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Banned
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Originally Posted by Paq
kinda sad that seretogis's post speaks so loudly to conservatives and liberals on this board.
i didn't think i'd agree so much with it, but it's true.
definitely...time for a change
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the link in seretogis's post is from an article by the "heir" to Ayn Rand's estate and to her simplistic and incomplete "objectivism"....the sentiments in seretogis's post, IMO, do not take into account the fiscal discipline and reversal of federal deficit spending in the 1993 to 2001 period, a time when the growth of the non-military portion of the federal government was actually reversed...the non-military government employment total grew smaller, in addition to a reduction of 284,000 mostly civilian DOD positions. Annual federal debt increases were reduced from $360 billion, in the fiscal year ending on Setp. 30, 1993, to just $18 billion in the Oct. 1, 1999 to Sept. 30, 2000 budget period.
The actual record that I just described, vs. the last four years of "one party" rule, seems to me a total contradiction of the "broad brush" of dimissal and the lumping of both major politcal parties' flaws, together in seretogis's article. There is enough of a difference in the records of the two major parties' "accomplishments" to justify voting for immediate transfer of control from "one party" that is responsible for a sudden fiscal reversal into disaster, of at least one house of the federal legislature. Following the themes in seretogis's articles would justify leaving the political imbalance in place for at least two more, predictably disasterous years.....because "one party is the same as the other". The record of budget, taxation, and spending management of the last 25 years proves the core point of seretogis's article is wrong.
seretogis's article is largely influenced by the "work" of Leonard Peikoff...his article is the only linked item in seretogis's post. I do not agree with most of the ideas of Peikoff, as this example of his overly simplistic, militaristic and self centered, "work", clearly is the opposite of my understanding of the political challenges of the post 2001 period:
Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200110300...errorism.shtml
The following editorial has been produced by the Ayn Rand Institute's MediaLink department. Visit MediaLink at http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/.
The following article was published as a full-page ad in the New York Times on October 2, 2001.
"End States Who Sponsor Terrorism"
By Leonard Peikoff
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.
Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower surrendered the West's property rights in oil, although that oil rightfully belonged to those in the West whose science, technology, and capital made its discovery and use possible. The first country to nationalize Western oil, in 1951, was Iran. The rest, observing our frightened silence, hurried to grab their piece of the newly available loot.
The cause of the U.S. silence was not practical, but philosophical. The Mideast's dictators were denouncing wealthy egotistical capitalism. They were crying that their poor needed our sacrifice; that oil, like all property, is owned collectively, by virtue of birth; and that they knew their viewpoint was true by means of otherworldly emotion. Our Presidents had no answer. Implicitly, they were ashamed of the Declaration of Independence. They did not dare to answer that Americans, properly, were motivated by the selfish desire to achieve personal happiness in a rich, secular, individualist society.
The Muslim countries embodied in an extreme form every idea—selfless duty, anti-materialism, faith or feeling above science, the supremacy of the group—which our universities, our churches, and our own political Establishment had long been upholding as virtue.......
<h3>host sez.... Dr. Peikoff....you've conveniently omitted the 1953 CIA engineered coup in Iran that removed the democratically elected head of state of that country, <a href="http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/">Mohammed Mossadegh</a>....and installed the compliant, corrupt monarchy of Shah Reza Pahlavi....</h3>
.......Most of the Mideast is ruled by thugs who would be paralyzed by an American victory over any of their neighbors. Iran, by contrast, is the only major country there ruled by zealots dedicated not to material gain (such as more wealth or territory), but to the triumph by any means, however violent, of the Muslim fundamentalist movement they brought to life. That is why Iran manufactures the most terrorists.
If one were under a Nazi aerial bombardment, it would be senseless to restrict oneself to combatting Nazi satellites while ignoring Germany and the ideological plague it was working to spread. What Germany was to Nazism in the 1940s, Iran is to terrorism today. Whatever else it does, therefore, the U.S. can put an end to the Jihad-mongers only by taking out Iran.
Eliminating Iran's terrorist sanctuaries and military capability is not enough. We must do the equivalent of de-Nazifying the country, by expelling every official and bringing down every branch of its government. <b>This goal cannot be achieved painlessly, by weaponry alone. It requires invasion by ground troops, who will be at serious risk, and perhaps a period of occupation. </b>But nothing less will "end the state" that most cries out to be ended.
<b>The greatest obstacle to U.S. victory is not Iran and its allies, but our own intellectuals. Even now, they are advocating the same ideas that caused our historical paralysis.</b> They are asking a reeling nation to show neighbor-love by shunning "vengeance." The multiculturalists—rejecting the concept of objectivity—are urging us to "understand" the Arabs and avoid "racism" (i.e., any condemnation of any group's culture). The friends of "peace" are reminding us, ever more loudly, to "remember Hiroshima" and beware the sin of pride.
<b>These are the kinds of voices being heard in the universities, the churches, and the media as the country recovers from its first shock, and the professoriate et al. feel emboldened to resume business as usual. These voices are a siren song luring us to untroubled sleep while the fanatics proceed to gut America.</b>
Tragically, Mr. Bush is attempting a compromise between the people's demand for a decisive war and the intellectuals' demand for appeasement.
It is likely that the Bush administration will soon launch an attack on bin Laden's organization in Afghanistan and possibly even attack the Taliban. Despite this, however, every sign indicates that Mr. Bush will repeat the mistakes made by his father in Iraq. As of October 1, the Taliban leadership appears not to be a target. Even worse, the administration refuses to target Iran, or any of the other countries identified by the State Department as terrorist regimes. On the contrary, Powell is seeking to add to the current coalition these very states—which is the equivalent of going into partnership with the Soviet Union in order to fight Communism (under the pretext, say, of proving that we are not anti-Russian). By seeking such a coalition, our President is asserting that he needs the support of terrorist nations in order to fight them. He is stating publicly that the world's only superpower does not have enough self-confidence or moral courage to act unilaterally in its own defense.
For some days now, Mr. Bush has been downplaying the role of our military, while praising the same policies (mainly negotiation and economic pressure) that have failed so spectacularly and for so long. Instead of attacking the roots of global terrorism, he seems to be settling for a "guerrilla war" against al-Qaeda, and a policy of unseating the Taliban passively, by aiding a motley coalition of native tribes. Our battle, he stresses, will be a "lengthy" one.
Mr. Bush's compromise will leave the primary creators of terrorism whole—and unafraid. His approach might satisfy our short-term desire for retribution, but it will guarantee catastrophe in the long term.
As yet, however, no overall policy has been solidified; the administration still seems to be groping. And an angry public still expects our government not merely to hobble terrorism for a while, but to eradicate it. <b>The only hope left is that Mr. Bush will listen to the public, not to the professors</b> and their progeny.
When should we act, if not now? If our appeasement has led to an escalation of disasters in the past, can it do otherwise in the future? <h3>Do we wait until our enemies master nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare?
The survival of America is at stake. The risk of a U.S. overreaction, therefore, is negligible. The only risk is underreaction.</h3>
Mr. Bush must reverse course. He must send our missiles and troops, in force, where they belong. And he must justify this action by declaring with righteous conviction that we have discarded the clich�s of our paper-tiger past and that the U.S. now places America first.
There is still time to demonstrate that we take the war against terrorism seriously—as a sacred obligation to our Founding Fathers, to every victim of the men who hate this country, and to ourselves. There is still time to make the world understand that we will take up arms, anywhere and on principle, to secure an American's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on earth.
The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. Our Commander-In-Chief must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who conspire to kill them.
Leonard Peikoff is the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, California. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
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Substitute Iraq for Iran, and it appears that Mr. Bush ended up following Dr. Peikoff's "remedy", almost exactly. It was neocon, islamophobic, ignorant propaganda when Peikoff wrote it, and paid the NY Times to display it, and it is a monument to his failed and richly flawed thinking, in hindsight. The risks were much greater, and the results, so far..... much smaller and more expensive, than Peikoff's narrow mind could have envisioned....
A vote based on the advice and the thinking of Peikoff is a vote wasted. The two major American political parties have nearly opposite fiscal management credentials, and change...away from Peikoff's, and republicans failed and bankrupting foreign policy and restoration of at least some.....any...checks and balances in government must happen now.....not in some undetermined future..... certainly not one that will ever be effected from the signifigantly less compelling, pompous, myopic, anti-intellectual "spin" of the dean of the failed school of objectivism. Rand offered no solutions for "the rest of us", and Peikoff offers no solutions at all.....
Last edited by host; 10-26-2006 at 01:45 AM..
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