Where are the conservatives speaking out against this idiocy? Not at The Corner. Try Dan Larison:
Judicial tyrants have certainly given them a convenient scapegoat this year, but just pore over some of the more obnoxious election appeals and watch how they insult the intelligence and common sense of the voters. For Tony Blankley, if conservatives abstain from voting GOP they would be as stupid as if they responded to GOP abuses by eating excrement. For Rick Santorum, to fail to vote for him is to usher in the apocalyptic age of neo-Hitlerism replete with masses of Venezuelan soldiers seizing the commanding heights of Andean passes and looking down hungrily on the plains of Argentina and the jungles of Brazil! (How any of this would even remotely be our concern is one of those things that no one ever bothers to explain–don’t Argentina and Brazil have rather large populations and their own armies?) For Michael Novak, should the predictions prove true, the people will have bought in to a left-wing propaganda circus designed to “hurt” Mr. Bush. Rather than regarding this as an excellent example of the press finally doing some small part of its job in checking an abusive executive, Novak sees it as treachery. Only praise is meet for the emperor. In all this, he allows monomania on pro-life questions to excuse all else that the GOP has done–not because they have actually done anything, but because they have said all the right things (for the most part). One wonders just how much misrule such people would be willing to tolerate for the sake of an abstract commitment to defending life that is rarely, if ever, put into practice.
To watch these people mock the public’s likely preferences in this election as just so much muddle-headedness and left-wing manipulation is infuriating. As is often the case with democratists, it is not the actual functioning of accountable, elected government that they admire, but the advantageous political end-result that works in favour of them and their interests. Thus, this year, the result is coming out wrong and so they must either berate the nation for its stupidity (Blankley) its lack of awareness (Santorum) or, in this case, simply deny that it is going to happen–because there is no way that the nation would be so stupid or irresponsible as to vote out the glorious Republicans who have done so much for us all. The drive to hold Mr. Bush and his party somewhat accountable for what they have done is described here as an attempt to “hurt” the President, as if checking an abusive executive was a heinous assault rather than the proper functioning of our system of government.
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Mark, do you deny that you believe Buchanan's and Raimundo's analysis of the Middle East?
Well, Mr. Prosecutor, I suppose that would require me to know what there "analysis" of "the Middle East" is. Raimondo I *think* I have linked to once (enough for a guilt-by-association guy like you, but not especially helpful for a "somebody sent me an interesting link once and I posted it" guy like me). So, since I know nothing about Raimondo's "analysis of the Middle East" beyond "he opposes the war" I'm afraid I don't know if I agree with it or not. I do oppose the war. But that hardly makes a me a soulmate with everybody else who opposes it.
Buchanan, likewise, has said a number of interesting things about our adventures in Empire building which I have linked to. That hardly makes me deeply familiar with his "analysis of the Middle East" either (though again, as your stuck-in-March-2003 take on the world finds it incredibly damning to so much as say Buchanan's name that will not matter).
Does the Prosecution wish to ask the defendant any further questions?>
Mark, you seem to be the only person in the blogosphere who links to sources you actually don't bother reading or analyzing.
The mere fact that you describe the Iraq operation as "empire building" shows that you agree with Buchanan's and Raimondo's analysis.
If the Iraq operation was "empire building," then why didn't the United States annex Iraq as a protectorate? Why bother with trying to install any semblance of democratic government?
If this is "empire building," then why didn't the French, British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgians and Germans attempt to do the same thing with their "colonies"?
If this is "empire building," then what would you call the Allied occupation of Germany and the U.S. occupation of Japan after WWII?>
Joe:
Deep cleansing breaths.
I didn't call it "intelligent empire building." The Big Ideas of the End to Evil crowd about planting a democratic state in the heart of the Islamosphere have not gone according to plan, largely because the Administration appears to have given no thought to a post-Saddam Iraq. But given that, once the whole WMD excuse went south after our "solid intelligence" blew up in our faces, the *entire excuse* for this fiasco was that we were going to remake Iraq in our image and likeness as a democracy, I'd call that an imperialist dream. Part of the City on Hill component to the American makeup that has been with us since the Puritans. That the Bushies are lousy at it is not much help for the Iraqis, who must now endure our hapless experiment.
Would that we had in charge the people who oversaw the occupation of Germany and Japan, and not these clowns who have bungled so badly.>
The Big Ideas of the End to Evil crowd about planting a democratic state in the heart of the Islamosphere have not gone according to plan, largely because the Administration appears to have given no thought to a post-Saddam Iraq.
The deepest thinking and most careful planning would have done no good. There's simply no way to "plant a democratic state in the heart of the Islamosphere." The whole enterprise is based on trying to square a circle.>
the *entire excuse* for this fiasco was that we were going to remake Iraq in our image and likeness as a democracy, I'd call that an imperialist dream...
Then you really don't know what imperialism is ... especially since you then pine for those who ran the occupations of Germany and Japan, which were intended to do the same things that the occupation of Iraq was supposed to do.
Mark, forming a democracy in Iraq wasn't an "imperialist dream" or a Wilsonian fantasy. It had a very hard-headed aspect: The world, let alone the U.S., cannot afford another Afghanistan -- IOW, another authoritarian state that terrorists could use as a base. Zarqawi said before the first Iraqi elections that if Iraq became democratic, the jihadists would suffer a major defeat. Why do you think attacks are escalating now? So that the jihadists can get the American people to soil their underwear, politically speaking. Is that so hard for people to understand?
Mark, the U.S. has four options concerning Islamic terror:
1. Capitulation, which isn't an option.
2. Nuclear megadeath from Casablanca to Karachi.
3. All-out war ala WWII, which could well be in our future whether we like it or not.
4. Promoting democracy in the Arab world. Of course, this was quite risky. Of course, the Bush Administration could have done much better in prosecuting such a goal. Nevertheless, I think even you would agree that this is a better alternative than the other three.>
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