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Originally Posted by alansmithee
I looked at your examples. There was no "arguement". There was a list of one measure of inequality, and then a link to the White House's site. You speak of conservatives not having arguments, but "feelings". Well, in your first quoted section you mention
Bolded sections mine. That is not a fact. It is your OPINION (and that of many people) that war should only be the last resort. However, it is also the opinion of many that war can also be a tool to prevent greater evil later. You give no place for such an argument in how you frame your question. Your "argument" is nothing more than what would happen if I typed in "Iraq War" in a moveon.org search engine. I don't need to point out which sections of Powell's speech to the UN (which I think is a ridiculous organization to begin with) were accurate. The Bush Administration thought that war was the best course of action. They assembled what data they thought would be good enough to state their case and get what approval they thought would be required. And they did get that approval. So I would say the whole presentation provided things that justified an immediate attack on Iraq.
This question seems silly to me. If they don't believe that a reasonable role for government is to redistribute wealth, that would seem to imply that there is no level of wealth inequality that they would be concerned with. Some people do believe in allowing the free market to operate unfettered. And many of those people believe that if inequalities in wealth arise, that is a fair price to pay to maximize total economic output. I do not personally agree with this, but there are many that do. And then this is followed with inequality figures and a link to a Washington Post piece about the growing inequality in China. It seems to me glaringly obvious why inequality in China would be met with a lot more outcry than in the US. China is in the process of shedding (portions of) it's Socialist economy. Under that economy, equality was essentially mandated by law (at least in terms of urban-urban and rural-rural equality). People who were given lifetime employment (regardless of the economic feasibility of their job), lifetime housing, and many other state-sponsored benefits are now having to survive on their own merits. What is being seen is that during this transition period, certain people are much better equipped to take advantage of the situation. And another problem is the rampant corruption at the various levels of government, which leads to more inequality. The US has had neither the recent history of Socialist rule nor the Chinese levels of government corruption. Therefore, the inequality is not seen as such a problem. Your whole "argument" here would be the equivalent of me asking "When did you last beat your wife?" and then linking to domestic abuse statistics and an article about a battered women shelter.
You are right, some arguments cannot compete alongside others. And some "arguments" are not arguments at all. Conservatives do not own a monopoly on retorting with talking points.
Again, I do not speak for all "conservatives". But personally, I have often found discussions here to be framed from the outset in a way that does not promote true discussion and understanding. They often seem to be thinly veiled attack pieces aimed at one side or the other. And in the threads that are solely about an event or occurrence, I can fairly accurately predict how most of the posts will go, based simply on the name of the poster. Lack of true debate coupled with a subtle hostility to certain views and the general predictability of thread contents doesn't really make me usually feel like bothering to post anything (or even view the board).
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so, you will not answer either question?
I have to assume that there was nothing in Powell's presentation to the UN (it is irrelevant what you think of the UN....that was the opportunity for the US to build a coalition and to persuade the security council to vote for a resolution that would have made an invasion and occupation of Iraq lawful.)
Powell's presentation sits displayed on the white house official website. It was supposed to be the prima facie "case" for war with Iraq, for the American people to examine, as well as the rest of the world. Did you even bother to click on the white house link?
What does this mean?
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Originally Posted by alansmithee
..The Bush Administration thought that war was the best course of action. They assembled what data they thought would be good enough to state their case and get what approval they thought would be required. And they did get that approval. So I would say the whole presentation provided things that justified an immediate attack on Iraq.
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<h3>Can you describe anything from Powell's "whole presentation" of 02/05/03 that was an actual "imminent threat" posed by Iraq, that rose to the level of a response of aggressive war, by the Bush administration?</h3>
Do you agree that "aggressive war"...attacking another country not in self defense due to a prior attack on your country, by the targeted country, or because of overwhelming evidence of an imminent threat to your country's national security, was condemned at Nuremberg because, in the absence of such an ominous threat or of a prior attack, war is not justifiable.
The reason Bush's pre-emptive war/aggressive war doctrine is illega, a crime against humanity, is borne out by the very outcome of the invasion of Iraq. It is revealed to be unjustified, there were no WMD, and no Iraqi relationship with al-Qaeda. It is akin to a cop shooting an unarmed suspect, what is described in police work as a "bad shoot".
All you have to do is point us to something in Powell's presentation that turned out to describe an actual imminent threat to US national security (or to Israel's) that justified invading and occupying Iraq, and I'll post that you have prevailed in your argument....
My experience of not finding anyone who does not accept a legitimate government role and responsibility to resdistribute wealth, if only to lessen the chances of civil unrest in response to wealth inequity, is unchanged after your post.
The wealthiest ten percent in the US own 70 percent of all US assets. If their share increases to say....85 percent, do you offer any proposals to reverse their consolidation of wealth? The trend toward greater wealth inequity has progressed in that direction since the early 1970's, and you'll let it run until riots break out? That does not seem reasonable, or a practical view.