Ron Paul in Iowa; "Except for his foreign policy..."

[MicroBalrog]

Micro, you talk as if "radical Islamists" have no connections or support with major Islamic states.  You really believe that?  These, to you, are all unsophisticated freelancers within the Ummah?

What I talk of is the concept that "the Islamic world" is a multi-lingual, babylonian  group that speaks dozens of languages and cannot be accommodated with simplistic speeches about the fictitious Khalifate. It - like the Western world - has its own totalitarian, liberal, moderate, anarchist, terrorist, etc. aspects. To talk as if every element of the culture is a branch of a single, hostile hive mind is madness.

[longeyes]

You are right, we should avoid thinking in simplistic terms, searching for fictitious monoliths.  But when you speak of Islam and you include what you call "liberal, moderate, anarchist" as descriptors I am inclined to ask you...where exactly?

[longeyes]

What I talk of is the concept that "the Islamic world" is a multi-lingual, babylonian  group that speaks dozens of languages and cannot be accommodated with simplistic speeches about the fictitious Khalifate. It - like the Western world - has its own totalitarian, liberal, moderate, anarchist, terrorist, etc. aspects. To talk as if every element of the culture is a branch of a single, hostile hive mind is madness.

Where I agree with you is that if there were no Caliphate-in-waiting we'd have to invent one.  But let us not confuse the insanity of the West with the insanity of the East.  Both are quite real.

[MicroBalrog]

You are right, we should avoid thinking in simplistic terms, searching for fictitious monoliths.  But when you speak of Islam and you include what you call "liberal, moderate, anarchist" as descriptors I am inclined to ask you...where exactly?

Liberal. (The leader of this party is the new leader of Tunisia)

Anarchist

[longeyes]

Okay, we'll see how long the "liberal" Tunisia lasts. 

Anarchists in Islam?  I'd call that anecdotal at this point, wouldn't you?

[MicroBalrog]

Okay, we'll see how long the "liberal" Tunisia lasts. 

Anarchists in Islam?  I'd call that anecdotal at this point, wouldn't you?

Anarchism is everywhere rare and near-anecdotal in its support at this stage in history.

[longeyes]

Of course it is, but to use Islam and anarchism in the same sentence is to defy logic.  Allah is the ultimate form of archism.

[roo_ster]

Saw clips of Paul at the debate and he managed to make his relatively sound policy sound as kooky as possible.  Then, he went on some talk show and said Bachmann hated Muslims. 

With friends like these, the COTUS needs no enemies.

[yoda]There is another...[/yoda]

[Perd Hapley]

Yeah, it's not really "Ron Paul except for his foreign policy." It's "Ron Paul, except for his Ron Paul."

[roo_ster]

Yeah, it's not really "Ron Paul except for his foreign policy." It's "Ron Paul, except for his Ron Paul."

The most vain of the vanity candidates?

We are so humped.  Even our no-chance, protest-vote, idealist, constitutional candidate is a worthless sack.

To quote Mark Steyn after writing about Newt Romney, "It’s a tragedy that the Republican nomination has dwindled down to a choice not worth making."

A good piece on the GOP process and America's current state:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286115/tweedlemitt-and-tweedlenewt-mark-steyn

[MicroBalrog]

The most vain of the vanity candidates?

We are so humped.  Even our no-chance, protest-vote, idealist, constitutional candidate is a worthless sack.

Because he differs with you in his opinion on the fictional Islamist threat?

Bachmann's performance was heinous. She got not a single fact right, because the quest of scaring the voters straight was more important than facts.

[MicroBalrog]

Ron Paul now leading in Iowa.

Holy s*** WTF.

[TommyGunn]

Because he differs with you in his opinion on the fictional Islamist threat?
...............

 The "Islamist threat" may be overhyped, mishyped, misunderstood, mislayed, underestimated, but any group that can kill 2,973 human beings and cause billions in property damage in one attack (9-11-01) is probably not best described as "fictional."

Do you suppose we ought to ignore the Islamists?
We have gone that route before you know .... I mean, who ever would guess some bizarro with a Oliver Hardy style mustache would write a book inside a prison cell using smuggled supplies would ever be able to very nearly accomplish what his meandering bizarro nut manifesto claimed aspired to?  For all the world could guess such a bizarro nutcake by all rights would remain a bizarro nutcake until he died in obscurity.
History recalls otherwise.
I don't have a crystal ball.  
Just a friggin' knot in my gut that keeps telling me these Islamonazis shouldn't be ...... ignored.

[MicroBalrog]

 The "Islamist threat" may be overhyped, mishyped, misunderstood, mislayed, underestimated, but any group that can kill 2,973 human beings and cause billions in property damage in one attack (9-11-01) is probably not best described as "fictional."

Do you suppose we ought to ignore the Islamists?

Yes. Yes I do. Or rather: of course we should kill terrorists etc. etc. What we should not do is pretend is the concern over Islamic terrorism is more important than concerns over individual liberty and constitutional government.

There are sometimes huge emergencies, like waves of invading troops, or massive natural disasters, that call for temporary - temporary! - prioritizing of various concerns over individual liberty.

Al-Quaeda is not it. They wish they could come close. They can't. They're illiterate, worthless goons, half insane and inept and the other half cowards and the fact they got blazingly, impossibly lucky once does not change that. In fact even if they do get lucky every 20 years it will not change that.

We have gone that route before you know .... I mean, who ever would guess some bizarro with a Oliver Hardy style mustache would write a book inside a prison cell using smuggled supplies would ever be able to very nearly accomplish what his meandering bizarro nut manifesto claimed aspired to?  For all the world could guess such a bizarro nutcake by all rights would remain a bizarro nutcake until he died in obscurity.
History recalls otherwise.

What we should do, of  course, is operate on the assumption our enemy is full of superior military strength... just hand over Czechoslovakia. We've heard that tune, too.

[roo_ster]

Because he differs with you in his opinion on the fictional Islamist threat?

Bachmann's performance was heinous. She got not a single fact right, because the quest of scaring the voters straight was more important than facts.

Not quite, but keep thinking that if it makes you feel better.

How's about because Paul doesn't have the sense, when given a near-miraculous chance in the Iowa caucus, to refrain from doing the political equivalent of giving his genitalia a tongue-bath on live teevee?  And then go on Letterman and accuse Bachmann of hating muslims after she took after him in the debate.

Screw him.  Like Perry, he has internalized the progressive critique and has begun to use their language & tools when pressed/stressed. 

Besides, like many libertarians, Paul himself is dishonest about what those who wrote the COTUS said it meant and about the powers they exercised when they were elected under it.  It wouldn't hurt Paul any to crack open a history book.  Maybe he his quest to pop a (political) squat on national teevee is more important to him than the facts.

What we should do, of  course, is operate on the assumption our enemy is full of superior military strength... just hand over Czechoslovakia. We've heard that tune, too.

You may have studied history, but it is plain from that ^^ you haven't learned anything from it.

[TommyGunn]

Yes. Yes I do. Or rather: of course we should kill terrorists etc. etc. What we should not do is pretend is the concern over Islamic terrorism is more important than concerns over individual liberty and constitutional government.

There are sometimes huge emergencies, like waves of invading troops, or massive natural disasters, that call for temporary - temporary! - prioritizing of various concerns over individual liberty.

Al-Quaeda is not it. They wish they could come close. They can't. They're illiterate, worthless goons, half insane and inept and the other half cowards and the fact they got blazingly, impossibly lucky once does not change that. In fact even if they do get lucky every 20 years it will not change that.

What we should do, of  course, is operate on the assumption our enemy is full of superior military strength... just hand over Czechoslovakia. We've heard that tune, too.

Sometimes getting blazingly impossibly lucky is enough.  If a British officer in the American Revolutionary War had read the note he'd been given rather than stuff it in a pocket, Washington would have been defeated at Trenton, and if that had happen, could America have won her independence?
AQ "got lucky" on 9/11/01.  And we got "un"lucky; if the FBI had followed through on reports by flight instructors that some odd people wanted to learn how to fly but didn't care about take-off or landing, 9/11 might have been prevented.  
But we messed up; like the military intel guys who thought the greatest danger in Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 would be sabotage, so they had all the planes lined up in neat rows -- making strafing them so much easier for the real attack force which, BTW, was presumed to be heading toward the Philippines.
AQ "illiterate worthless goons.? ? ?"  In my earlier post I referenced Hitler.   Years ago I read a analysis by a psychologist named (IIRC) Robert Waite titled The Psychopathic God.  He concluded that Hitler was a borderline disfunctional personality.  He had other interesting remarks about Der Fuhrer as well, none of them particularly complimentary.  Despite the shortcomings Hitler accomplished a great deal of evil.  I think one of the greatest "allies" he had was he had such an improbable beginning; as I said, who'd believe some nut in a prison cell would write a book, title it "My Struggle," and then actually come so close to achieving it.  No one believes prisoners will ever amount to anything.
And I think relegating AQ to a one in twenty year pest is equally as dangerous.  Sure, a lot of things they've tried are inept but all we need to do is ignore them, and maybe the'll learn to weed out their "little Hitlers" and develop into a real power.  
Not that I agree with everything we ARE doing or everything we've done,  but what we've done is better than handing off the Sudetenland one more time for an ephemeral promise of "peace in our time."

[MicroBalrog]

You may have studied history, but it is plain from that ^^ you haven't learned anything from it.

Chamberlain was not motivated by underestimating the Nazi threat. He was motivated by overestimating how dangerous Hitler was.

Sometimes getting blazingly impossibly lucky is enough.  If a British officer in the American Revolutionary War had read the note he'd been given rather than stuff it in a pocket, Washington would have been defeated at Trenton, and if that had happen, could America have won her independence?/quote]


Some threats are worse than others. It's important to be able to properly rank them.

[TommyGunn]

Some threats are worse than others. It's important to be able to properly rank them.

And deal with those which have presented, such as AQ's attack on 9/11.
China may be a threat as well .... in another generation, assuming China keeps building up a navy and a way of projecting its power outside of its own borders.


And btw, I don't think Neville Chamberlain "overestimated" the Nazi threat, I think he was  severely misguided in thinking Hitler could be assuaged by a surrender of land.  He simply didn't understand Hitler's ruthlessness and aggression.  Churchill came closer to understanding Hitler's danger to europe.  Later British history pretty much affirms that ........

[MicroBalrog]

And deal with those which have presented, such as AQ's attack on 9/11.
China may be a threat as well .... in another generation, assuming China keeps building up a navy and a way of projecting its power outside of its own borders.

Al-Quaeda should be ranked with Pancho Villa (to whom America reacted with military force when he attacked America on its own soil) rather than with Hitler.

And btw, I don't think Neville Chamberlain "overestimated" the Nazi threat, I think he was  severely misguided in thinking Hitler could be assuaged by a surrender of land.  He simply didn't understand Hitler's ruthlessness and aggression.  Churchill came closer to understanding Hitler's danger to europe.  Later British history pretty much affirms that ........

It's pretty much common agreement by the historians that Hitler could have been stopped in 1935 through 1938 had the French and English struck swiftly and boldly. But English and French commands were persuaded (in part due to successful trickery by the Germans) that the Germans were far stronger than they were in actual fact.

[TommyGunn]

AQ is a wider (or was 10 years ago) spread force than Pancho Villa was.  They also have a grander, larger set of aspirations and maybe the patience to see them through.

It's pretty much common agreement by the historians that Hitler could have been stopped in 1935 through 1938 had the French and English struck swiftly and boldly. But English and French commands were persuaded (in part due to successful trickery by the Germans) that the Germans were far stronger than they were in actual fact.

The French could have stopped the Nazi invasion if they had deployed their tanks & personnel more wisely; they had more, and better, tanks.  What killed the French tanks was the German Stukas. 
As far as the Germans' "trickery" that goes back to Sun Tzu and The Brits should have seen through it.  But the Brits themselves were hardly strong militarily.  Neither were we.  The fact that neither country armed up during this period was a serious mistake; especially on our part, as we had greater industrial facilities than Britain.
We didn't win WW2 because our war machines were superior to the Germans',  we were able to outproduce them.  The Germans mucked up enough in tactics and strategy so that it cost them the war in the end.  Thanks mainly to none other than Hitler himself.

[AJ Dual]

America's strength militarily since WWII has always been our ability to "throw money at the problem", whether it was in terms of numerical or technological superiority.

I'm getting a gut feeling that even if the worst (mis)representations of "Ron Paul foreign policy" are all true, his administration having the most potential to clean up American fiscal matters might well leave us more secure overall and in the long run. Even if any "hands  off" or "appeasement" strategies backfire.

I do think that America has taken on the entire Radical Islam/terrorism issue with a Cold War mindset of playing Risk or Chess, where we felt like the whole map, one country at a time would turn "Red" if we weren't doing the same. A policy of, "You hit us, we'll kick your teeth in, then stomp you 10x as bad. Then go home ASAP", might well accomplish more than decades long exercises in nation building.

[longeyes]

I do think that America has taken on the entire Radical Islam/terrorism issue with a Cold War mindset of playing Risk or Chess, where we felt like the whole map, one country at a time would turn "Red" if we weren't doing the same. A policy of, "You hit us, we'll kick your teeth in, then stomp you 10x as bad. Then go home ASAP", might well accomplish more than decades long exercises in nation building.

This.

And keep the option open of knocking over the board.

[Blakenzy]

^^yes.

Failure to adopt a sensible position as that should make it clear that motives for military action in the past decade went well beyond self defense.

[zxcvbob]

Eisenhower warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex.

[MicroBalrog]

Eisenhower warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex.

Didn't he help enshrine it himself?