Posted on 03/19/2003 7:57:38 AM PST by Chancellor Palpatine
"I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs."
— THOMAS FLEMING, "HARD RIGHT," MARCH 13, 2003
rom the very beginning of the War on Terror, there has been dissent, and as the war has proceeded to Iraq, the dissent has grown more radical and more vociferous. Perhaps that was to be expected. But here is what never could have been: Some of the leading figures in this antiwar movement call themselves "conservatives."
These conservatives are relatively few in number, but their ambitions are large. They aspire to reinvent conservative ideology: to junk the 50-year-old conservative commitment to defend American interests and values throughout the world — the commitment that inspired the founding of this magazine — in favor of a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies.
And they are exerting influence. When Richard Perle appeared on Meet the Press on February 23 of this year, Tim Russert asked him, "Can you assure American viewers . . . that we're in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?" Perle rebutted the allegation. But what a grand victory for the antiwar conservatives that Russert felt he had to air it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
”We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The very preamble tells you that this constitution is set in place to form a Union, which is what the South tried to destroy.
I don’t care what you argue, the South lost, as it should have, and their attempt at destroying what is now the greatest nation on Earth was thwarted. And there’s nothing in there that allows any State to disband that Union.
Get over it, or move out.
This situation isn't the same thing as the environmental pollution one you provide above. The pollution example involves damaging the physical property of others by failing to contain one's own dangerous property (the toxic waste).
Your example about "unemployable young men" actually scares me because of its hidden liberal implications--it basically says that people are entitled to jobs (other people's money), and there's a hidden threat in there in which the unemployed will engage in some sort of revolution to take by force what they're not being voluntarily provided.
It's the same argument that I've seen liberals use to defend welfare programs (especially FDR's programs, historically). They say that if the government hadn't provided welfare payments, the "desperate" would have begun committing crimes. [See how close this runs to the liberal "poverty causes crime" argument?] It seems like a veiled threat against property to me, akin to Mafia "protection money." All I can say is that the answer isn't to bribe people to obey the law and respect private property. The answer, in such situations, is the police and National Guard.
For these reasons, perhaps there's a better way you could defend Federal forced integration laws than on economic grounds?
Yes, when they were deprived access to the voting booth, to civil courts, and the legal ability to engage in trade with the white majority, they would have been fully justified in resorting to violence. It would have been quite ugly, and something from which the nation never would have recovered - all so a bunch of white trash could feel superior to blacks.
Does that help?
There is a larger point involved--no one owes anyone else a job. No one has a "right" to a job. That tail phrase you use, "allowed to compete for," is where the confusion enters on this important issue of private property rights, because it implies that there's a "pool of jobs" that are available to all, to which all are entitled, as if there's a pool of collective wealth. Liberals do this all the time, they make statements that imply that wealth belongs to "society." "Jobs" don't exist as some sort of privately-funded welfare program--they exist for the utility of the employer, not the charity of the potential employee.
One last point just occurred to me on this. When the government steps in and decides the terms on which people compete for jobs, the government is interfering with the ability of two parties to engage in a contract. To engage in a contract, both parties have to agree to it for it to be a non-coercive, "just" transaction in a free market. If the employer is being forced to hire an employee he doesn't want to, then that's coercion by an outside, third party (the government).
Apparently, some of you guys here aren't for a fully free market, but support government regulations and interference.
Maybe so, but a lot of that desire to set oneself above others, be the "in-group," "us vs. them," etc. that you're describing is part of human nature, and not likely to be extinguished by a few laws the government passes. And it's not limited to whites, either. Don't forget that there are "Afrocentric" school curricula that perform the same psychic (as in mental-makeup, not "Miss Cleo") function for the black community.
I'm for a level playing field, and to the extent that government and the courts intervene in keeping the field level, I approve.
If the concept of 'equal opportunity' doesn't fit into your definition of 'fully' free markets, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
It seems to me I've run into you before, ProT - I simply can't recall any of your positions, but they must have been well-supported.
To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
Ahhh, but not a perpetual union. Perhaps you should ask the good folks of Massachusetts why they brought up the issue of secession if it was a perpetual union. Or check with the northern brethern and their discussion of secession during the War of 1812. Unmitigated ass? Corrupted version? I see, the name calling again. You know at least with some they'll cut and paste arguments about the issue. Mind you they're usually arguments from Socialists or Hitler (you know he believed in lincoln's cause too) but hell at least it has some meat to it. Here we've got name calling. The South didn't try to destroy the union in the first place did they? Oh, but we'll let those secession discussions up north slide because the only people that weren't all talk and actually followed through were Southerners.
Again I ask you to provide me with the pledge of allegiance to a symbol said by the majority of the Founding Fathers. Since you won't be able to, this discussion is over
Stir in a little Muslim hatred and you have a LOT of posters on FR right now.
BOSTON (UPI) -- A lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston Thursday seeks to prevent President Bush from going to war against Iraq without congressional approval.
"A war against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war will be illegal and unconstitutional," he said. "It is time for the courts to intervene."
The representatives joining the suit, all Democrats, are John Conyers of Michigan, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, James McDermott of Washington, Jose Serrano of New York, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois.
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Hey look Bill, your buddies have filed a lawsuit. Sounds like YOU might have more in common with the liberals from the far left than Libby Dole.
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