Good show!

I see your point and understand the confusion. I’m sort of a bipolar misanthrope. I genuinely do hate our species. I do, however, like a few individuals and love even fewer.

Generally, I think that all people deserve as decent a life as they can get. It’s also good environmental sense. And, perhaps I had it backwards above. I may care about humans because it makes people less damaging to the environment. I certainly love other species far more than my own. Call me a tree-hugger if you like, but I’d rather be a lion hugger, if I could live to tell about it.

My rule of thumb about our species is that the vast majority of us are complete blithering idiots. If you think about the truly original thoughts you’ve had and how earth-shattering they are, a few people will have thoughts like general relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution, or some other major idea. These people are truly intelligent.

A larger number will be smart enough to think of their own ideas, for example that revolving doors should turn a generator to get the resistence, and realize that they are indeed not among the truly intelligent.

A much larger number will be too stupid to recognize that they are not at all intelligent. Some of these will cite that they were created with the very image of divinity as proof that they must not be idiots. Many others will not turn to religion, but will still rationalize some way in which they are geniuses.

Some in this last category will now delight in telling me that I am in the stupidest category for saying any of this. Enjoy yourselves while doing so. I think that the few in the first and second categories will see your statements as making my point at least as effectively as your own.

I would like to try to convince myself that I am at least in the second category, capable of recognizing my own limitations and my own lack of true intelligence and creative original thought.

And International law?!?! International law in the hands of the Bushies is something to flog unfriendly countries with and then disregard as they see fit. (Speaking of international law, how about UN Security Council Resolution 242?)

It is the US’s vital interest to defeat those who threaten it (ie crush terrorist cells that threaten the US) or its overseas vital interests (throwing Saddam out of Kuwait, back in the day). It is also in our vital interests to maintain good relations with countries that can assist us in pursuing our interests, so that they might help us. Thus we are friends with decidedly undemocratic regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and so on. It is also in our interest to reach deals with unfriendly countries to help us out in specific situations, like the aid we got from Iran during the Afghanistan war.

I would certainly favor helping developing countries, but as recent events have shown, we cannot save them from themselves by force.

Saddam was a bad man. Most Iraqis are glad he is gone.

So?

Last time I looked, it is not the US’s responsibility to sacrifice thousands of lives and tons of treasure to oust every bad man in power. The US’s responsibility is to pursue its vital interests. Saddam was in a box before 9/11, and he could have been kept there. The US would have been in a much better position if it had not invaded Iraq. That is the important thing.

You may wish to bring back the days of Saddam Hussein, but I for one am thankful his reign in over, as do the majority of the Iraqis.

Hell, I figured that Saddam probably had a few barrels of sarin laying around, just like any number of countries. That would mean Saddam had some WMD, but it does not mean he would have been a threat. Also, there is a tendency to lump all WMD together. We are not worried that Iran probably already has poison gas, we are very worried that Iran might get nukes.

Keep in mind that the Bushies had access to the most up to date intel, including a source in Saddam’s inner circle who informed the CIA’s European Section chief that Iraq had no active WMD programs. The Bushies ignored this intel and preferred to believe Ahmed Chalabe, the fraudster who was manipulating the US to put him in charge of a post-Saddam Iraq.

It is also clear – and George Tenant’s new book provide additional support tor this – that WMD were merely a pretext for war with Iraq. Cheney and the neocons in the Pentagon were champing at the bit to go to war with Iraq even before 9/11 and immediately blamed Saddam for the attacks, even if there was no evidence whatsoever to support this.

Unlike all the people on the sidelines, it was the Bushies who made the decision to go to war, and therefore the burden of proof was on them to justify it. The fact that they (at the minimum) ignored contrary evidence, and cherry-picked and oversold unreliable evidence to promote a war that they were determined to undertake regardless of whether their case for war was true, puts them at fault like no one else.

And if Bill Clinton was a liar, it does not make George W. Bush and DIck Cheney any less of liars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

please update your talking-points accordingly.

(1) the Bush Administration controlled the sources of intelligence about Iraq. The Democrats in Congress had no choice but to rely upon what they were being told. Frankly, I think that it did not occur to most of them that the Bushies would be so cynical to exaggerate (or lie about) the WMD evidence. Further, it is documented that the Bushies made very specific statements that were known within the intelligence community to be based upon very, VERY dubious intel even at the time, specifically the Niger-uranium connection.

(2) a lot of liberal Democrats voted AGAINST the war. in fact, a majority of Democrats in the House did so. Many of those who voted in favor of the war now say if they had known then what they know now about the WMD, they would not have voted the way they did. The same cannot be said for the Bushies who have, ostrich-like, stuck their heads in the sand and refused to admit that, with no WMD and no Saddam-Al Queda connection, this war was obviously a mistake.

Don’t search for a non-offensive word for neo-cons. They don’t deserve to not be offended.

I think you totally missed my point. You’re still making it sound like neocon is a bad word. I’m asking for a better one for someone who believes my list of attributes. I’m looking for a non-offensive name for that. You give me no choice other than neocon and then claim it has the ring of nazi. That’s silly in the extreme.

Guyver,

I was giving some more thought to your comments. It sounds almost like a fun challenge to try to get you to change your beliefs. I’d like give it a try. Starting with the very basics. First, having been hammered by the neocons for my definition before, I’m talking about the modern american liberal, as the definition that most closely matches my thoughts. So, here are the bases upon which my liberalism is founded. (Disclaimer, these are my own. I am in no way representing anyone else’s views or redefining the term liberal.)

1) I am a staunch supporter of civil rights and liberties.
2) I believe in helping those less fortunate than myself.
3) I am willing to put my money where my mouth is, including paying higher taxes.

So, Guyver, which of these statements do not match your thinking? I’m thinking that if I can get you to these tenets, I can make you a liberal.

Also, to get from liberal to environmentalist, these are the two additional tenets that do it for me.

4) I extend my beliefs to other species.
5) I recognize that humans, as animals, are part of the environment and will not live without it.

Do you disagree with any of these?

To everyone else reading this, I apologize if this is an unwanted tangent to the original conversation. If it’s a wanted tangent, feel free to join the fray.