J'Accuse

Lew Rockwell ^ | 12/23/01 | Michael Peirce

[mafree]

Ping! Some powerful points in this article.

[redrock]

"How true you are."

To the Constitution...

Yes.

Which makes me a terrorist in the eyes of the current 'Justice Department'...and boot-licking members of the two major political parties.

Any other questions?????

redrock--Constitutional Terrorist

[No Truce With Kings]

Somehow though, I keep asking myself what bombing Kabul did to further that endeavor? We did after all know about the camps and caves where the Al Qaeda organization could be found. Isn’t the shortest distance between two points a straight line? Not here in never never land.

Normally I check out after reading the first two paragraphs of anything from Lew Rockwell, because of the blather level. However, this one is more coherent, and less hysterical than most, so it actually merits mature consideration.

That said, the quote from the article highlights why Lew Rockwell has made itself irrelevant -- a fatuous belief that the direct route is the quickest way to achieve anything. It ain't true in war, it ain;t true in love, and it ain't true in politics.

The shortest route to Paris from Germany was through the Maginot Line. Had the Nazis followed the Lew Rockwell dictum that the shortest route between two points was through a straight line, Hitler would have been heaved out of office by Janury 1941 -- presuming of course, that Nazi Germany did not fold like tissue, when Stalin attacked them in the East.

Similarly, the shortest route to Kuwait City was over the beaches. Fortunately, Saddam Hussain subscribed to the Lew Rockwell School of Strategy, and set most of defences in fixed positions guarding the straight lines between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait City. We hit him north of Kuwait, and the rest was history.

If most of us had taken a straight line approach towards winning a mate (Hey babe -- you turn me on, Let's get married, and see how many babies we can make) we would probably be on our way to eliminating ourselves from the gene pool. An indirect, gradual campaign is the most successful approach.

Guess what. Politics works the same way. The liberals are masters of incrementalism. It is not a straight-line approach. It is indirect and gradual. But Lew Rockwell prefers -- or certainly seems to prefer -- the political equivalent of storming the Maginot Line. Go straight into the thickest part of the resistance.

To me this may be glorious, but it is not war -- or politics. I'll let the Lew Rockwell types drink that type of ideological Kool-Aid, and they are welcome to it.

By the way -- read Basil Lidell-Hart's book On Strategy or Sun Tsu before criticizing American military strategy.

[saminfl]

I cannot find anything to disagree with.

I can't believe it!!! YOu can't find anything to disagree with when the author has to use omissions and distortions to make his point. Tell me again would you want Saddam Hussien in control of Saudi oil?

[Cultural Jihad]

I accuse American conservatives...

I accuse American libertarians of not being conservatives at all, but rather moral-liberal ideologues who largely agree with the DNC, the Greens, and the Spartacist League on moral issues.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

"who obviously thinks we give a damn."

CP, I've noticed that about a LOT of "conservatives" lately. They DON'T give a damn about conserving the freedom they themselves enjoyed for future generations. Including, it would seem, their own offspring. "Godgov is GOOD"!! Peace and love, George.

[diotima]

Thanks for the ping.

As usual it is always refreshing to see a substantive refutation of the points the author is making, rather then catchy little, one line "zingers" about Lew Rockwell. < / sarcasm >

Your Paleo-libertarian friend,
Dio.

[al_possum39]

I accuse American libertarians of not being conservatives at all, but rather moral-liberal ideologues who largely agree with the DNC, the Greens, and the Spartacist League on moral issues.

But this guy seems to be against most everything that the DNC, Greens, etc. are for with regards to moral issues. He sounds more like a Keyester.

[AshleyMontagu]

I don't really know why I do it but I systematically ignore all Lew Rockwell posts.

Umm, you're here aren't you? LOL

[one2many]

Good post. There is plenty of evidence on this thread as to just how stupid most of the products of the public schools are.

What is worse than being ignorant?

Believing that you are not.

Thanks again; Peirce is a good man!

[annalex]

unpleasant truths

Pierce is right in more places than he is wrong here, but this is where he is wrong:

Protecting its citizens form foreign invasion is the foremost legitimate government function. This government is doing a god-awful amount of illegitimate or purely evil things, both domestically and internationally. Fighting a preemptive war on the 9/11 bombers and their organization, however clumsily, is still the legitimate government function, supported by the Constitution and by the just war tenets of natural law. One who, like many authors at lewrockwell.com, rattles off a long litany of grievances against the government without any attempt to distinguish between legitimate and non-legitimate grievances can get only one response:

Je m'en fout.

[annalex]

My Rhodesian is getting rusty to move this conversation along.

[Jefferson Adams]

Aside from his comments concerning Israel, I totally agree with this writer. It's truly a pity that so few Americans can see the Truth through the "patriotism."

[saminfl]

The Gulf War was an immoral war thrust upon the American people by a corrupt George Bush and massive propaganda.

You guys can never admit you're wrong can you? It is a waste of time trying to respond to the LRC bunch.

[Huck]

It's really just a small group of freepers who do most of the bashing

I'm 5'10". I'm no John Wayne but I would hardly call that small. But seriously, this article is terribly flawed, and in a most predictable and boring way.

[dirtboy]

Saddam Hussein has never been a threat to the security of the United States.

So Saddam Hussein being in a position to control the oil output of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is not a threat to our security? I agree that liberating Kuwait was a fig leaf for the underlying oil issues - but those issues were vital to the economic and security interests of this country - with control over that much oil output, Hussien would be in a position to be the key player in setting oil prices, which would have had devastating effects on the global economy.

[Sandy]

His main point is that government critics are not necessarily evil people or leftists or unpatriotic. It was horribly edited, mostly just a rant, but I still agree with much of what he says, especially, "to pretend that this government should get our unequivocal support is a dangerous fantasy."