal hawks" (the focus of GG's post), and I can tell you that they they aren't bad people, or intellectually lazy, or unable to learn from their mistakes (as implied by GG).

The issue isn't what these cheerleaders thought back in 2003. Its whether or not they've actually learned anything from the disaster that they've invoked.

Going by the tone and content of the various 'mea culpas' (which should have been accompanied by public flogging of each of them), they haven't actually changed their views or advocacy. If anything, they sound even more committed to the vague notions of empire and manifest destiny that drove them in the first place.

They, like me, honestly thought the war might do some good, and they had good reasons for thinking that way.

Perhaps. Perhaps they should have considered Murphy's Law is a universal constant as well. One can hope for all manner of things; its whether or not one deals with the reality of events that is at issue.

Yes, Hussein really was THAT bad. Maybe worse. Kinda like Stalin in the 1930's.

-- rocket999

Your entire post was a fugging mess but maybe someone else will bother to take the time to take it apart piece by piece. In the meantime, do you know that Stalin was responsible for millons of deaths where as Hussein has been tagged by some arbitrary number of 300,000?

... of archival material shows that blank is in fact RealName (aka (~~~~) and doubtless many other things) who has apparently been driven out from underneath his anonymous rock by the recent change in Salon policy. RealName can not use his real name, but he can't hide his style ("be still my heart")

What a concept. I'm going to bed and think about that.

I'm gonna pray that we don't start any new wars tonight. Maybe the reason Cheney's over in that neighborhood is because he has this terrible urge to see the fireball and mushroom cloud IN PERSON!

They, like me, honestly thought the war might do some good, and they had good reasons for thinking that way. -- rocket999

This, to put it as kindly as I can, is a terrible mistake. What's more, it's a mistake which you might easily have avoided making. Before the war, there were any number of sources, starting with Homer, which you could have consulted. Given what's happened since, and what these people have said about it themselves, there really is no excuse now to persist in such a mistake, unless you're absolutely determined to.

what would it take to stop treating adolescents like vermin? What would modern rites of passage look like? Where might we find the modern equivalent of the apprenticeship system?

Interesting questions, unfortunately I'm about to doze off so I'll have to get to them tomorrow, provided I remember.

I'd probably start with giving every child something similar to the MMPI.. Different personality types have different educational needs and tailoring the instruction to the individual to some extent would definitely help the educational process.

I seem to recall that a person learns half of what they'll know as an adult by about age seven or so, which makes early training very important. Unfortunately many parents lack the time, skill and often the inclination to help their kids learn.

The question you hear most from young kids is "why".. I've always wondered why some people never stop asking why and most seem to stop before the mid teen years. (I guess from that comment you can figure out which group I'm in ;-) )

Some way of encouraging kids to keep on asking why after they would normally stop doing so would be very helpful I think.

Remind me tomorrow to talk more of this 'cause I'm about to start typing with my forehead..

But since I did have some hope that the war would work, I can understand the "liberal hawks" (the focus of GG's post), and I can tell you that they they aren't bad people, or intellectually lazy, or unable to learn from their mistakes (as implied by GG). They, like me, honestly thought the war might do some good, and they had good reasons for thinking that way.

Yes, they were intellectually lazy. Very lazy. Why? Because to most people with critical faculties and an internet connection, there were very obvious and glaring risks attendant to a heavily Christian, strong ally of Israel invading a major, oil-producing, Middle Eastern country that has a population divided along sectarian lines, and has potentially meddlesome neighbors on all sides. Some of those people with critical faculties and internet connections actually spoke out about those reasons, did not succumb to the empty-headed fist-pumping of the Boot-Up-Yer-Ass pseudopatriots, and were proven highly prescient.

Yet, the people who were painfully right about the consequences of invasion have largely been shunted to the political fringe, while the people who cheered for war, made every manner of unbelievably incorrect prediction, and clung to their initial position as long as humanly possible - these people are still regarded as serious national security experts.

When you have a proposed course of action that clearly bears a significant likelihood of disastrous consequences, coupled with non-compelling, unproven reasons for taking that action, taking that course of action in a glib and heedless manner is generally regarded as stupid.