Replies

Its proper when discussing someone to give them a heads up so that, if they want to respond, they may.

You should wait to hear from a Jewish person who feels hated by iconoclast for their religion before you label him an Anti-Semite.

And, any thoughts on how someone who would qualify as having an America-First philosophy could express themselves w/o running into knee-jerk accusations from defenders of the status-quo?

First of all, when it comes down to it, and you really pressure them, most people here believe in some variation of America first. But, if you really want to avoid accusations and suspicions, don't talk about conspiracies, etc. Talk in terms of interests, support your arguments with facts and describe how your solution is better for you, and better for me.

Because, I'm all for America first. But I also think in terms of longterm interests. And I am also a fairly moderate person. I am not going to go live in the woods as a bark eating hermit. Nor am I going to support banning ALL immigration, even as I believe that illegal immigration is a huge problem and must be stopped.

I think you'll find, with a few exceptions of course, most people on FR believe in generally the same things, to different degrees. And in different methodologies to achieving those ends, which is where most of our differences and divisions come into play.

Just be calm, rational, support your arguments, and try to retain a vestige of morality and understanding. Because Israel is a sore point for many Jews and Christians, and Taiwan is a sore point for many other immigrants, etc. etc. And there are many Hispanic conservatives who likely support stopping illegal immigration, but would resent being told they are illegitimate citizens of this country, or that all immigration is wrong.

The Know-Nothings lost, and they will never again be a power in America, without a very strange series of events taking place. But there's still plenty of room for America first. Because we aren't citizens of the world, but citizens of our country.

"Its proper when discussing someone to give them a heads up so that, if they want to respond, they may."

He can respond. The discussion was out in the open, but it was a response to someone else. Iconoclast is his/her own person, and should not feel slighted. If he was insulted by not being CC'ed, mea culpa.

"You should wait to hear from a Jewish person who feels hated by iconoclast for their religion before you label him an Anti-Semite."

Nope. If someone aligns themselves with someone who has made blatant antisemitic comments and agrees strongly with those comments, there's an incredibly short path to the label. Why should I have to wait for a Jew to respond before I criticize wrong thinking? That's cowardly.

You may have missed it in the post that you responded to, but we missed the chance to defend the Jews when this sort of nonsense started before, and the Reich moved quickly to capitalize on that lack of outside condemnation. It would be a worse tragedy if such horrors visited them again, considering we SHOULD recognize the pattern.

As for hearing from a Jewish person, I have family members who ARE indeed Jewish, one of which was in the US Army during the war. That fine gentleman was a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jew of all things, and lied about his name when he was captured. This saved him for a while, though they did eventually figure out his racial background, and trucked him off to a camp. He and his lifelong best freind were the only survivors of the breakout in which many of his fellow campmates were gunned down. I know a bit about this subject.

"And, any thoughts on how someone who would qualify as having an America-First philosophy could express themselves w/o running into knee-jerk accusations from defenders of the status-quo?"

Simply put, don't fall for leftist and/or isolationist dogma and actually try to understand that, in fact, there is no such thing as isolationism. I'm America First as far as I am concerned, and that includes going abroad to stop our avowed enemies from continuing to plot against us and our allies.

As far as defenders of the status quo, I assume you mean agreeing with our current course of action is considered such. If so, your view of status quo is very small. Status Quo is the nonsense of letting Saddam pop off weapons at our jets during the laughable ceasefire period. Status quo is also letting the terror states continue to go the way they have been going regarding us - now that we have brought the theatre of war to THEIR borders, via our Iraq troop presence, we can influence or directly spur change to that "status quo".