Posted on 02/16/2003 9:18:53 PM PST by Pokey78
THERE WAS A TIME--the 1960s, 1970s--when the political left in America favored wars of national liberation in countries ruled by dictators, some of them fascist dictators. True, the left would have installed communist dictatorships in their place. But at least leftists targeted enemies who were corrupt, brutal abusers of human rights.
Now the left has flipped. The effect of its crusade against war in Iraq would be the survival--indeed, the strengthening--of Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime. The left has brushed aside the pleas of Iraqi exiles, Kurds, and Shiite Muslims who are seeking liberation from Saddam's cruelty. Instead, leftists have targeted those who would aid the Iraqi dissidents, particularly the Bush administration.
The corruption of the left has deepened in recent years. At no time was this more evident than last Saturday when large antiwar protests were staged in New York, San Francisco, and other cities in the United States and around the world, including London. Did the demonstrators march on the Iraqi consulate in New York to demand an end to Saddam's murderous practices? No. Did they spend time condemning him in their speeches and placards? Nope. Did they come to the defense of Saddam's victims? No. The left now gives fascist dictators a pass. Its enemy is the United States.
No one has explained this better than British prime minister Tony Blair in a speech Saturday. If he took the antiwar demonstrators advice, Blair said, "there would be no war, but there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people . . . There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chamber which, if he is left in power, will be left in being."
In ignoring the 25 million Iraqis who suffer under Saddam's autocratic rule, the left has stripped any moral dimension from the antiwar cause. And its arguments for opposing a war of liberation in Iraq are either uninformed or merely stupid. Here are a few of those arguments:
(1) War will mean thousands of civilian casualties. If there's anything Saddam has produced in his nearly 25 years of rule in Iraq, it's civilian casualties. He ordered the gassing of thousands of innocent Kurds. He had thousands of Shiites murdered. His war against Iran caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and his invasion of Kuwait was marked by the killing of thousands of Kuwaiti civilians. Saddam has personally ordered the execution of thousands of Iraqis. He has allowed thousands of Iraqi children to die from starvation or lack of medicine.
Compare that with the few hundred civilians killed in Afghanistan by the U.S. military. In fact, the American intervention saved hundreds of thousands who would have starved to death otherwise. And in the 1991 Gulf War relatively few Iraqi civilians were killed. In truth, a war that deposes Saddam in Iraq will save civilian lives, thousands of them.
(2) It's a war for Iraqi oil. There's an easy way to get all the oil in Iraq that President Bush or anyone else might desire--and it's not war. No, the easy way is to lift sanctions on Iraq and make a deal with Saddam. He's eager to sell the oil and make money. And the United States doesn't need Iraqi oil anyway, what with Russian oil production coming on line. At the moment, America's problem is the cutoff of oil from Venezuela. A war for oil would oust President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Of course there is no such war planned, nor is there one to cut the price of oil. The price favored by Bush and the domestic oil industry--and producers like Saudi Arabia--will be restored when Venezuela is pumping fully again, probably soon.
(3) War in Iraq will stir a new wave of terrorism. We've heard this one before. The Gulf War, it was warned, would arouse the Arab street and subject Americans to a wave of attacks. That didn't happen. When the United States went into Afghanistan and, worse, bombed during Ramadan, it was supposed to prompt a worldwide uprising of Muslims, and Muslim terrorists in particular, against America. Again, that didn't happen. So when the Arab leader most hated by other Arab leaders--a leader who's far more secular than Muslim, is removed, it's highly unlikely to cause more terrorism. Most likely, the result will be less.
(4) Give the inspectors more time. This was a common cry at Saturday's antiwar demonstrations. But of course those cries were entirely disingenuous. By definition, the "stop the war" protesters don't want war, no matter what the United Nations inspectors in Iraq happen upon. The demonstrators are playing Saddam's delaying game: Let the inspections continue until support in the United States for military action in Iraq dissolves and war is averted. Then Saddam survives. The inspections ploy is further proof the left has given up wars of national liberation against oppressive dictators and is now in the business of saving oppressive dictators from wars of national liberation.
You obviously are ignorant of the concept of "construction". The haters of the Constitution are, and always have been, the leftists, and they despise strict constructionism. Jefferson, on the other hand, argued for it, as in this statement: "On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." (from his letter titled, "The Supreme Court and the Constitution",, to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823). In the sentences immediately prior to that statement, Jefferson explained the role of the general versus the state governments:</b:
"It may be impracticable to lay down any general formula of words which shall decide at once, and with precision, in every case, this limit of jurisdiction. But there are two canons which will guide us safely in most of the cases. 1st. The capital and leading object of the constitution was to leave with the States all authorities which respected their own citizens only, and to transfer to the United States those which respected citizens of foreign or other States: to make us several as to ourselves, but one as to all others. In the latter case, then, constructions should lean to the general jurisdiction, if the words will bear it; and in favor of the States in the former, if possible to be so construed. And indeed, between citizens and citizens of the same State, and under their own laws, I know but a single case in which a jurisdiction is given to the General Government. That is, where anything but gold or silver is made a lawful tender, or the obligation of contracts is any otherwise impaired. The separate legislatures had so often abused that power, that the citizens themselves chose to trust it to the general, rather than to their own special authorities." The 2nd Canon is the statement on constructionism quoted in the previous paragraph.
Therefore, the claims that the Democratic Party is the "Party of Jefferson" is bogus. The truth is the Democratic Party is the Party of Marx. The Republican Party is more in line with the ideology of Jefferson, particularly in the matter of strict constructionism.
Oh, and your post was spot on. There is no thoughtful Left anymore. The great minds of the old Left (typified by JFK) would be aghast at the totality with which Marxists have taken over.
As far as pundits who are converts to conservatism are concerned, some of them are among the brightest and most persuasive advocates we have. David Horowitz is an example of someone who was born into the belly of the beast, knows every trick in their book, and can expose every lie behind their agenda.
Fred Barnes is not even close to being as good a writer as Horowitz, but this article is not bad and does bludgeon its way to the point
LOL! Which founders? The ones you like? Go back and read the history of the very first session of Congress. It is rife with bitter disagreement over what is and what is not Constitutional. Start with the Bank of the United States.
Still laughing over this one. So, acccording to your ideology, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall are all abominations. Don't believe me? Read for yourself. They all recognize that the Constitution requires interpretation. Jefferson advocates his own version of "strict construction", Madison another. Hamilton advocates another form. And Washington asks for interpreters. :
From the First Bank of the US websiteHamilton's proposal to charter a national bank was severely attacked in Congress on constitutional grounds. The opposition was led by Madison, who was becoming increasingly hostile to Hamilton's program. Although the two men had supported strong national government in the convention and had worked together to secure ratification of the Constitution, neither their constitutional philosophies nor their economic interests were harmonious. Hamilton wished to push still further in the direction of a powerful central government, while Madison, now conscious of the economic implications of Hamilton's program and aware of the hostility which the drift toward nationalism had aroused in his own section of the country, favored a middle course between centralization and states' rights.
In the Constitutional Convention Madison had proposed that Congress be empowered to "grant charters of incorporation," but the delegates had rejected his suggestion. In view of this action, he now believed that to assume that the power to incorporate could rightfully be implied either from the power to borrow money or from the "necessary and proper" clause in Article I, Section 8, would be an unwarranted and dangerous precedent.
In February 1791, the bank bill was passed by Congress, but President Washington, who still considered himself a sort of mediator between conflicting factions, wished to be certain of its constitutionality before signing it. Among others, Jefferson was asked for his view, which in turn was submitted to Hamilton for rebuttal.
In a strong argument Jefferson advocated the doctrine of strict construction and maintained that the bank bill was unconstitutional. Taking as his premise the Tenth Amendment (which had not yet become a part of the Constitution), he contended that the incorporation of a bank was neither an enumerated power of Congress nor a part of any granted power, and that implied powers were inadmissible.
He further denied that authority to establish a bank could be derived either from the "general welfare" or the "necessary and proper" clause. The constitutional clause granting Congress power to impose taxes for the "general welfare" was not of all-inclusive scope, he said, but was merely a general statement to indicate the sum of the enumerated powers of Congress. In short, the "general welfare" clause did not convey the power to appropriate for the general welfare but merely the right to appropriate pursuant to the enumerated powers of Congress.
With reference to the clause empowering Congress to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated powers, Jefferson emphasized the word "necessary," and argued that the means employed to carry out the delegated powers must be indispensable and not merely "convenient." Consequently, the Constitution, he said, restrained Congress "to those means without which the grant of power would be nugatory." In rebuttal, Hamilton presented what was to become the classic exposition of the doctrine of the broad construction of federal powers under the Constitution. He claimed for Congress, in addition to expressly enumerated powers, resultant and implied powers. Resultant powers were those resulting from the powers that had been granted to the government, such as the right of the United States to possess sovereign jurisdiction over conquered territory. Implied powers, upon which Hamilton placed his chief reliance, were those derived from the "necessary and proper" clause. He rejected the doctrine that the Constitution restricted Congress to those means that are absolutely indispensable. According to his interpretation, "necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conducive to.... The degree in which a measure is necessary, can never be a test of the legal right to adopt; that must be a matter of opinion, and can only be a test of expediency."
Then followed Hamilton's famous test for determining the constitutionality of a pro posed act of Congress: "This criterion is the end, to which the measure relates as a mean. If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority." This conception of implied powers was later to be adopted by John Marshall and incorporated in the Supreme Court's opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) on the constitutionality of the second national bank.
The Second Bank of the United States was chartered for many of the same reasons as its predecessor, the First Bank of the United States. The War of 1812 had left a formidable debt. Inflation surged ever upward due to the ever-increasing amount of notes issued by private banks. Specie was jealously hoarded. For these reasons President Madison signed a bill authorizing the 2nd Bank in 1816 with a charter lasting 20 years.
The term Capitalist is Marxist propaganda.
It is a Marxist term to describe Liberty or Freedom.
Ps. 119:105 (Num) Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
chuck <truth@YeshuaHaMashiach>
You DO know the difference between a political opinion piece and hard news reporting, right? Doesn't sound like it.
Where in the article did Fred say it WAS?
I am a 'child' of the 60s and 70s, and Fred is right. Of course, no one said the left was logical. There wre those who thought ousting one dictator to install another was a great idea.
As far as pundits who are converts to conservatism are concerned, some of them are among the brightest and most persuasive advocates we have. David Horowitz is an example of someone who was born into the belly of the beast, knows every trick in their book, and can expose every lie behind their agenda.
Fred Barnes is not even close to being as good a writer as Horowitz, but this article is not bad and does bludgeon its way to the point.
Yeah, what you said. Ditto.
I'd also like to add, I just hate it when a thread gets hijacked. I'd prefer if we all just ignore them, let them throw "newbie" comments or whatever at each other, but let us go on with the thread, refusing to give into the sidebar comments. I firmly believe it's the adult thing to do. But, then I didn't ignore them by posting this, did I? Sigh.
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