Transterrestrial Musings

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Besides his warped view of international relations, another reason to oppose "Dr. No" (as he is known in Congress) is that he wants to take the US back to a gold (or other commodity) standard. Anyone with a basic grasp of economic history knows that is a bad idea. Read some of Megan McArdle's posts on the subject on her blog over at The Atlantic for details. (n.b. She trained for her MBA at Chicago and is very much libertarian-leaning when it comes to economic issues.)

Posted by ech at November 27, 2007 07:13 AM

Shamelessly repeating the comment I just left over at Bidinotto's: Finally, somebody pointing out just how orthogonal (at best) to true libertarianism many of Ron Paul's stances are. A sad denounement to the career of an otherwise profoundly decent man.

"It is a betrayal of liberty not to defend it with all the power that free men possess." -- Walter Lippmann

Posted by Jay Manifold at November 27, 2007 07:16 AM

Explain how funding both OBL and Sadam were in the best interest of the US?

Explain how meddling in Israels internal politics to urge restraint (meddling enabled with the force of our cash contributions to the state of Israel.)
Helps either us or Israel?

Explain how propping up brutal dictator like Musharraf with tens of billions of dollars helps our cause? Do you think that we could have a repeat of the scenario we had with the Shaw in Iran, only this time with nukes?

Explain how having an open southern border helps our security?

Explain how our foreign bases mitigate Chinese ASAT capabilities?

Explain how we are friends with the Saudis when the Majority of the people that actually caused 9-11 were Saudi?

Explain how we expouse Human rights and are still friends with a country that punishes Rape victims with 200 lashes?

Explain why we should be spending billions to defend Europe when Europe has a Trade surplus with us and is capable of defending itself?

Why we should be spending billions defending Korea when they have a huge trade surplus with us?

If the Wacko Iranians want to shut down the global flow of Oil, let the Saudis and the other oil producing countries of the region resolve that.
It is their trade that is being disrupted. Maybe the Chinese would be interested in maintaining a flow of oil. You can't argue on one hand that China is a global threat, and on the other that it would not work to keep the oil flowing for its own interests.

If we drilled in Anwar, off the coast of CA, and off the coast of Florida we could be significantly more energy independent.

If the Islamic Radicals did not have oil money they would not be as significant a threat.
What if we spent the Trillion dollars this meddling has cost on developing Solar Power Sats?

When we choose to meddle we either cause people to go passive or to actively oppose us. neither outcome is optimum.

We currently have active ongoing trade with Vietnam. A good deal of the brutality in Southeast Asia was enabled by our meddling.
If you feel we should have suppressed this brutality, why aren't you currently arguing for us to intervene in Africa? Saudi Arabia? North Korea?
Pakistan? China? Tibet?

You can't have it both ways. Can we afford to be the worlds policeman in all these places?

Posted by Paul Breed at November 27, 2007 07:45 AM

Since we won the Iraq war, why are we still fighting it?

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 07:58 AM

Wow, the strawman arguments are approaching neutron-star density here.

Posted by Jay Manifold at November 27, 2007 08:44 AM

I am with Paul Breed.

Rand, it is not blaming America first to be introspective and examine the root causes for the problems we face as a nation today. It is not blaming America first to say that Al Qaeda has its roots in Afghanistan in the 80's when the USA and Saudi Arabia via the CIA funded the Mujahedin where OBL got his start. It is not blaming America when one says 9/11 is blowback for past foreign policy misadventures. OBL's stated reason for the 9/11 attacks was in protest of the US garrison on Saudi soil. These are facts which are stated in the 9/11 commission's report.

Every action in human affairs is going to have a reaction. The difference between human affairs and physics is that you can't predict the reaction or blowback with any certainty. The folly of the Bushes, the Rices, the Rumsfelds, and the Wolfowitzes of the world is they think they can predict and control the outcomes. Ron Paul says we can't so we shouldn't bother. He is not saying we should abandon defense of the nation. Quite the contrary. They come over here, in their puny and insubstantial way, because we are over there. Stop going over there and maybe they won't come over here. Let them sort out there own problems over there.

The notion that "Without the forward projection of U.S. military power -- through foreign bases (which implies alliances), naval-carrier battle groups, special ops forces, advanced military aircraft, and first-rate intelligence agencies (which means an effective CIA, NSA, etc.) -- the "foreign-trade-and-travel" model of foreign policy prescribed by Dr. Paul and many libertarians would be revealed for the ridiculous fantasy it is." is categorically untrue. Most of the nations of the world trade and travel without any of these encumbrances. The USA is the only nation that maintains these encumbrances. Trade is not based on the forward projection of power. I am a businessman; people don't do business with me because of the massive firepower I bring to the table. They do business with me because they want what I have to offer. Only mobsters and drug dealers rely on the projection of power and violence to do business.

Posted by Jardinero1 at November 27, 2007 09:10 AM

Most of the nations of the world trade and travel without any of these encumbrances.

And how long would they be able to so do without the US to keep the sea lanes open and free from piracy (as the British did in the 19th century)? How long would it have taken Saddam to conquer not only Kuwait, but the other Gulf states and the Arabian peninsula, locking up a vast portion of the world's oil supplies, had we not been in place to stop him?

Sorry, but somebody has to do these things to preserve a global economy, and hold back the forces of tyranny. Since the end of the second world war, that task has fallen to us. If Ron Paul's desires were to come true, it would become a much uglier, much more brutal, and much poorer world, very quickly.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 27, 2007 09:26 AM

There is a transition issue here.
Why couldn't Kuwait or Saudi defend itself?
Lack of funds?

If we had not been there they would have developed a local defense capability. Eventually a stable balance of power, naturally, without intervention.
Maybe the stable balance would be that the whole area was claimed by the Saudis or Even Sadam.
Without trade the the middeleast is a barren sandbox.The only thing of value in the sandbox is the oil underneath. They would have to trade.
The middle east is the sole source of energy in the world. Even if you disreguard the other oil producing areas we have natural gas, coal, tar sands, biofuels all would have been farther along in the development if we did not have cheap oil. Loss of middle east oil would be painful for a few years,but it would not be the end of the world.
I trust in market forces far more than I trust in governments. Regardless of who controls the sand box the oil would become available.

Really want the oil? Then Declare war, clear out ALL the populace and defend the position. Fight or don't fight, what we are doing now is half way.

Posted by Paul Breed at November 27, 2007 09:50 AM

Typo:
The middle east is the sole source of energy in the world.

should have been
The middle east is not the sole source of energy in the world.

Posted by Paul Breed at November 27, 2007 09:51 AM

Sorry, but somebody has to do these things to preserve a global economy, and hold back the forces of tyranny.

When that "somebody" was Britain in the 19th century, no one had any trouble calling it The British Empire. Ron Paul isn't completely correct by any means, but he has a valid point about empires. Either we are an empire or we aren't. Being an empire isn't necessarily so bad --- the British Empire had its share of unfairness but it did do more good than harm. What is dangerous for America is to try to have it both ways, to run an empire with thinking as provincial and unilateralist as guarding your yard with a shotgun.

And that is exactly what is going on in Iraq. Fred Thompson has made the completely wrong-minded statement that if Iran supplies Iraqi militias with IEDs, that is an act of war against the US. Iraq isn't our yard. Reagan made the same mistake in that region: when the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian Iranian airliner in Iranian airspace, Reagan gave them a medal for valor in combat. The Republicans couldn't even call it a mistake and apologize; they had no respect at all for Iranian sovereignty.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 10:02 AM

Guys--stop looking *only* in the mirror. There are other players here, other people with their own desires, and some of them are decidedly "not good" in our eyes.

Korea should pay entirely for their own defense? How about, why did we bother defending it in the first place? If they couldn't be bothered to keep themselves from being overrun by Communist tanks 60 years ago, we shouldn't have lifted a finger to save them.

For that matter, why the heck did we embargo Japan anyways? If the residents of Nanking didn't want to be sacked, they should have done something about it themselves. We could have avoided WWII altogether if we had just cut free the Phillipines ahead of schedule and scrapped our Navy. Japan would have taken what they wanted, and never bothered us.

Posted by Big D at November 27, 2007 10:07 AM

When that "somebody" was Britain in the 19th century, no one had any trouble calling it The British Empire.

Yes, because a) it really was an empire and b) they called it that themselves.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 27, 2007 10:15 AM

They come over here, in their puny and insubstantial way, because we are over there. Stop going over there and maybe they won't come over here.

Not only are these statements untrue, they reveal a foolishly US-centric view of the world that ignores the dynamics of other societies. People in the Middle East are not our puppets. Islam is going through an upheaval, not because of us but in response to nationalist and religious movements that began in the early-20th Century. Middle Eastern dictatorships are under pressure now, not only because of us (post 9/11) but because of the fall of the USSR and the rise of mass-media and the Internet. Our involvement in the Middle East has been quite limited historically, compared to that of other countries.

Our enemies didn't come over here because we were over there. They started attacking us in the late 1970s. They kept escalating their attacks. We didn't see clearly what was going on until their pathologies overflowed the ME and spilled over onto American soil. If we walk away, as Ron Paul wants, they will pursue us because they will perceive our behavior as retreat and weakness. That's why 9/11 (not a puny attack, BTW) happened -- because bin Laden saw that we had retreated from Vietnam, retreated from Somalia, etc.

Ron Paul gets these important issues entirely wrong. He is clueless.

Posted by Jonathan at November 27, 2007 10:26 AM

Yes, because a) it really was an empire and b) they called it that themselves.

You need to think more about how things really are and take less stock in how American politicians describe them. A fair fraction of American foreign policy is just as imperialistic as the British Empire, regardless of what any Americans call it themselves. This goes all the way back to the Spanish-American war. The US brazenly lifted Cuba and the Philippines from the Spanish Empire and made them the American Empire. But the whole time the American line was, "What empire?" These nations were supposedly our kindergartens of democracy, not our empire.

Now as I said, empire can be benevolent or temporary, but that's a separate question. American control of Japan was benevolent, and it was also temporary --- seven years. American control of Iraq is incompetent and disastrous rather than benevolent, and we can only hope temporary. In the meantime, it certainly is imperialistic.

In any case an even more important word to understand properly than "empire" is "torture", because it has been tortured even more by politicians lately. No one had any trouble calling waterboarding torture until the Bush Administration said it wasn't. Until word slipped out that the US had waterboarded people in the war on terrorism, waterboarding was a Communist torture method. It's a form of mock execution, and mock execution in general is a form of torture. For instance, the Khmer Rouge tortured people by waterboarding them. Waterboarding was in the Army training manual so that American soldiers could be trained to withstand Communist torture.

For those who are truly and honestly opposed to torture by the American government, the rule is very simple: If it was torture when our enemies such as the Communists did it, then it still is when we do it.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 10:40 AM

The sheer size of the US Embasssy in Baghdad, larger than Vatican City, is the clearest indication of the desire for an Empire.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at November 27, 2007 10:41 AM

The sheer size of the US Embasssy in Baghdad, larger than Vatican City, is the clearest indication of the desire for an Empire.

That and when we wrote into their legal code that our contractors are exempt from their laws.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 10:44 AM

Thank you T'n'T. I wasn't previously aware that one could distinguish empires from non-empires by the size of their embassies. Actually, I'm doubly educated, because I hadn't even known that empires had embassies. I had this silly notion that they had Viceroy's palaces, or the like.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 27, 2007 11:16 AM

I had this silly notion that they had Viceroy's palaces, or the like.

That's right Rand, but sometimes they call them "embassies".

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 11:17 AM

Jim, I'm not sure that is a sign of Empire. That could simply be due to the unexpected nature of this war and its development, which was supposed to so simply transition Iraq into a pro-American bastion of democracy.

Rand, why do you think the Embassy is so big? Do you really think the Iraqis missed such a big hint?

Oh, and you know, these days it's not PC to talk of Empires or Palaces. So you have to use cover. But it's hard to cover something as big as the US Embassy in Iraq.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at November 27, 2007 11:50 AM

Do you really think the Iraqis missed such a big hint?

I don't think Iraqis are as stupid as TnT. I think they caught a clue with the term embassy. I suspect they are comforted by the US's large interest in diplomatic efforts. Iraqis also got the hint when they wrote their own Constitution and held elections.

I also don't think Iraqis have forgotten that so many European diplomats were very willing to take oil money from Saddam, thus prolonging his brutal dictatorship for European diplomats' individual personal gains.

Posted by Leland at November 27, 2007 12:44 PM

I'm going to write my congressman about the poor job our government is doing keeping up our empire. We keep freeing these countries and then GIVING THEM BACK to the people that live there. We are building schools and water treatment plants when we should be filling 10 tankers a day with oil. I am outraged!! Next thing you know we'll be trying to get the Palis to accept peace without just wiping them off the face of the earth. You know, be all the empire you can be.
I'm glad we aren't stupid enough to win a world war or 2 and then help rebuild the countries of our enemies.

Posted by Bill Maron at November 27, 2007 01:25 PM

I suspect they are comforted by the US's large interest in diplomatic efforts.

Oh that's rich! Little brown men comforted by big Embassy. Leland, that's what they thought back home a long while back. Naked fakirs and all that.

Why is the Embassy so big? A large interest in diplomatic efforts my foot.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at November 27, 2007 01:40 PM

So enlighten us TnT. Quote that anonymous source. Point us to the secret cache of documents in that special font. Produce that smoking gun in your pocket. I can point to all the countries we didn't keep. What do you have?

Posted by Bill Maron at November 27, 2007 02:59 PM

Bill, I'm sure this confuses you. After all you don't want to assume the worst. The worst, in that this war about access to oil and domination of the ME. Everything else was spin, like democracy for brown fakirs. And it seems a fair number on the right got spun along too; maybe you are still being spun.

The size of the Embassy was just an unfortunate clue to the facts of the matter.

Here's something to brood on:

http://themoderatevoice.com/war/iraq/surge/16281/the-conspiracy-freaks-were-right/

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at November 27, 2007 04:08 PM

tnt,

That post on the Moderate Voice is foolish. If I understand it (and you) correctly, NATO would also be part of the American Empire, not an alliance.

Funny that. I thought we used the word alliance because it indicated something essentially different from an empire. If only I had read The Protocols of the Elders of Columbia, where a the secret cabal of American WASPS known as Skull and Bones plots to rule the world!

Yours,
Wince

Posted by Wince and Nod at November 27, 2007 05:59 PM

"They started attacking us in the late 1970s.
Posted by Jonathan at November 27, 2007 10:26 AM"

Actually they started attacking us back in the late 1790's.

I think this thread has made it painfully obvious that Jim Harris and Toast N Tea are here to spread the propaganda of our enemies and subjugate our beliefs in what the U.S. stands for. Most people will generally express an opinion and move on. There insistence to berate a single point of debate to death speaks volumes as to what their underlying agenda is.

Posted by Josh Reiter at November 27, 2007 07:32 PM

I think they caught a clue with the term embassy.

They see the cranes building one of the largest embassies in the world, and of course they think it's imperialistic. Why should India, with 40 times the population of Iraq, have a smaller American embassy? What you describe as a "large interest" is basically a lack of faith in Iraqi sovereignty. Even a lack of respect on several key issues. This administration just doesn't trust Iraqis to run their own country any time soon. They are driving in the pylons to prove their stance.

In particular, there is no way that they will be satisfied with any "victory" that Rand thinks that they have achieved. They know that they have forged a partial truce in a civil war by bribing both sides with money and weapons, and in Baghdad by separating them with walls and checkpoints. It can't last, and even if it could, they wouldn't be satisfied with it. Among other reasons, because they know that the Iraqi government is pro-Iranian. They will start on yet another big push and declare "victory" again and again, until a Democrat one day sits in the White House. Then they will blame that president for losing the war.

subjugate our beliefs in what the U.S. stands for.

The US is a vast nation that stands for many virtuous things. The issue here is not what the US stands for, but what the White House stands for. At this point, they stand for defense money and for off-loading blame for the Iraq fiasco, and not much else.

Posted by Jim Harris at November 27, 2007 09:33 PM

Reagan made the same mistake in that region: when
the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian Iranian airliner in Iranian airspace, Reagan gave them a medal for valor in combat. The Republicans couldn't even call it a mistake and apologize; they had no
respect at all for Iranian sovereignty.

Wonder why the Iranians don't like us?

Are we really that virtuous?

Posted by Paul Breed at November 27, 2007 09:53 PM

Preface to my comments: I'm willing to back up what I say with links, but the comment's long enough already. If you want a link, just ask.

Paul Breed:
"Explain how we are friends with the Saudis when the Majority of the people that actually caused 9-11 were Saudi?"

Actually, they were from a part of Yemen overrun by Saudis. Ethnic Yemenis, Saudis in name only. Just to let you know.

"Explain why we should be spending billions to defend Europe when Europe has a Trade surplus with us and is capable of defending itself?

Why we should be spending billions defending Korea when they have a huge trade surplus with us?"

When Europe has enough troops to defend itself, you let me know. You seem to assume that if we stop defending these countries in Europe as well as Korea and other places, the domestic troops will spring out of thin air (or the ground, if you're in Greece). How can you be so certain of this?

"If the Wacko Iranians want to shut down the global flow of Oil, let the Saudis and the other oil producing countries of the region resolve that. It is their trade that is being disrupted."

Wait, the Iran dispute is all about oil? Funny, I thought I heard somebody talking about Iran and big, ugly bombs. Did I imagine that?

"Explain how funding both OBL and Sadam were in the best interest of the US?"

Saddam - don't know, haven't researched it. OBL - he and the Taliban were helping to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. We were following the rules of proxy warfare and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy. And it kinda worked, as it turned into Russia's Vietnam, only more so (as I recall).

"We currently have active ongoing trade with Vietnam. A good deal of the brutality in Southeast Asia was enabled by our meddling.
If you feel we should have suppressed this brutality, why aren't you currently arguing for us to intervene in Africa? Saudi Arabia? North Korea?
Pakistan? China? Tibet?"

I find it ironic that in one breath the Paulites complain that we have no business being in Iraq and in the next complain that if we should suppress brutality we should be in all these other places. The US military can't be everywhere at once. It's called picking your battles. If you think we picked the wrong one, fine, argue that. But don't try to have it both ways. I notice in the next paragraph you accuse the "meddlers" of what I just accused you of - well, all I can say is that you're wrong. We intervene where we can - intervening everywhere means failing everywhere.

Lastly:
"Really want the oil? Then Declare war, clear out ALL the populace and defend the position. Fight or don't fight, what we are doing now is half way."

Stop and look at that for a moment. Think how completely different a war for oil would look. Think of US forces establishing a totally secure base right next to the oil fields and a secure pipeline back to the US. Most importantly, think of all the territory we WOULDN'T have to take. Baghdad, for one thing - what the h*ll does it have that we need?

All this should be a clue that maybe, just maybe, this war wasn't about the oil.

Moving on to Jim Harris:
"You need to think more about how things really are and take less stock in how American politicians describe them. A fair fraction of American foreign policy is just as imperialistic as the British Empire, regardless of what any Americans call it themselves. This goes all the way back to the Spanish-American war. The US brazenly lifted Cuba and the Philippines from the Spanish Empire and made them the American Empire. But the whole time the American line was, "What empire?" These nations were supposedly our kindergartens of democracy, not our empire."

I love how America is still having to apologize for its missteps of a hundred years ago, back when empire was the normal state of affairs. The real flaws in your argument, though, are exposed in the next paragraph.

"Now as I said, empire can be benevolent or temporary, but that's a separate question. American control of Japan was benevolent, and it was also temporary --- seven years. American control of Iraq is incompetent and disastrous rather than benevolent, and we can only hope temporary. In the meantime, it certainly is imperialistic."

First, let's ignore the cop-out in the wording that allows you to claim that you didn't say America's control of Japan was an example of empire. You said it, you know it and I know it.

Let's take a moment to go back over reconstruction post-WWII, shall we?

It's 1945. We just helped win a war against two of the most determined, powerful, and malicious (at least in the case of the Nazis for sure) powers in the history of global civilization. Our allies in Western Europe are spent both economically and militarily. Same goes for Russia and China. There is a GARGANTUAN power vacuum, and it exists literally everywhere but in the USA. As of 1945, we are the most powerful country in the world. What do we do?

Well, we go into Western Europe and help rebuild it, and hand it back to the Europeans basically for nothing. We airlift massive amounts of aid to West Germany (East's been taken over by Russia already) and leave it for the Germans - except for the many thousands of troops we leave there against Soviet attack.

And Japan? Well, we basically take over for seven years, rebuild the country that we had destroyed during the course of the war, give them something like a democratic republic and hand Japan back to the Japanese for free, then watch them grow into an economy to rival and even outpace our own over the next fifty years, from subjugated foe to powerful ally and competitor.

And sixty years later, you look back on this and call it imperialism.

All I can say is, that is slander of the highest order. Maybe you don't mean "empire" in a bad way, but it's phrased in enough of a negative way throughout the pattern of your posting that I think not.

Next:
"And that is exactly what is going on in Iraq. Fred Thompson has made the completely wrong-minded statement that if Iran supplies Iraqi militias with IEDs, that is an act of war against the US. Iraq isn't our yard."

So, if Russia had supplied German guerrillas with IEDs to use on the thousands of US troops in Germany right after WWII, that wouldn't be considered an act of war against the US because "Germany isn't our yard"? Come off it. That's one of the reasons we left troops in Germany in the first place, so that if Russia tried to take West Germany it would be attacking us and so we'd have the right to strike back. By the same token, when Iran supplies Iraqis with Iranian weaponry during a time of war to use on US troops as well as Iraqi civilians, that's an act of war on Iraq AND the US. It's a slightly different circumstance, but the same principles should apply.

Posted by Math_Mage at November 27, 2007 10:58 PM

I take it, from the hysterical tone of the anti-Paul folks, that he must be doing fairly well.

Posted by K at November 28, 2007 01:05 AM

Well, if you call that "hysterical", then I suppose you could just as "honestly" say that he's doing well.

I'm not quite sure why he's labeled as a libertarian, though; he sure as heck seems more populist than libertarian at times.

Posted by Big D at November 28, 2007 02:15 AM

...from the hysterical tone of the anti-Paul folk...

To what "hysterical tone" are you referring? I think you're seeing something that's not there.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 05:19 AM

I would recommend all to read this:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/beito2.html

It is an excellent summary of Ron Paul's foreign policy position.

Posted by Jardinero1 at November 28, 2007 08:23 AM

It is an excellent summary of Ron Paul's foreign policy position.

I wouldn't doubt it. Lew Rockwell is as out to lunch (if not more so) than Paul is on foreign policy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 08:39 AM

Lew Rockwell didn't write the column. I don't suppose you read that.

"Out to lunch" depends on your value system. In my value system, advocacy of a policy that kills people with no remote connection to me is "out to lunch". Advocacy of a policy that surrenders personal liberty in the name of security is "out to lunch".

Posted by Jardinero1 at November 28, 2007 11:46 AM

Lew Rockwell didn't write the column. I don't suppose you read that.

No, I didn't. I just glanced at the URL. That was sufficient to me to not waste time reading the column.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 28, 2007 12:18 PM

TnT,
I'm not confused, I understand your unnecessary condescension and your unearned arrogance perfectly. You have no facts to support your position. The size of the embassy is not, by itself, support for your position.

Posted by Bill Maron at November 28, 2007 02:28 PM

We're an empire, yet Canada, Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, with the exception of mighty Puerto Rico, are independent and generally critical of us. Pretty neat trick. The US empire is so subtle that its subjects don't even know it's there.

Posted by Jonathan at November 28, 2007 08:42 PM

Here we go again.

""Out to lunch" depends on your value system. In my value system, advocacy of a policy that kills people with no remote connection to me is "out to lunch". Advocacy of a policy that surrenders personal liberty in the name of security is "out to lunch"."

On the "kills people w/no connection to me" thing - tell me, was WWII out to lunch? How about the Cold War? First define "no remote connection to me", then explain how the Iraq War is different than a helluva lot of the wars in history, many of which were not as you describe. Besides, why is the "with no remote connection to me" clause there to begin with? Would you rather the government killed people with connections to you? How about if people with connections to you were killing each other? Civil wars are the worst kind.

On the "personal liberty" thing - tell me, when have we not limited civil liberties in time of war? AFAIK, the Sedition and Espionage Acts from World War I are STILL in place. People were locked up for being of the wrong party during the Cold War - and though McCarthy was rude, and probably a little nuts, he was kind of right, too. But the linking characteristic of these losses is that they're always temporary - as soon as war's over, we get our liberties back and we're better for it. They're far too fundamental to our society to go away with a snap of the fingers - there's a reason people say they're born American despite being born thousands of miles away from the American shore.

Somebody needs to learn their history before spouting off about who's out to lunch. Hell, I only have a high school background in history, and I can see how far off base these comments are.

Posted by Math_Mage at November 28, 2007 10:08 PM

Slight error. What I should have said is "as soon as war's over, we TAKE our liberties back." Because they're ours, and we only lend some of them to the government during war. "Get" implies some sort of government handout - eeurgh.

Posted by Math_Mage at November 28, 2007 10:10 PM

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