Here's a Republican that I could vote for!

[Tez3]

'Yes Minister' then 'Yes Prime Minister' were very popular comedy programmes. The whole country loved them but while we were laughing at them there was this uncomfortable feeling that actually our government really was run that way. The cynicism of the Civil Servants leading the politicians around by the nose was all too plausible.The explanations of government policy too close to the truth. If you stopped laughing and really thought about it, it was actually very worrying.
I think we will always wonder if it was merely clever writing or insider information!

 

[mrhnau]

Good post, and well said... don't agree, but thats not surprising Point by point.

Cut the military budget so it equals China and Russia. Let citizens carry firearms.

I'm all for the second amendment, but the days of a citizen militia armed with rifles are long gone. The way the military has evolved costs a lot of money to maintain.

Also, do I want my country to become the next Russian? Or the next China? If I recall, I heard China has a 100 million person army. What if we had such a significant population in the army? wow!

I'd also hate for our technology to start falling behind other countries, which is what would happen if the funding undergoes draconian cuts. Our fleets start to age and fall apart and no new replacements come around. Might be some liberals dream come true...

Protect the borders. Reform immigration so that people can do it easily. Half of your federal tax money is now back in your pockets

I'm for the border protection. But how exactly will that be saving you so much money? If you increase legal immigration, you will see a lot more money! Its freaking expensive!

Unless you decide to spend it on schools or hospitals or all of the other things that Eisenhower suggested.

Keep the feds out of education. Thats the states/counties/parents business. Just give me some federal taxes back.

My dad, a life long democrat, always said that Eisenhower thought the way he did because he knew what kind of damage the war industry would cause. He was a scholar had had saw what it had done throughtout history! Why can we expect it to be different, when our leaders act no different?

Conservatives need to remember that limited government means limited military. Allow the people to bear arms and take care of their own. Self defense is the ultimate personal responsibility!

I guess the world would have been OK without our help in WW1 and WW2. Backing down in the Cold War would not have been the best idea. The UN is powerless and a meaningless body. While you won't agree with the Iraq invasion, how can a body such as the UN ever effectively deal with someone like Hussein and Iraq? All some petty dictator needs to do is buddy-buddy up with someone that has veto power (ie Germany, France and Russia on the Iraqi oil take), and you are good to go. What other body would you suggest deal with global crisis? No one has stepped up that can effectively do anything other than protect their own specific interests on a local/regional scale.

So, what would you suggest? Sit back and wait for the next Hitler, Pol Pot, Hussein? Wait for North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons? Wait for situations like Darfur to clean themselves up? Perhaps we wait and let the US become the "sleeping giant" once again, but only this time realize that our country has become impotent due to a weaker dollar, lost military infrastructure and sky high oil... then again, as long as we have the North American continent safe, we are fine, right? I'm sure the recently roused sleeping giant could use a nap!

 

[Tez3]

On a scale of one to ten Saddam was not the worst problem in the world, what's going on in all the other Middle East countries is actually far worse than what went on in Iraq. Kuwait itself before the Iraq invasion was not a good place to live if you wanted freedom and democracy however it had oil. Turkey regularly kills as many Kurds as Saddam did yet is asked to join Nato. Zimbabwe has been a hell hole for a number of years and yet no one seems to be helping there. Burma is overlooked as is Chechyna. I could go on.
There's nothing wrong with being the world's police officer but if the role is taken up it must be even handed and not just pick which countries to liberate and which to ignore.

 

[mrhnau]

On a scale of one to ten Saddam was not the worst problem in the world, what's going on in all the other Middle East countries is actually far worse than what went on in Iraq. Kuwait itself before the Iraq invasion was not a good place to live if you wanted freedom and democracy however it had oil. Turkey regularly kills as many Kurds as Saddam did yet is asked to join Nato. Zimbabwe has been a hell hole for a number of years and yet no one seems to be helping there. Burma is overlooked as is Chechyna. I could go on.
There's nothing wrong with being the world's police officer but if the role is taken up it must be even handed and not just pick which countries to liberate and which to ignore.

Even for a real police officer, they can not catch every crime or be everywhere. Our military is not infinite, and a lot of liberals want to shrink it even more. There are always going to be nasty things going on, and is even more evidence of why we need strong countries with some form of moral compass to help out when needed. It would be nice if the UN could actually do something, but I think its charter is fundamentally flawed. I'd like seeing some other countries stepping up, but no one seems to want to.

 

[Ray]

There's nothing wrong with being the world's police officer but if the role is taken up it must be even handed and not just pick which countries to liberate and which to ignore.

Of course you have to "pick." It's called decision-making, you pick things every day. Just because someone or something is worse, doesn't mean you can't pick another thing for the moment. It's not so much that we went in as the world's policemen as that we (at the time) felt a threat to our security existed. I don't know that we go places unless it's in our own interest (security or otherwise).

 

[Tez3]

What was the interest behind invading Grenada? Iraq the first time? there was no threat to anyone other than Kuwait the first time round in Iraq.
It seems to me too that liberal is a dirty word to many, that I don't understand as the opposite of being liberal is not something to be wished for.

 

[mrhnau]

It seems to me too that liberal is a dirty word to many, that I don't understand as the opposite of being liberal is not something to be wished for.

Conservative is not something to be wished for? Thats the opposite of liberal here in the States.


Defining "liberal" is tough, being that it applies to many different things. Liberal, as applied to the military these days, seems to be a retreat mentality. A desire to minimize the military and forfeit our role as an international power by accepting a more "appropriately humble" or "socially aware" mentality. Conservatives tend to be more along the lines of increasing the military funding, even when war is not ongoing. Part of the "be prepared" type mentality and wanting to remain strong internationally.

You can have other different conservative/liberal questions, such as abortion, social programs, church/state... regarding the "not to be wished for", I think the split here between people that self-identify as liberal or conservative is pretty even.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Conservative is not something to be wished for? Thats the opposite of liberal here in the States.


Defining "liberal" is tough, being that it applies to many different things. Liberal, as applied to the military these days, seems to be a retreat mentality. A desire to minimize the military and forfeit our role as an international power by accepting a more "appropriately humble" or "socially aware" mentality. Conservatives tend to be more along the lines of increasing the military funding, even when war is not ongoing. Part of the "be prepared" type mentality and wanting to remain strong internationally.

You can have other different conservative/liberal questions, such as abortion, social programs, church/state... regarding the "not to be wished for", I think the split here between people that self-identify as liberal or conservative is pretty even.

Once other facet to that is that the ideas of "conservatism" and "liberalism" are really almost orthogonal to the party split between "Republican" and "Democrat"

 

[mrhnau]

Once other facet to that is that the ideas of "conservatism" and "liberalism" are really almost orthogonal to the party split between "Republican" and "Democrat"

Yeah... with the split between fiscal conservative and fiscal liberal, its really hard to tell who is who these days. On social issues there still seems to be some divide though.

 

[crushing]

Yeah... with the split between fiscal conservative and fiscal liberal, its really hard to tell who is who these days. On social issues there still seems to be some divide though.

I think of the split as the Heritage conservatives (neocons) v. the Cato conservatives (conservatives).

 

[Empty Hands]

What was the interest behind invading Grenada? Iraq the first time? there was no threat to anyone other than Kuwait the first time round in Iraq.

I must agree with Ray, I can think of few-to-no military operations that were commenced without a compelling US interest. I can also think of many operations that would have been justified on humanitarian grounds, like Rwanda, that the US wrung their hands about and then did everything to avoid. Even up to parsing the Rwandan atrocities as "acts of genocide" as opposed to "genocide" which would have required action.

As for Grenada, the government in power aligned themselves with Cuba and other communist governments. President Reagan even described Grenada as bound to become a Cuban-Soviet airbase. I'm afraid the execution of Bishop was likely just a pretext. It's not like we haven't ignored a variety of other deposed and executed lawful heads of state.

As for Iraq part the first, the invasion of Kuwait threatened to destabilize the regional power balance and most especially the flow of oil. I don't think I need to explain how an uninterrupted flow of oil is in the US interest.

 

[Empty Hands]

I think of the split as the Heritage conservatives (neocons) v. the Cato conservatives (conservatives).

The Cato crowd are mostly libertarians. It wouldn't be easy to classify them as conservatives of any stripe, even if they align with the conservatives on some issues.

 

[crushing]

The Cato crowd are mostly libertarians. It wouldn't be easy to classify them as conservatives of any stripe, even if they align with the conservatives on some issues.

Is that because we've come to incorrectly identify todays Republicans as conservatives? It's the Heritage group that I don't think is conservative (thus neocon).

 

[Empty Hands]

Is that because we've come to incorrectly identify todays Republicans as conservatives?

I don't think so. Cato describes themselves thusly: "The Jeffersonian philosophy that animates Cato's work has increasingly come to be called "libertarianism" or "market liberalism." Also, I would be hard pressed to describe some of their positions, like on the legalization of drugs, as "conservative."

It's the Heritage group that I don't think is conservative (thus neocon).

That may well be, I am less familiar with that think tank.

 

[Tez3]

Here we have the Tory Party = Conservatives, Labour =the Socialists and the SDP = Liberals, for us the liberals are the middle of the road people neither conservative or socialist. We regard being liberal as a good thing and the opposite of that is totalitarianism ie Franco's Spain.
Grenada is a British Commonwealth country and was unlikely to actually become communist. Aligning yourself with communist countries is not a crime and to be honest a country the size of America invading an island the size of Grenada did nothing for Americas reputation.
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/