Posted on 07/27/2006 5:46:22 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
Ah. The bottom line. Something often simply ignored around here.
Actually, I tend to agree with those who advocate killing more Muslims. We should target terrorists and terrorist supporters, but I think we are being too careful about collateral damage. We need to kill them until all of the terrorists, terrorist supporters, and terrorist sympathizers are dead or until the remaining ones surrender. We can be friends someday just as we are now friends with the Japanese. I enjoyed the coverage of President Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister at Graceland, but we can't forget that this friendship wouldn't be possible if we hadn't hit them hard enough to make them surrender in 1945. If we'd kept trying to "win hearts and minds," we'd still be fighting WWII.
While I agree with hitting our enemies hard, I recognize that there are subtle approaches that will help us accomplish those goals. The article failed to show anything that proves that all of what we're seeing isn't part of some strategy. I'm not even going so far as to say that I think the president has found the right strategy, but the article failed to persuade me that his strategy is wrong or that Dr. Rice is the wrong person to fulfill the Secretary of State's role in that strategy.
Bill
Ugg! You gottum that right!
I like girls quite a bit, and have four of them for daughters. But I wouldn't choose any one of them, nor even my lovely wife, to block for me in a tackle-football game. There are a million things they can do brilliantly, and that's not one of them. (Is your car mechanic a woman?)
I also wouldn't ask them, or any woman, to represent me in a game of "chicken" with nuclear weapons, which is what being Secretary of State amounts to. It's a public game of psychological dominance, and the best men are way better at it than the best women.
Mind you, when these guys leave the negotiating table and go home, they're probably jelly if their wives are mad at them. Women are fearless in their own houses. It doesn't mean they have the confidence and credibility to be secretaries of state.
Even Ann Coulter, who is as good a female scrapper as I've seen, prefers to be a diva with a sharp tongue, rather than the unreadable heavy in the expensive suit across the table.
Great subject, and thanks for replying.
Well, I still think you're sexist, but Bush has confidence in Rice, as do most Republicans. That's really all that matters.
If "sexist" means "believes that differences between the sexes make members of one sex competent at tasks for which the other sex is incompetent," then I'm a sexist.
If the implication is that anyone who acknowledges that the sexes are competent at different things is mean for doing so, then it's just a silly statement, and in a sense dishonest.
Whether or not they like to talk about it, there's no one who doesn't believe that the sexes are what you might call "differentially competent." Conservative or liberal, feminist or sane, you know that a man can't nurse a baby. Women can't play center in the NBA. Women are great at picking up conversational cues that men miss. Most people would rather have a female nurse take care of them in a hospital. These are unquestioned, even unconscious. Everything else is a negotiation over the specifics.
I say the job of Secretary of State is over the line. Apparently, you don't. Putting a Marxist-invented name on my person is uncharitable, even if vague. It also seems weak logically to make your case as, "Nice people don't question a woman's competence to do a man's job." It's using sensibility to avoid tangling with the practical issue—as if feelings were more important than reality. You can do better than that.
I can't totally agree with the way some things are handled, but the differences have two causes. One source of difference with the president is that we are different people and no two people will agree on anything. The more frustrating source of difference is that the president must respond to the fact that too many people would rather put up with a loss of civil rights and civil liberties here in America than to take the strong action needed to defeat our enemies completely and thoroughly. Our nation can't win if too many of us are ambivalent about winning, and the president can't force people to have a will to win. The way some people act, I often think that they have no will to live in addition to having no will to win. I would like to see more stern articles taking Americans to task for a willingness to accept loss of freedom in exchange for the illusion of security and for half-baked notions of diversity and "fairness." Those articles would be justified. A hatchet job on Dr. Rice is not justified.
In any case, I can't think of anyone else whom I'd rather have in important positions of leadership in this country. I like the team that President Bush has assembled.
Bill
Was Margaret Thatcher a competent Prime Minister of Britain? I think she was, and was one of the best of the latter half of the 20th century.
You have the queer notion that women can't be diplomats or leaders of countries.
If it is not sexist, it is certainly luddite.
Our nation can't win if too many of us are ambivalent about winning, and the president can't force people to have a will to win.
I just had to repeat that. It can't be said too often and I often wonder if we are so "instant gratificationized" that it will take another 9/11 style attack to get people to wake up. Even then I fear that more blame will be directed towards the leaders in our own country, than at the goals and aspirations of our enemies.
There needs to be real investment by the adults in this country in trying to explain just what our enemies want. Unfortunately, the people talking about it are often labeled as needlessly alarmist.
Sometimes, I wonder if this is what Noah felt like. ; )
Thanks for giving me a nice chuckle. The advantage that Noah had is that the animals had more common sense than some of the people in this country who need saving.
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