Politics The Elephant in the room...The GOP today

It is often a question of perceived best interest. A person's perception can be incorrect.

Re-read the posts. I was very clear that I did not support the Iraq war based on the intel reports, speeches or rhetoric. I believed Saddam Hussein was a threat, he was defiant and he had power to act. I thought it was an error not to march into Baghdad in the first Gulf War under Bush I. President Bush was clear when he asked for authority to use the military in Iraq. I believe the deception came from those who voted in support to use military force needing to pretend they never thought Bush was not actually going to use military force, given the un-popularity of the war.

How does this work - hey dad can I use your sports car while you and mom are away - if it is o.k. with your mom - mom says, sure son while thinking the good son will never actually use the car??? And dad thinks mom will never say o.k.??? No adult in the household - son drives the car and destroys it! Mom blames dad! With Iraq, how about some of the pacifists actually saying no to the use of military force! If a warrior asks for war there will be war.

 

i find these interactions exasperating. we aren't talking the same language. i'm already far too familiar with how you operate. nothing every changes. if i wasn't interested for whatever reason--sometimes i lose track of it---in debate, i wouldn't play here at all.

i reject your entire political and economic philosophy on the most basic grounds. there's no possiblity of a discussion about premises because you can't distance yourself enough from the fact that you believe to talk about the basis for that belief at the level of logic (looking at neo-liberal "thinking" as a system, comparing its claims to agreed upon information about and agreed-upon thing called the world). all you do is perform the fact of your belief.

at this point, the style of thinking that you perform has been revealed as a basic problem for the right as a whole---the way you take it is particular to yourself, kinda idiosyncratic with your exclusive focus on econ 101 micro-economics as if that constituted a general theory of the world. but the closed-off nature of the thinking is a symptom of the wider problem with contemporary conservatism. it's not about talking to anyone else. its about recycling a closed set of premises and attempting to control information. given the discussions underway in the republican party about how to not find itself consigned to a richly deserved oblivion, and given what's happening to the radio wing of the conservative media apparatus (thanks in significant measure to a quite large advertiser boycott of limbaugh, which is endangering the companies that float his idiocy because they rely on advertising for almost all of their revenue), the right could well abandon the production of this self-enclosed, self-referential little world that it has made for the faithful. that will be disorienting for folk like you, but will probably be better for the system as a whole.

but given the weakness of the arguments and the inability to even articulate them as arguments, much less defend them, the avoidance of actual debate makes some sense. but it's basically anti-democratic, this avoidance of actual debate. as a general political matter, its consequences are obviously bad. as a small matter of interactions here, it just sucks the interest out of discussion.

 

In your two previous posts you misstate my position and you use fallacious argument - and it is my problem? Got it.

 

my point, ace, which i did not mis-state, is that there is no point to these interactions.
i view you as enacting the limitations of the ideology you invest in.
you are either unable to unwilling to venture outside of that.
i don't find it interesting.
it'd be better to have a different kind of discussion.
but if you either don't want to or can't go there, so be it.

 

Yes. It led to 6,000+ dead Americans and 50,000+ wounded in Iraq (and Afghanistan).

Do you have problems with the facts as they are emerging in this case?

Do you have problems with the Republicans politicizing the issue rather than focusing on correcting what went wrong so it doesnt happen again?

Do you have problems with Republican budgets slashing State Dept. funding by $several hundred million, includuding funding for embassy security?

 

This second point is the one that I find more interesting. Cutting the nose off to spite the face.

Clearly there were some communication issue with the explanation of Benghazi. Figuring out what happened so it doesn't happen again, is important. But while a mountain is being made out of a mole hill, the Republicans are cutting the very thing that could have protected the embassy.

Double think.

 

Republican legislators in Michigan demonstrate their family values -- tax credits for unborn fetuses, just not for children after birth

 

Much like being anti-abortion and, at the same time, eliminating all family planning funding that prevents unplanned pregnancies.

 

Liberty is pulling yourself up by the diaper as soon as you pop out of the womb.

 

And meanwhile, back on Benghazi.
'
This man could have been the next Sec. of State: John Bolton, “It’s been over two months and there’s been no retribution…”

 

We should definitely invade Iran. We could have a battalion of soldiers hide in John Bolton's mustache, then present it to the Iranians as a gift. After a few days, when the Iranians have placed the mustache in their imperial Muslim Sharia Mosque Palace of fascist anti-Americanism, the soldiers would strike and take all of Iran in one fell swoop AND be welcomed by throngs of adoring Iranians as liberators. It'd probably take weeks *maybe* months (and that's a big maybe).

 

Did Bush ask for authority to use military force?
Did Bush declaratively state that he was going to use military force?
Who was mislead? Only those not listening!

Yes. There is an investigation - seems many have problems and are willing to investigate.
Yes. A US Ambassador was murdered.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Yes.

No. Our ambassador should not have been there on 9/11 based on what I know. Otherwise it is a question of the proper allocation of resources - lack of money was not the problem.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 4:47 PM ---

I take this issue very seriously. It is a "mountain" to me.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 4:55 PM ---

You don't use the car if you can not afford the oil - or you make cuts in other areas and change the oil. Is it true Valerie Jarret has a full contingent of secret service for her travels in the US? Why?

 

Who needs proof before invading a sovereign nation?

Who needs proof before putting American lives at risk (6000+ deaths, 50,000+ wounded)?

Just scare the American people with "mushroom clouds" on the horizon.

 

Mushroom clouds were all the rage in late 2002 and early 2003 -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell -- right up until the March 03 invasion.

 

I don't. All I needs is evidence to support my point of view.

We have been through this many times - you don't see these issues as I do. All I need is for someone make a creditable threat to my life and liberty and I take it seriously and do not need "proof" for proactive action.

The use of hyperbolic rhetoric did not start with Bush. If you did not support the use of military force, why pretend that his words (mushroom clouds) would make you go from not supporting military action to supporting military action. Name one person who changed their point of view based on the clip! You can not.