Posted on 07/30/2008 4:27:52 PM PDT by rightwinghour
I watched Ron Paul on Glenn Beck today and as usual I was amazed that he is just about the only politician in Washington talking about the real issues. Neither McCain nor Obama will talk about monetary policy. They are scared to, because they know the system we have is unconstitutional and that the only way to fix things is to go back to constitutional money. But that would hurt, so it wouldn't be prudent to bring it up...
What is dishonest is that you are a fan of straw man arguments. I'll start calling you out on those if you want. As for your claim that you have successfully refuted every one of my points, that is patently false. You have not only dropped an argument or two, but you have not successfully defended your position on any of the points. Here's one of your dropped arguments I'd really like to see answered:
Oh, I see that you are also part of the "blame America first" crowd. Liberating millions of people from a mass-murdering dictator is a bad thing because we are being, God forbid, intrusive. Puhleeeze.
Again, the Constitution does not authorize us to use our military to liberate millions of people from their dictator. Using your rules of engagement, we should invade North Korea, Cuba, a great deal of African nations, etc.
Before we declared independence, we enjoyed the "protection" that the Brits had been buying from the pirates for a long time. The Brits bought the protection by paying tribute to the pirates, and our own vessels were issued passes so that we could enjoy that same protection. When we declared independence, we had no passes, and had to come up with the money to pay our own tribute to them. So basically we tried appeasement by paying them off, and we did so for like 15 years. Jefferson didn't even recommission the navy until 1794, so without the payments (which were bankrupting us) our merchant ships were defenseless. The Barbary pirates had been basically ruling the Mediterranean since the Crusades. When Jefferson took office in 1801, the head honcho pirate from Tripoli demanded a ton of money from the new administration, and Jefferson refused. Then the pirates declared war on us, and we defended ourselves accordingly. So, the reason we got attacked was money, not because they were radical muslims who wanted to kill all infidels. If you can buy any kind of "protection" from "radical" muslims, they ain't "radical" muslims.
Perhaps you could tell me were I said WWII was an illegal war? Or are you just making things up now? I know Congress declared war in WWII, I even said so in a post that it was the last declared war we had. My statement about proposing an amendment was in reference to our military actions AFTER that. Our involvement in WWII was avoidable. The Japanese would not attacked us if our foreign policy toward them had been different. Our actions had consequences, as every action does.
He’s neither; perhaps you’re just another troll?
Once again you are wrong, wrong, wrong. It's getting tiring educating the Paulites. First, even before 1996, there wasn't much European and canadian investment in Cuba, so your reasoning is shot down right there. I sure didn't hear of any lavish beach resorts closing in Cuba in 1996! Second, just a few months after the H-B Act was passed, Mexico and Canada and England passed laws to neutralize it. In addition, the EU passed a regulation declaring it unenforceable and permitted recovery of damages. So, your rebuttal is shot down. Nice try, though. Learn the facts next time, OK?
The second part of this is the part you mostly dropped from your response. I had stated that a policy of non interventionism would accomplish trade relations without killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing the world to look at us as a bully. The focus of your response was simply this: "No, it wouldn't. Not even close". So is it your opinion that hundreds of thousands of people have to die and the world must view us as a bully in order for trade relations to exist?
You are misquoting my rebuttal. I said that there wouldn't be any trade at all with a dictator because his economy would be in a shambles, so we wouldn't be missing much! You seem to think that we are passing up a great trading partner, which is ridiculous on it's face. How's that great Zimbabwe economy doing? Check it lately? LOL! Boy, we sure are missing some great trade there, arn't we!
Technical? Perhaps you simply don't know the difference between declaring war and authorizing force, otherwise you wouldn't make such a statement. A declaration of war is, for one thing, Constitutional. Secondly, it is very precise in its objectives. It states when, where, why, and how the war is to be fought, and the goals for victory are clear. In contrast, an authorization of force is where a cowardly Congress passes its authority to declare wars on to the executive branch. It allows the President to decide when, where, why, and how the "war" is to be fought. This is exactly the kind of thing the Framers were afraid of, and is why they gave Congress the power to declare war. They had just come from a form of government in which one man had to power to drag the whole nation into war, and they didn't want a repeat of that. Perhaps now you understand the difference between the two, and maybe you will drop the preposterous notion that I am equivocating.
Nope. You said it was a "unconstitutional undeclared war", I said that the Congress firmly expressed it's will to use the US military in a foreign offensive. Whether they passed off the details of the invasion to the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces is really besides the point and shows a lot of weakness in your rebuttal argument.
I'm sorry, but Vietnam does count. It goes to the very issue we are discussing, which is the failure of authorizations of force. In addition to Vietnam, add Korea and Iraq.
Wrong again! You said.."and I don't think it is a coincidence that we haven't been very successful since then when we have invaded other countries.". Huh? We held the line well in Korea. South Korea is a large bastion of free market capitalism, last I checked. Iraq is also looking quite well these days. That's looking quite successful as compared to Saddam's mass graves, rape rooms, etc. Even small countries that we invaded like Grenada are much better off than the marxists who tried to take over. Your argument is silly and stupid and is not fact-based. And for Vietnam, it's disingenious for your argument to include a case where we purposely withdrew when we were actually winning the campaign!
It's funny that you mention the no fly zones. The no fly zones were established by the US, UK, and France, and cover about half of Iraq and of course Iraqi aircraft are not allowed to fly in them. They cited UN Resolution 688 as their authority to establish the no fly zones, but it says nothing about them, and the UN Secretary General declared them illegal. So what you have here are illegally enforced no fly zones over a sovereign country, and you are telling me that Saddam was the aggressor here? We bombed Iraq pretty much constantly for twelve years, flew some 40,000 sorties, and Saddam is to blame for firing at (and missing every time) our fighter planes?
Wrong yet again. Stop getting all your info from wikipedia and you'll do better on this forum. The facts are that Saddam did recognize the validity of the no-fly zones until 1998 when he kicked out the weapons inspectors and then we and England responded to that by starting the Desert Fox attack campaign at which time Saddam then said he would no longer abide by the no-fly zones. Of course Saddam was shooting at our planes well before all this Desert Fox happened. I think you need a refresher in history.
I said if enough people want change and they want it bad enough, they will make the change happen, and that is a completely true statement. Your argument is simply that they don't have enough guns, but even that doesn't invalidate my argument. If enough people want to overthrow their dictator, they will overwhelm any dictatorial force in front of them. Does this happen all the time? No, and I never said it did.
And my point was that it was quite a longshot and history is littered with failed resistance movements. You then waffled in your rebuttal by saying that "I'm talking about a resistance within a country against the tyrannical rule of its own government, not one country against the occupation of another". That statement is really ancillary to our argument. You clearly meant to say that those people are on their own and they should take up arms themselves with NO HELP from us. Well, with all that civil unrest from a long, protracted resistance movement with no help from us, the economy of that country is going to take some serious lumps, and that dovetails nicely (for me) into our other argument about economic trading conditions with a dictatorial regime! You are actually shooting down your own other argument!
I used the example of the American Revolution as an example because such a low percentage of our population actually got involved and we still succeeded. Perhaps that is why you drew the conclusion that I believe all resistance movements can be successful. Quite a jump in logic, but based on the rest of your argumentation, it seems like the norm.
No, speaking of straw, you were grasping at straws and attempting to depict a rare occurence of a successful resistance movement as commonplace in order to buttress your argument. I pointed out that it is very rare indeed to have a successful resistance movement and your evidence for your argument is quite thin (and selective) and history is littered with so many failed attempts.
And you still didn't answer my question: Where do you get these ideas?
You said.."Having free run of the planet assumes that no other nation in the world has the capability to defend themselves, and it assumes Saddam had the drive and the means to conquer the world. Where do you get these ideas? I would fight anyone who would try to take my freedoms away."...I get those ideas from history, something that you need a refresher course in. Hitler started small, in a country the size of Montana and found the means and drive to conquer a good chunk of the planet. So did the Romans. How about Alexander the Great?
I'm sorry, perhaps I missed the part where you presented evidence showing that the third world country known as Iraq, who couldn't shoot down a single one of our planes over the no fly zone, had the intent and capability to come over here (undetected, mind you) and shoot nukes of some type at us. Methinks I am not the dense one here.
No, you are the dense one. Dirty bombs are not that complicated and Saddam wouldn't have had a problem finding some suicide kook to bring one in, expecially before pre-9/11 security. As for "intent", don't make me laugh. Surely, you must know from Saddam's FBI handlers while in jail(CBS 60 minutes show) that Saddam was hell bent on reconstituting his WMD program if we didn't invade in 2003. Since he had all those very experienced terrorists living in Iraq to help him, (my post #35 on this thread) spelled out in
http://www.husseinandterror.com/
That's the problem with you cower-and-hide Paulites, you don't face any threats until too late and the enemy has amassed great power. Germany was crippled after WWI, they made a strong comeback pretty quick didn't they? There's my evidence, I didn't think I would have to spell out such elementary history lessons, but then again, you are quite dense.
Again, the Constitution does not authorize us to use our military to liberate millions of people from their dictator. Using your rules of engagement, we should invade North Korea, Cuba, a great deal of African nations, etc.
Last I checked, the Constitution does not list approved reasons for war. Congress can declare war for any damn reason it wants to. I challenge you to provide constitutionally stated reasons.
In addition, on your fudging about "declaring war" versus "use of force", I also challenge you to point out where in the Constitution where it spells out the specific format for the proper language to be used in the "declaration of war". You can't because it's not there in Article 1, section 8 of the constitution. Without such specific language, it is easy to conclude that a Congressional declaration of "use of force" language can easily qualify as "declaring war".
First, before 1996, there was about $700 million worth of business being done between Cuba and other countries. That's nothing to sneeze at, especially for Cuba, who we have been squeezing like an anaconda for many years. Second, if sanctions were totally lifted against Cuba, there would obviously be alot of business between Cuba and the US. It's ignorant to argue otherwise. Therefore, my reasoning is not shot down. Your whole point is that there is no business to be had with a dictatorship, and you're even arguing against yourself here. If the acts passed by Europe and Canada nullified completely the Helms-Burton Act, then it stands to reason that business continued between those countries and Cuba. Why would they seek to to business there if none was to be had? And do you really believe if we had never imposed sanctions on Cuba so many years ago that we wouldn't be enjoying millions of dollars worth of business with them right now?
You are misquoting my rebuttal. I said that there wouldn't be any trade at all with a dictator because his economy would be in a shambles, so we wouldn't be missing much! You seem to think that we are passing up a great trading partner, which is ridiculous on it's face. How's that great Zimbabwe economy doing? Check it lately? LOL! Boy, we sure are missing some great trade there, arn't we!
Thank you for correcting me, that makes it even better. The statement "no trade at all" is rather definite and doesn't allow for any wiggle room. So apparently, you believe the EU, Canada, and other countries got all upset for no reason over the Helms-Burton Act? Do you have any proof that there is no trade at all in Cuba? Do you even understand what economic sanctions do to a country's economy? You seem to think dictatorships automatically have an economy in shambles. While they don't have the best economies in the world, you need to realize that the sanctions we impose against these countries are a major reason why you see their economies in a shambles. Some are worse than others, but you cannot make a blanket statement and separate the two and simply say dictatorships economies are inherently in shambles. Your example of Zimbabwe is an equally asinine one. For years, many countries have been imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe, and Bush just recently strengthened ours against them. Why would economic sanctions be imposed against a country if they would have no effect? You really need to think this through. So, to sum up, you have not established that a non interventionist foreign policy could not foster trade with a dictatorship. Furthermore, you still haven't answered the question: is it your opinion that hundreds of thousands of people have to die and the world must view us as a bully in order for trade relations to exist?
Nope. You said it was a "unconstitutional undeclared war", I said that the Congress firmly expressed it's will to use the US military in a foreign offensive. Whether they passed off the details of the invasion to the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces is really besides the point and shows a lot of weakness in your rebuttal argument.
Perhaps you just didn't read. They not only passed of the details of the invasion, they passed off everything to the president. The how, when, where, and why, all of it. This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what the Framers wanted for the executive, except perhaps the monarchist Alexander Hamilton. There's no weakness in my rebuttal, you just simply refuse to recognize a difference.
Wrong again! You said.."and I don't think it is a coincidence that we haven't been very successful since then when we have invaded other countries.". Huh? We held the line well in Korea. South Korea is a large bastion of free market capitalism, last I checked. Iraq is also looking quite well these days. That's looking quite successful as compared to Saddam's mass graves, rape rooms, etc. Even small countries that we invaded like Grenada are much better off than the marxists who tried to take over. Your argument is silly and stupid and is not fact-based. And for Vietnam, it's disingenious for your argument to include a case where we purposely withdrew when we were actually winning the campaign!
Yeah, we held a line in Korea, and that is your measure of success. The fact is that the war is still not officially over. The pull back down the peninsula was the longest retreat in American history. The best we accomplished there was a strategic and tactical stalemate. We didn't treat it like a war because it was not declared as such by Congress, and since it was not declared, not even the reserves were called up. An ammunition build up wasn't even called for, even though the stock levels of some types were virtually non existent. I believe if we had declared war formally on North Korea, we would have had a decisive victory in a short amount of time. As for Iraq, gosh we've been there longer than we were in WWII and we still haven't completed the mission, whatever THAT is these days. And yeah, Vietnam still counts, because you fail to realize that if we had declared war, we would not have pulled out, especially since we were winning.
Wrong yet again. Stop getting all your info from wikipedia and you'll do better on this forum. The facts are that Saddam did recognize the validity of the no-fly zones until 1998 when he kicked out the weapons inspectors and then we and England responded to that by starting the Desert Fox attack campaign at which time Saddam then said he would no longer abide by the no-fly zones. Of course Saddam was shooting at our planes well before all this Desert Fox happened. I think you need a refresher in history.
I don't need a refresher in history, and nothing I said before was proven wrong by your statements above. The no fly zones were not authorized by the UN, and that is a fact. Whether or not Saddam believed they were legal and abided by them at any time does not negate that fact.
And my point was that it was quite a longshot and history is littered with failed resistance movements. You then waffled in your rebuttal by saying that "I'm talking about a resistance within a country against the tyrannical rule of its own government, not one country against the occupation of another". That statement is really ancillary to our argument. You clearly meant to say that those people are on their own and they should take up arms themselves with NO HELP from us. Well, with all that civil unrest from a long, protracted resistance movement with no help from us, the economy of that country is going to take some serious lumps, and that dovetails nicely (for me) into our other argument about economic trading conditions with a dictatorial regime! You are actually shooting down your own other argument!
I brought up resistance movements to begin with, and I brought them up in the context of taking place within a country against the tyrannical rule of its own government. I have not waffled back and forth, I have been very consistent on this and have had to continually correct you when you try to take the discussion in a direction that strays from this point. And yes, it is no business of ours to get involved in another country's problems. I've already shown that your assumption of economic ruin is faulty because sanctions always exacerbate the conditions. And is it your assumption that a resistance will last a long time and the economic conditions will therefore remain in a bad state because of that? Seems like you are arguing against yourself. Your assumption seems to be that a resistance will be so successful (although not completely successful in this example) that it will cripple the economy for an undetermined amount of time.
No, speaking of straw, you were grasping at straws and attempting to depict a rare occurence of a successful resistance movement as commonplace in order to buttress your argument. I pointed out that it is very rare indeed to have a successful resistance movement and your evidence for your argument is quite thin (and selective) and history is littered with so many failed attempts.
Nope, like I said before, I used the example of the American Revolution because such a low percentage of our population actually got involved and we still succeeded. I've never argued that success of resistance movements is commonplace. Stop lying.
You said.."Having free run of the planet assumes that no other nation in the world has the capability to defend themselves, and it assumes Saddam had the drive and the means to conquer the world. Where do you get these ideas? I would fight anyone who would try to take my freedoms away."...I get those ideas from history, something that you need a refresher course in. Hitler started small, in a country the size of Montana and found the means and drive to conquer a good chunk of the planet. So did the Romans. How about Alexander the Great?
Well, Mr. History, perhaps you could enlighten me as to how Hitler came to power to begin with. What made conditions so favorable toward him and his ideas in the 30's? You see, in order to use Hitler as an example, you need to understand how he got where he did, and why he did what he did. Rome really can't be used here. Although they were conquerors, they had a republican form of government for the most part. That's not a dictatorship, which is what we were talking about. Alexander never got around to molding the government of the territories he had taken, and when he died it all fell apart rather quickly. This all just goes to the fact that empires don't last.
No, you are the dense one. Dirty bombs are not that complicated and Saddam wouldn't have had a problem finding some suicide kook to bring one in, expecially before pre-9/11 security. As for "intent", don't make me laugh. Surely, you must know from Saddam's FBI handlers while in jail(CBS 60 minutes show) that Saddam was hell bent on reconstituting his WMD program if we didn't invade in 2003. Since he had all those very experienced terrorists living in Iraq to help him, (my post #35 on this thread) spelled out in http://www.husseinandterror.com/ That's the problem with you cower-and-hide Paulites, you don't face any threats until too late and the enemy has amassed great power. Germany was crippled after WWI, they made a strong comeback pretty quick didn't they? There's my evidence, I didn't think I would have to spell out such elementary history lessons, but then again, you are quite dense.
And so we've come full circle Grasshopper. Hopefully you remember my main contention this whole time has been that we need a foreign policy of non interventionism, and that our interventions abroad have caused most of our problems with other nations. Non interventionism provides opportunities in trade, and it fosters peace between ourselves and other nations. If this type of foreign policy had been used toward the middle east and the rest of the world, there would have been no threat of Saddam sending somebody in with a dirty bomb. Also, our security of the border would be top notch, since our military wouldn't be spread out in 130 countries instead of protecting the homeland from enemies foreign and domestic. Your contention has been that we have to go over there before they come over here, but you never ask why they want to come over here. Using your little logic about the dirty bomb and Saddam, virtually anyone from any country could have come over with a dirty bomb before 9/11, but we have not attacked everybody simply because the possibility exists. Oh yeah, and Germany did make a comeback after they were slapped down with the treaty of Versailles. Here's a hint for you: that treaty is one of the things that eventually made Hitler so popular. I think the only argument you dropped this time is the one about police. Good job, Grasshopper.
Perhaps you missed everything in the Constitution that says our government is to provide for the common defense of the Union. Congress cannot "declare war for any damn reason it wants to". Now you're just being foolish. Your statement assumes that our founding fathers rose up against a tyrant who was a warmonger, won their independence, and then didn't seek to limit our government with the Constitution so that we wouldn't be tyrannical like King George was. Come on, man. Just give this one up.
In addition, on your fudging about "declaring war" versus "use of force", I also challenge you to point out where in the Constitution where it spells out the specific format for the proper language to be used in the "declaration of war". You can't because it's not there in Article 1, section 8 of the constitution. Without such specific language, it is easy to conclude that a Congressional declaration of "use of force" language can easily qualify as "declaring war".
It does not specifically spell out what language is to be used, and that is actually totally beside the point. The fundamental difference between a declaration of war and the authorizations of force simply will not go away just because you ignore them. A use of force authorization gives all the power to the president. A declaration of war gives Congress all the power in the matter, and simply tells the president, as commander in chief, what the military has to accomplish. Unless you can prove there is no difference between these two, you still have no leg to stand on.
You seem to have forgotten your own point, so I'll do the hard work for you and remind you what has transpired so far. Your original point was that muslims hate us because we are not radical muslims like them and they will not stop until there is a global caliphate. I then said they may hate everybody who is not muslim, but they don't ATTACK everybody. You then brought up the Barbary pirates and claimed Ron Paul would not have supported what Jefferson did. I responded and said Paul would have supported it, because they declared war on us and we defended ourselves. You then responded and said that you supposed that I thought our interventions abroad caused them to attack us during that time. I then responded with my last post, which you largely ignored and twisted. So, keeping in mind your original point was that radical muslims attack us because we are not radical muslims like them and they will not stop until there is a global caliphate, lets revisit my last post to you. I gave you the "long winded history lesson" because you sorely needed it. It was necessary for me to do this in order to establish why the Barbary pirates attacked. They attacked because we wouldn't not pay them any more money. Here's a quote from my last post, which you obviously ignored: So, the reason we got attacked was money, not because they were radical muslims who wanted to kill all infidels. If you can buy any kind of "protection" from "radical" muslims, they ain't "radical" muslims. Radical muslim extremists attack without regard to monetary gain. The Barbary pirates were doing what they were doing specifically for the money. Equating them with radical muslim extremists is ignorant at best, and dishonest at the worst. Furthermore, your whole argument against foreign interventions causing problems on down the line is ludicrous. Can you honestly say that our interventions in the middle east contributed nothing to the 9/11 attacks?
I said nothing about WWII not being a properly declared war. I've consistently said it was the LAST declared war we had.
Do you honestly think we should have sat by and let hitler attack our allies and commit worldwide genocide as we did literally nothing to stop him in the vain hope that he wouldn't come after us after finishing everyone else off?
We did sit by and let Hitler attack our allies. We only got into it when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, Hitler declared war on us only because Japan's attack was so successful. Before the Japanese attacked, Hitler had no plans to declare war on the US. Up until that time Hitler had even ordered his uboats and aircraft to not attack Americans and to ignore American provocations.
Do you honestly think we should have just sat by as the japanese made demands of the dutch east indies and seized indochina militarily?
Yeah, I do think we should have sat buy. It had nothing to do with us, and our interventions only served to get us involved in world war.
How dare we refuse to trade with them... I have news for you, if giving in to demands prevented attacks, israel would be the safest nation on earth, but I suspect that a closet neo-nazi already knows this. I don't think you're as ignorant as you pretend to be.
I'm not sure where you came up with this "giving in to demands" bit, since that was never one of my points. And perhaps you could stop calling me a neo nazi, since I am not one. If you do want to continue calling me one, at least provide evidence that I am one.
Short term memory problems, hmm? Again, your point was that muslims hate us because we are not radical muslims like them and they will not stop until there is a global caliphate. I've proven this false more than once already. If your statement were true, every country would be under attack by terrorists at all times. The Barbary pirates can be called a kind of terrorist, but then again there are only about a hundred definitions of "terrorist". You must remember that they were pirates, and they lived off of extorting money from people who traveled in their territory. They were hardly radical muslims in the sense that you use the term in your original point. Radical muslims don't stop a jihad because they get paid some money.
I'm pretty sure we could have avoided it if the Allied and Central powers could have avoided WWI.
I can see you've got your hands full here, but I was wondering if you could give me a quick definition of "a military occupation of Palestine."
Where is Palestine located and who exactly would be occupying it?
What makes you think Hitler could have "finished off" the western hemisphere to begin with? Do you really believe he had an unending supply of warm bodies to fight his war? Do you really believe his socialist system would have survived long enough to expand his empire to the US? And do you assume the US would have no military intelligence on Hitler's movements, and that Hitler could somehow sneak up on us? And why do YOU believe Hitler declared war on us only after the Japanese attacked us? This will be interesting to hear!
I have no doubt in my mind that you just exposed your true feelings as a neo-nazi paulogist.
Then your mind has no grasp on what a neo nazi is.
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