[WFTR]

I think you rightly criticize some bad thinking here, but the substance of those criticisms is obscured by your personal attacks on Pat Buchanan and to a lesser extent Robert Locke. I agree that it is foolish to see expansionism as inherently bad today but still applaud the expansionism of the past. Whether expansionism is good or bad depends on the situation and what is gained and what cost must be paid. Anyone who tries to paint expansionism and the projection of power with a broad brush is being foolish. Likewise, multipolarism shouldn't be an end in itself. We should do what is best for our country in every situation. If the result is a unipolar world, then so be it.

Pat Buchanan is wrong about some things, but he's been right about others. When he's been right, he's been willing to tell some truths that make the average sheeple very uncomfortable. A personal attack against him is a bad thing because it makes one appear to be working out a grudge over some of the truth that he has told.

Saving a few more jobs
Bill

[Richard Poe]

I think you rightly criticize some bad thinking here, but the substance of those criticisms is obscured by your personal attacks on Pat Buchanan and to a lesser extent Robert Locke.

I know Robert Locke personally and like him. I attacked his ideas, not his person, in the above critique.

As for Pat Buchanan, I never met the man, and harbor no ill will toward him. However, his ideas are unsound. They cannot be embraced without employing Orwellian "doublethink" -- exactly as described above -- and I have noticed that every writer who contributes to the American Conservative quickly adopts Buchananite doublethink.

If pointing out this fact constitutes an unseemly "personal attack" in your mind, this would suggest that you consider Buchanan's core opinions sacrosanct and above criticism. Your discomfort with forthright discussion only deepens my impression that an oddly cult-like atmosphere prevails in the Buchananite camp.