No, our foreign policy recognizes that they (cruel dictators bent on war) exist. I'd rather they didn't. I don't like large military expenditures, they drain off valuable resources and keep taxes high. But they are necessary.

Bosh! You create them with your point of view that says they are necessary. You invent and exaggerate the bogeymen, and feed off of them to support military spending. Fear feeds off of fear. You, my dear Mr. Cynic, are a Fear-monger.

Yes, I've noticed that there are fewer around today. America is the primary reason why, Eric. There is no such thing as 'progress' as a subject or an object to a verb. There are specific reasons for the shift to democracy. The end of the USSR is the most important recent one.

Among the things you forget is that the democratic revolution took place as much against American domination as against Soviet. S. Korea, the Phillippines, Chile overthrew American-backed Cold War regimes instituted to fight communism, and restored themselves to democracy. Those in the Soviet bloc did the same thing. All these peoples did it for themselves, and did in spite of us and not because of us.

There's no such thing as leadership by committee.

You don't remember the Congress of Vienna then? The Treaty of Westphalia? NATO? Of course there is. Multi-lateralism is not only feasible, it's normal. Go it alone American militarism is abnormal. It is foisted upon us by the red zone.

The Congress of Vienna was not leadership, it was a meeting of the winners of a war to divy up the spoils, and to reconstruct a monarchy on the wreckage of Napoleonic France. Great Britain and her allies did just that, but it was leadership only in the sense that a pack of fairly evenly matched predators worked out their territorial boundaries.

Wrong. The Congress of Vienna set up an international system that worked very well for 33 years and fairly well even after that. It prevented major war for a century. It was international affairs by committee.

NATO does not provide any leaderhship. NATO works by unanimous vote, in theory. In practical terms, NATO does pretty well what the U.S. Government wishes, or it does nothing at all. In Kosovo, in Bosnia, in the Gulf War, it was America that made the decisions and provided the bulk of the power.
In Kosovo, almost all the critical fighting power was American.

But it could not have been done by the USA alone; it was a joint decision, right and properly so, and is even more so now. Multilateral and global international policies are the wave of the future.

The European member-states don't have the military power to play in the same league as the U.S., and recent events since 911 have only driven that point home with cruel inescapability.

As a group they certainly could, and would if we were out of the picture or our contribution were reduced-- which is what you so fear, and is driving this debate between us. I fail to see any connection between 9/11 and the need for American world supremacy. If anything, it made us an inviting target for the terrorists.

If you look at known examples of multilateral action, almost invariably some specific government, and within it some specific individual or small group, is the driving force behind the decisions.

You can't prove that. Again the Vienna example is a good one. None of the powers alone was the driving force.

The closest thing to an exception that I can think of in living memory is the Alliance in World War II, and even there, ask Churchill's ghost if he felt 'equal' to Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta.

No doubt, that is another good example of a working alliance.

America was and is responsible for most of the action to keep the rogue states in check, Eric.

It doesn't have to be that way. We are not the only nation with concerns about rogue states. If we didn't assume so, other nations would do it, as they did before. This is not 1938. That was an entirely unique situation, with Europe weakened by WWI. Your policies are and have been for 40 years based on an out-of-date Munich-based foreign policy.

In terms of relative military power, Europe is weaker in 2002 than it was in the aftermath of World War I.

I doubt this, but it doesn't matter. They have the ability to raise armies and equip them.

Also, keeping the rogue states in check is not a big job. We aren't talking Hitler or Stalin. However bad a Saddam may be, he has much less power. The developed democracies have enough resources to check the small rogue states and to make social progress. Your idea that there must be a powerful state that is socially backward in order for there to be world peace is as absurd as it sounds.

In 1925, Germany was all but powerless in military terms, and that changed in a hurry. It's the presence of a strong democratic power in the world that prevents these small problems from growing into big problems down the line.

But the power to contain small problems does not require a huge military superpower.
Germany had the economic power to "change in a hurry. That's what counts regarding strength; not the actual forces in the field.
A "committee" of democratic powers can work as well as one; your assumption that it can't is only that. Nations can work together to guard peace and freedom.

We could have gone the route of Europe; indeed should have. Reagan's militarism did not end the Cold War; that is a myth.
Gorbachev decided to end it for the good of his country; he did it unlaterally. That's all there is to it. It would have happened had Carter won re-election.

Eric, this is sheer fantasy. Gorbachev did not end Communism for the good of Russia or anyone else. His primary goal was to save Communism.

I didn't say he wanted to end Communism, though he wanted to reform it almost beyond recognition (his ideal was Sweden). He did end the Cold War, by simply throwing in the towel. That was Reagan's good luck, and that was ALL!

And no, had Carter been reelected, odds are the USSR would still exist. It's true that Communism tends to run out of steam, and it was stagnating, but that's not enough! There are several ways it could extend its life, the simplest being by sucking in resources from outside by force.

Its career in Afghanistan proved that it could not do that.

It was Ronald Reagan, in an early State of the Union address, who opined that the USSR could be brought to an end if America and the West stood firm.

By this he meant an expensive new military buildup that bankrupted our nation.

At the time, he was derided for this, by 'experts' who 'knew' that the USSR was strong and was not going to be defeated by this cowboy from California. When he called the USSR an 'Evil Empire' the cautious diplomats at State and many in the media almost had heart palpitations, even though it was just a simple description of reality.

Your theory is just based on the same false reading of history. Our buildup had nothing to do with the Russian decision to back out of the Cold War. Gorbachev decided this for the good of his nation. It's interesting that the "evil side" had the courage and good will to end the Cold War, while the "good side" did not. I bet if we had ended it, the Soviets would have disarmed too.

The horrors and the secret police and the internal spies and the slave labor, they didn't stop with Stalin, they continued up to and well into the time of Gorbachev.
They had lessoned somewhat, but they had not stopped.

I grant, it was not a good state. However, confronting it posed the real risk of military confrontations and the shooting down of civilian airliners. Liberals were right to question Reagan's dangerous course. He was just lucky that he pursued these policies when his enemy was about spent and its leadership dead and dying.

Once Reagan started forcing them to try to match America in economic resources, scientific development, and weapons procurement, the weakness of their system became apparent. They couldn't do it. And that revelation weakened them enormously, as it weakened their prestige with every dictator that looked to them for support, with every revolutionary movement that saw USSR support as their key to success, with their own internal dissidents who suddenly saw that the State was not invincible.

None of this happened in the early 1980s. Reagan's buildup could not be matched by the Soviets, true. But their system was already failing in any case. You simply can't prove it would not have fallen apart or been reformed anyway. They could have just stood still and not made any buildup in response to Reagan's at all-- which is mostly what they did anyway. The attribution of Cold War victory by red zoners to Reagan is nothing more than your opinion without any foundation in fact. The fact that reforms have happened in many other Communist states that weren't involved in heavy Cold War military confrontation with us proves my point. How did American military buildups cause Vietnam to reform itself, when Vietnam had already defeated us? China? Many African socialist states?

Gorbachev was forced to the policies of glasnost and perestroika by the reality that the USSR was out of money and available resources, and had no practical way to match the continuing US build up. Gorbachev hoped that by loosening the system just a little, he could make it flexible enough to survive.

His reforms were more than "a little." It was fundamental reform. Even in 1990 before the coup Gorbachev was democratizing his system.

Gorbachev did not end Communism unilaterally.

That was not my claim. He reformed it, and democratized it. You confuse ending the Cold War with ending Soviet Communism. Those are two different things; one was not necessary to the other.

Unfortunately, you folks in the red zone think that "morality" consists in mindless obedience to Christian preachers, whose ideas you want to impose on the rest of us in the blue zone, and this is your version of a higher authority. People in the blue zone more closely understand that the Higher Authority is ultimately found within each person, not merely enforced by the church and state.

If the voice of moral Authority is entirely internal, why isn't it universal? Morality can't be one thing for one person and another thing for someone else.

That reveals the limitation of your point of view. Of course the internal can be universal. We all perceive the truth for ourselves, within ourselves. We individuals are not separate universes; we are part of one universe; or didn't you know that Cynic?

But that's beside the point. Morals don't have to be imposed by a doctrinaire fundamentalist set of preachers. They can be arrived at by reason, intuition, open-minded, interactive teaching and other human God-given abilities. Your obedience to preachers reveals the fact that you are not interested in freedom at all; that is a smokescreen for a preference for dictatorship. Why are you so afraid of dictators overseas but support authoritarian, mindless fundamentalism at home? The Ayatollah Falwell and the Ayatollah Khomeini are cousins if not brothers in thought.

I favor a flat-percentage income tax, since you ask, which means that if you have ten times the income, you pay ten times the taxes. Incidentally, once that was in place, I might be willing to consider a tax increase if I thought the situation called for it, since it would be spread evenly across all brackets in accordance with the ability to pay.

I oppose the so-called 'progressive' tax, which means if you make ten times the income, you pay thirty times the taxes.

You reveal your colors again as an apologist for the rich. The flat tax is a scheme to benefit them and put all the burden on the poor and middle class. Because the poorer people need a higher percentage of their income for basic needs. Wealth is power; by lowering taxes on the wealthy, you increase and perpetuate oligarchy.

I also oppose sales taxes, since they fall heavier on the poor by percentage. That same tax on a purchase that is .00001% of a rich man's income might be 10% of a poor man's.

We might agree there. The same point you make about sales taxes applies to the flat income tax. Many conservatives want to end the income tax and raise the sales tax. Sometimes it's a good check on overconsumption though. I favor gasoline taxes.

Eric, it wasn't liberals who worked those changes. It wasn't even mostly Prophets. The growth of democracy was largely the work of Civics. The changes to the child labor laws and the wage laws were the result of Missionary efforts, from people who would todya be considered religious right.

They were the religious Left then. They were more progressive than our own Left is today. The Missionaries were willing to take action to bring change and reform, and they did. They were not trying to institute cultural and behavioral morals as the Religious Right are doing today; they were bringing about social equity and justice, something which the Religious right care not a fig for. Last time I checked, the Missionaries were Prophets. But I said liberals bring about change, not Prophets.

Precisely, and we in the Red Zone doubt your vision, Eric. We're not sure the vision you see is for real. In fact, we 99% sure it isn't.

That's the problem. We're in trouble as a nation until you folks can improve your vision. You are keeping the nation mired in the past. Get with it. See the facts. Give up your neanderthal policies. If you would advocate cuationary checks on liberal policies, so that they aren't wasteful or utopian, that might be helpful. But the extreme policies you folks are upholding are not of any use, except to keep us in the Dark Ages of yesterday.

_________________
Keep the Spirit Alive,
Eric Meece

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-03-01 02:33 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-03-01 02:38 ]</font>

Wrong, Eric. Authority over their children can only derive from the parents. As for training, you haven't explained where the teachers would derive the right to run the schools, save from the collective authority of the parents of the children involved.

The authority derives from the voters as a whole, not just parents. Parent involvement can be a good thing, as Barbara explained, if it is consistent and intelligent. Too often what red zoners mean by "parental vetoes" (as you called it), is the right to impose Religious right propaganda on the school curriculum and call that "parental involvement." No, educators decide curriculum, and are empowered to do so by the majority of voters who are not, except in some red zone communities, ignorant enough to suppose they can do it for themselves.

The authority of teachers derives from their education and training, and their being hired by the people who run the schools, who are put in place by school boards I assume; thus ultimately the voters, in a democracy; but not just parents. We ALL have a stake in education.

The training of our teachers, also, leaves much to be desired of late. To much of it is based on faddish psychological theories, the latest politically correct left-wing ideology, and wishful thinking.

What can I say except that this is just posturing and you have no facts or examples. If you are sincere that you are being "forced" to advocate vouchers because the schools don't reform themselves, then don't put forth such nonsense as this as what needs "reform." What needs to be reformed is only the level of education being offered at the schools.

Yes, this means that parents have a say in what their children are taught,
and the right to veto certain things, no matter how much they may appeal to the 'progressives' have have come to see the schools as the training ground for future 'enlightened citizens'.

No, parents don't have a "veto" over educational curriculum. As I just explained, educators should educate, and have the power delegated to them to do so by all the voters, and not just parents.

The fact is, towns with a university are the most left-leaning areas.

No kidding! That's part of what's wrong!

It proves my point. Universities educate. When people know more, they are more liberal. when they are locked into hick red zone old-fashioned thinking, they vote for Bush.

Businesspeople have just as much grasp of art, science, and the other higher aspirations as leftist intellectuals, Eric, and often a better appreciation of the way people react to it in mass. A randomly selected businesman is as likely to know something of physics or history as a randomly selected philosophy professor.

Not so at all. Businessmen forget their education, which was only about how to make money in the first place.

Yes, the so-called 'intelligentsia' often tends to vote Democratic. These are the same people who have spent their life in a classroom or a nice, safe American city, protected by a military force, an intelligence service, a police system, and supported in unsurpassed comfort by a gigantic economy.

And thank goodness they vote Democratic, or the economy would have not been left standing. Republican policies wreck the economy, because they only understand how it works to benefit them, not society as a whole. They don't understand the business cycle, and don't understand that trickle up economics works and trickle-down does not.

They tend, as a rule, to know far less about the real world than businessmen, soldiers, or common laborers.

The people you speak of have their noses to the grindstone and can't see beyond their own faces. Your attitude toward intellectuals demonstrates my point that you red zoners wish to live in an insulated world where you don't have to think and consider things too much beyond your own narrow interests. Anti-intellectualism is indeed a big current in American life, and you have just demonstrated it. But not to think is not the way to understand the issues we face or how to deal with them.

BTW, there is a difference between the so-called intelligentsia and academia, though the two words are thrown around interchangably. Not all academics are pure dreamers, many know a great deal about reality. The intelligentsia, in this definition, are the people who have broad opinions and little practical experience.

Of course, and ALL of these people are liberals; that is, at least they vote Democratic as a bloc. You are trying to label some academics as dreamers and some not. That won't work. All Academics are part of the intelligencia by definition, and it votes Democratic, because they are well educated and well-informed. Businessmen are mostly aware of their day to day affairs and how policies affect their bottom line; and little else. Thus, they vote Republican.
[quote]
These are the people who insist that the military is a bastion of stupidity and fascism, never have either served in it, known anyone who did, or even bothered to learn anything about it.
[/quote}
Serving in the military is not a prerequisite to anything.

Being liberal is not being a dreamer; it is the ability to see what is happening in society and be concerned enough to want change and reform. Conservatives in America are those who resist the practical steps that need to be taken.

These are the people who make up fantasies about how 'ecologically aware' the Native Americans were and are, and ignore the fact that they were responsible for several small and medium scale ecological disasters in North and South America before Europeans even arrived.

My goodness; several small disasters? I'm shocked. Of course Native Americans are concerned for the earth. They mostly take care of it; it is the invaders who destroyed the land. You deny this?

These are the people who insist that difference between male and female is entirely learned, and that they can be made interchangable by education and 'sensitivity training' in the face of 5000 years of experience that says otherwise.

Some feminists may say this, but by no means all. Of course this training is necessary, because many limiting sex roles can and should be dropped or changed. Women need to be empowered, and men need to become sensitive. But this doesn't mean there is no difference between the sexes. Knowing the differences is as important as bridging them; indeed necessary to this end.

These are the people who think that the Nuclear Freeze Movement toppled the USSR (I have actually come across people who make this literal argument The Nation magazine, a bastion of the modern Left, tried to make the case for that a year or two ago!)

The freeze helped convince Reagan to back off his militant stance. If you think though that all the intelligencia as you define it, thinks the Freeze toppled the USSR, which you are saying, you are mistaken, Mr. Cynic. You are throwing wild charges.

These are the people who used to maintain that Alger Hiss was an innocent victim of a vast right wing conspiracy.

He was framed by Nixon, yes, and the McCarthy era was indeed a right-wing movement.

These are the people who thought that George McGovern's policies made sense in the real world.

They do.

So I'm not all that impressed by the intelligentsia, in this context.

You fail to recognize what I said; well educated people vote Democratic. You can't separate a few of them out who fit your description.

You want to hang on to ?traditional? America that speaks one language, has one culture, and ignores the needs of others so they will just go away. It is a losing battle, Cynic.

Eric, that's one battle that's almost certain to end up going the Red Zone's way.

True, America has the choice of being a single-culture society or breaking up in the long term. That culture can and will change, and will continue to absorb new influences, but a true multicultural society is impossible.

If it is impossible, then you should't fear it. Stop opposing policies that might deal with it, or saying bilingual education is proof that the schools need reform. It may or may not work; but it should be left to the teachers to evaluate it.

Nobody wants to ignore the needy, Eric, that's YOUR fantasy of us, not the reality.

Hardly. Your policies ignore the needy and throw them onto the streets to starve.

But if you think you can have multiple, mutually incompatible cultures co-exist for long in a liberal democracy, you're in for some unpleasant awakenings ahead.

You are the one in for an awakening, if you think you can hold back the tide of immigration and interaction with the rest of the world. That has never happened for very long in America. We are a land of immigrants. Get used to it.

It's never worked! You can have multiple cultures under one government, but that government has to function as an empire. Otherwise, the friction produces intolerable tensions. Yugoslavia is probably the best example of a true multicultural society in action, once the central authority breaks down even briefly.

OK Mr. Buchanan. Luckily there are few enough of you folks around so that cultures in America can interact and barriers break down, so that they don't live in isolation and mutual hatred from each other as in an empire.

The people supporting bilingual regard the will of those parents and legislators as being irrelevant to their superior will.

That's your unkind view of them, based on your anti-intellectual and anti-education views. No, their view of bilingual is based on their experience that it helps kids learn.

If so, you're doing it with remarkably little visible activity or effect.

If schools are still failing despite reforms, it is because you guys keep failing to support them. Name a Democrat or a liberal who supports fat salaries, poor accounting, or too much control by administrators.

Eric, the national news media are hard-core Leftist for the most part, and their coverage of vouchers and other GOP ideas is almost universally hostile.

You reveal your prejudice here. The media is owned by a few corporate conglomerates. Vouchers get plenty of coverage, to the point where it is almost the only reform discussed; even though it is obviously wrong. The fact that the media gives it equal time, and even puts real reformers on the defense against vouchers instead of being allowed to advocate real reforms, shows how out of touch with reality your view of the media is.

... middle class parents grew up in the school system before it was broken. Many of them, even now, don't realize how badly broken some parts of the system have since become.

So yes they know that public education works, and naturally don't wish to see it destroyed by vouchers. If you want to see the schools fixed, concentrate on better education, more books, better paid teachers, students learning as understood by qualified teacher's grades, and some well-designed testing; and not on conservative slogans about dreamers and social engineers and psychologists and multi-culturalism. If you want schools to work, why not support them, instead of attacking them as havens of liberal propaganda not worth supporting? Throwing such slogans at the schools only shows that you are not really interested in educating children. You want to destroy the schools by using these fears, so that there will be no public schools but only private schools which only the rich can afford to go to.

Transferring education to the private sector will not work. The parental control or oversight you so desire will be even less in evidence when schools are run by private corporations not accountable to the people.

The poor, however, do know. The polls are very consistent on this. Even many poor and minority parents who identify with the Democratic Party and side with it on almost everything else in these same polls keep coming up with majorities in favor of school choice and vouchers, or similar ideas. You may not like that, but it is a fact.

They are just deceived by conservative propaganda. Why are we supposed to believe that they know what is best for education, any more than those in other classes? There is no evidence that vouchers work, so what is their opinion based on?

As for drug recidivism, it has more to do with brain neurochemistry than it does with the nature of prison.

So why put them in prison, instead of giving them treatment?

Yes, an armed population, in large numbers, can keep the government in check. The government will always win against a small group such as at Waco. An armed populace, though, makes it that much less tempting to try to do something deeply opposed by either a majority or a large minority.

We already have a population armed in large numbers. There is at least several guns out there for every man, woman and child in America, and the government can still enforce its will. To think that an individual armed with a pistol or a shotgun can overwhelm the police or the army, is obvious lunacy.
However, lack of gun control means that many criminals can outgun the police. You apparently think this is a good idea. The police don't.

Yes, you can respect the law, without regarding it as possessing automatic legitimacy. The law itself can at times become the enemy of civilization, just as even a legal government can nevertheless be illegitimate morally.

What happened to your universal moral authority you want us to believe in?

And no, the 2nd Amendment does not exist to provide an army, this is demonstrable nonsense. The United States had an Army, it's provided for in the Constitution under Congressional prerogatives, seperately from the mention of the militia.

The 'militia' referred to in the 2nd Amendment refers, in fact, to the able bodied male population of the several States, and is NOT synonomous with the Federal Army.

That is beside the point, whether it was federal or not. The framers provided for a well-regulated militia because that is all that existed to keep the peace.

The well-regulated part merely means that the militia refers to civilized, decent men, not outlaws.

But in fact the USA had no standing army at that time. You are seriously proposing that the framers provided for militias to oppose the power of the government? That I would call treason, which the constitution provides penalities for. The purpose for which you want people to be armed, is for the purpose of breaking the law. By your own definition, it fails.

_________________
Keep the Spirit Alive,
Eric Meece

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-03-01 03:49 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-03-01 03:59 ]</font>

Meanwhile at stately Wayne Manor:

(For info and discussion purposes)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/walsh1.html

Same Bat-Time,
Same Bat-Channel

by Billy Walsh

What a great thrill it was to see President Batman finally throw down against the Axis of Evil! First we must deal with Penguin, whose turn it is this year to head the Axis. Though his Baghdad lair is over six thousand miles away and is no conceivable threat to the Republic of Gotham, he is a mortal foe to the Gotham Empire!

His latest shenanigan went almost unnoticed. Just recently, as many citizens of Gotham settled in for a morning of peaceful fuhrer worship on the Sunday talk shows, Penguin's henchmen planted an intoxicating gas in all the TV studios. As panelists all over the city began to discuss Gotham's global responsibilities, the gas started to escape. They all began slurring incomprehensibly. Then, at the mention of Penguin, they all became horribly drunk!

George F. Will could not even speak anymore. He peeled his shirt off and tried to arm-wrestle with anyone and everyone. Tony Snow tied an American flag around his neck like a cape and pretended to fly around the panelists. He stopped and shoved Fred Barnes, who fell behind his chair and off camera but could still be heard mumbling "sssassskickin' time now saaskickin' time now." William Safire went from a cerebral discussion of language, to throwing his chair across the set at Doris Kerns Goodwin. His glasses barely dangled from one ear. Tim Russert could take no notice with the lampshade he had placed over his head. He babbled senselessly underneath. William Kristol kept trying to say "Penguin," but with every utterance, he spit-up on himself, smiling bravely throughout the ordeal. Oh the humanity!

In the aftermath, a new group calling itself "Mad Mothers Against Power Drunk Politics" has organized. They should not anticipate as reverential press coverage as was received by their prohibitionist sisters in MADD, because all things are Penguin's fault!

But if some citizens cannot see the threat that Penguin poses, they should be forgiven. They do not have access to the technology of the Batcave. Batman does. He can see, in ways that they cannot, why only he has the moral vision to resist evil by, say, sending weapons into a conflict with a collapsing peace process. And how could a peace process collapse in the very Holy Land itself? The Axis of Evil, that's how! The Axis was caught red-handed sending weapons into the conflict. Gotham's indignation was understandably broad.

So Batman summoned the city's commissioners into the Hall of Justice. He called on them all to have the courage to face the Axis, and that anyone, anywhere who does not side with him, sides with the Axis. Batman declared that the Penguin would not be allowed to take away Gotham's cherished freedoms-that job belongs to the commissioners in the Hall of Justice, alone.

Well, the commissioners sure appreciated that, because they jumped up and down like it was ice cream day! So the Penguin and all his henchmen had better watch out, because that night, as Batman and his drunken chums retired to their late dinners, they sent Gotham's brave children out, all those many miles away, gunning for the Axis of Evil!!

Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na,...BATMAN!

March 1, 2002

Billy Walsh [send him mail] is a screenwriter in Maryland.

Hey, HC or Eric! Has either of you introduced the term "Black Republican" into the debate yet? Which of you is dispensing the best "hard cider" for us spectators? My vote turns on the cider!

Who needs Crossfire? Give me Cynic vs. Meece anyday! :smile:

Kiff, digging the debate

Eric writes... But in fact the USA had no standing army at that time. You are seriously proposing that the framers provided for militias to oppose the power of the government? That I would call treason, which the constitution provides penalities for. The purpose for which you want people to be armed, is for the purpose of breaking the law. By your own definition, it fails.

When democracy was struggling against feudalism, the advocates of democracy favored militias over standing armies. Simply, in the old feudal tradition, the feudal authorities controlled the standing armies, while the democrats controlled the people. Thus, the right to bear arms absolutely did have a political element in the struggle for human rights and democracy. Modern non-violent methods seldom if ever work, save in democracies. During the pre-democratic revolutionary era, it was not sufficient to march and protest. If one wanted change, one had to have superior firepower.

There were also law enforcement and military reasons for the 2nd Amendment.

The following list of quotes was strung together originally by the NRA.

Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764



George Mason, of Virginia:
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.". . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." -- Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

"That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free state." -- Within Mason's declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People," -- later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention, 1788



Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts:
"The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." -- Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788



William Grayson, of Virginia:
"[A] string of amendments were presented to the lower House; these altogether respected personal liberty." -- Letter to Patrick Henry, June 12, 1789, referring to the introduction of what became the Bill of Rights



Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia:
"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." -- Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788



James Madison, of Virginia:
The Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- The Federalist, No. 46



Tench Coxe, of Pennsylvania:
"The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them." -- An American Citizen, Oct. 21, 1787

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

"As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms." -- Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789



Noah Webster, of Pennsylvania:
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power." -- An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787



Alexander Hamilton, of New York:
"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens." -- The Federalist, No. 29



Thomas Paine, of Pennsylvania:
"[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." -- Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775



Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts:
"The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people." -- Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789



Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789


Cynic, I have gone over much of the above ground before with Eric, and have discovered Eric's incredible ability to not hear what people attempt to say if the facts conflict with his world view. He went so far as to quote a philosophy that facts are less important than theory, and that facts should be discarded if they conflict with a theory. Eric saw the above quotes once before in the old forum's gun control debate. His response was to disavow the founding fathers as antiquated, totally ignorant of the realities of today. He seems to have forgotten their opinions since. He fogets much when he finds it convenient.

You might do better tilting at windmills than debating with Eric.

_________________
We shall not have Freedom from Fear, everywhere in the world, while we forget the other three.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bob Butler 54 on 2002-03-01 08:52 ]</font>

Here, here!!!

On 2002-03-01 08:29, Bob Butler 54 wrote:
His response was to disavow the founding fathers as antiquated, totally ignorant of the realities of today.

i don't entirely disagree, at least in theory. the founding fathers, contrary to popular opinion, were just as human and fallible as the rest of us, and they suffered the same short-sightedness as anyone.

but one particularly long-sighted thing they did was allow for modification of the constitution through amendment, should their ideas become antiquated.


TK

Not to pile on Eric, but if he deserves it...

Eric's posts are so frustrating because it would take hours to point out all of the errors. I'll just point out one

"You fail to recognize what I said; well educated people vote Democratic"

Huh? This is quite removed from my experience, and I have a MS in Physics, and also did three years graduate work towards a PhD at a major (Blue Zone) research institution (before finally leaving physics in favor of sofware).

Some well-educated people vote Democratic, but many well-educated people do not. You're really out of touch if you don't know that.

In the hard sciences world (where theories must conform with reality as revealed through experimentation), it is quite easy to find highly intelligent people who think the Democrats are a joke.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: firemind on 2002-03-01 11:10 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: firemind on 2002-03-01 11:16 ]</font>

Bob, there you go again. Just because we disagree on several issues does not mean that I am any more close-minded than anyone else, you for that matter. I don't see you graviating toward my views or those of others any more than I do. So cool it.

What I pointed out then and will do so again is correct. Yes indeed, what those men said was appropriate for their times, but not for ours. That does not mean they were wrong for their time. But how can you expect the founding fathers not to be "ignorant of the realities of today?" They don't live today, so of course they are. So some (but not all) of their ideas may need to be revised. simply quoting founding fathers has little to do with what is right.

Let's restrict guns to their appropriate uses. Now you must admit that is a change in my position. Rather than outlawing all guns, maybe they can be allowed under certain circumstances in rural areas. So don't say I never change my position. Have you changed your position on gun control Bob? If so, how?

Yes, if you are going to take an extreme position that is opposite to my own views in almost every respect, as Cynic has done, then how can you expect anything other than to tilt at windmills if you expect to convince me to your side? Especially since my arguments are too powerful and too "big" (like windmills) to tilt at? :smile:

Empirical facts have the same level of relevance as I mentioned before a few posts back. They may be a good check on a theory. However, if past experience alone is enough to determine if something works, nothing new would ever be tried. In "fact" however, new things are tried, and found to work, based on a sound theory. Democracy is the best example in this debate. It worked because it was the right and just idea to guide a society by.

freemind, people who think liberal Democrats are a joke, are themselves a joke.

But enough namecalling. Polls and election returns show that more well-educated people vote Democratic. Election returns in university towns is one example I mentioned. I'm sure it goes across the board in all academic fields. But you, freemind, may be an exception that proves the rule.

The reason it is so frustrating for you right-wingers to debate with Eric is that you have to look at so many of your own errors. :smile: But as I am not infallible, keep trying; people do catch me in errors now and then. Or sometimes they catch me not too well able to quote the current facts that I have "heard somewhere." But because I can't quote them to you, does not mean I have to change my memory that the facts are there. It may mean I am less able to convince you, however.

[quote]
On 2002-03-01 11:40, Eric A Meece wrote:
"Polls and election returns show that more well-educated people vote Democratic. Election returns in university towns is one example I mentioned."

Never underestimate the ability of supposedly very intelligent well-educated people to be idiots. Billy Jeff I-can't-keep-my-barndoor-closed Clinton would be just one example.

My stories of professors and other intellectuals acting on a Forrest Gump-level are legion. In fact that would be an insult to old Forrest.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SJ on 2002-03-01 13:08 ]</font>

Eric & HC:

After searching the archives back to 1984 for the beginning of this thread, I finally opted to order it in bound volumes from Time-Life books. Eric, you asked me to respond so here is a start. But I still have a long way to go to get through this Encyclopedia Britannica you have written:

HC writes:

And no matter how many times you say it, throwing insults around doesn't turn conservatives into fascists. Sorry, it just isn't so.

Eric responds:

Not far away from it though, with your interest in supporting the private power of big corporations over government of the people.

Eric, this is what I mean by you being the unreconstructed Lennonist from the '60s. HC is not a fascist, nor are most conservatives. Not everyone who objects to the suggestion that he must be equally miserable as everybody else under socialist planning is a fascist. Indeed a fascist is more inclined to desire that equality of misery.

Prior to this part of the thread, you entered into a heated Red Zone/Blue Zone debate. But the whole time, you were opposing a bizarre caricature of a Red Zoner. I have spent most or all of my life in the Red Zone and I am not sure that I have ever met one of your Red Zoners.

You are making a very serious miscalculation here which hinders the advance of the anarchist side in the forming fascist/anarchist political paradigm. Do not judge conservatives by the Bush administration. Most conservatives are middle class and seek capitalist competition. The Bush administration reflects the upper class and seeks corporatist control. Understand that most middle class conservative capitalists vehemently object to any move to control the economy and rig the game as the Bush administration exists to do, and it is not difficult to understand why. Middle class conservative capitalists wish to maximize competitive opportunity in a free market in order to facilitate their continued economic rise. They would rather not be forced to play somebody else's "game" in order to be rewarded, if lucky, with the "privilege" of wealth, like a feudal vassal kneeling before his lord. Yet this is precisely the scenario to which corporatist control is returning us.

Your continued railing against your ridiculous Red Zone caricature only serves to draw those key middle class conservative capitalists unnecessarily closer to the Bush administration. Remember that most of them did not vote for Bush; they voted against Gore. They recognized that Bush was somebody's puppet just as much as you did and they were neither impressed nor amused.

The object here should be to help them see through the pervasive propaganda which has bombarded them since 911 such that they might continue to recognize that the Bush administration does not represent their interests and is instead a very, very marginal "lesser of two evils," if not the "greater evil." Yet you wish to demonize them by unjustly attributing to them the very serious and disturbing character flaws and power designs of the Bush crowd. That is a strategic blunder of massive proportions, Eric. The idea is to court them, not to drive them into the clutches of the opposition. But you insist upon painting them into that corner thereby hampering your own efforts. The '60s are over, man. As Gunny Highway would say, "Improvise!"

Eric writes:

Unfortunately, you folks in the red zone think that "morality" consists in mindless obedience to Christian preachers, whose ideas you want to impose on the rest of us in the blue zone, and this is your version of a higher authority. People in the blue zone more closely understand that the Higher Authority is ultimately found within each person, not merely enforced by the church and state.

Again you are fighting a life and death struggle with an absurd caricature. You make it appear as if, when the unsuspecting traveler leaves the Blue Zone, he immediately finds himself on the set of Children of the Corn. That is just plain stupid, Eric. Most Red Zoners eat at the same places as Blue Zoners, shop at the same stores, watch the same television shows, listen to the same music. Yes, a modestly higher percentage attends church but most do for social reasons. Hardcore fundamentalists are not jumping out of trees in the Red Zone. Indeed it is only marginally less difficult to find them there than it is in the Blue Zone.

HC writes:

We would have the higher murder rate with or without the guns. Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership, the UK and Japan have broad gun bans, all three have lower murder rates. The two are only barely connected.

Additionally, Australia recently instituted a major gun ban and crime has skyrocketed, as it logically should. Criminals by their nature seek the upper hand. The upper hand is not at all hard to find when the State mandates that all potential crime victims be unarmed.

Eric writes:

Anyone with good sense of any class can see that vouchers destroy public education. I'm glad to stand with anyone who sees through red zone propaganda.

And vouchers will destroy private education as well. As soon as federal money begins to flow, federal strings soon follow and multiply rapidly until the federal government acquires total effective control of the recipient. These vouchers will enable the federal government to do to private education what it has already done to public education: destroy it. And it is the damnedest thing since there is not even the slightest hint of a suggestion in the Constitution that the federal government has any authority to interfere in education, public or private.

Eric wrote:

There's no freedom at all in the "right to bear arms."

There is no freedom in the absence of the right to bear arms. However freedom is no longer guaranteed by our Second Amendment since the people hold rifles and shotguns and the government holds weapons of mass destruction. Freedom is only guaranteed when the people hold a favorable balance of fire with the government and ours has long since vanished.

Does this mean that we should just go ahead and ignore the Second Amendment on grounds of its obsolescence? No. Survival is the primary goal of the human species and the right to self-defense logically trumps all others since it is identical to the fundamental right to life from which all other rights logically flow. However I think gun activists are fooling themselves if they think that the Second Amendment still guarantees our freedom from tyranny, given such an unfavorable balance of fire today. The issue serves as a rather effective hobgoblin by providing concerned citizens with the illusion that they might still avert slavery when in fact they are already enslaved with no hope of escape by force of their radically inferior arms. Where arms are rendered obsolete, defense of life and limb is impossible. The battle must then necessarily become one of souls because that is all that remains. And logically that is where we are at right now.

Hey, guys, do you serve popcorn with that hard cider?

Seriously, although interesting points have been made in this debate, there are also quite a few "strawman" statements. What I mean, is that both Eric and the Cynic have set the other up as a strawman just to knock him down.

There are educated conservatives and educated liberals. There are also educated progressives. There are plenty of ignoramuses in every political camp as well.

There are also those of us who are educated and who do not seem to fit in any of the descriptors that are thrown around as if they are reality rather than labels.

Personally, I see myself as a values conservative and yet progressive about fiscal issues. I am not enamored with multinationals and yet I would not call all business people ignorant and greedy. I guess I don't belong to either the "red" or "blue" zone.

I just out here with what I expect is the majority of Americans--trying to raise my kids to be their best and do their best.

As a teacher I can tell you that some public schools are broken and yet many are outstanding. Some private schools are outstanding and some do not deliver the education that they promise.

I can also tell you that even at private schools allowing parents to run the school is a recipe for disaster. Parents always agree in principle with high standards--until their darling needs an exception. Private school parents can be some of the worst because they believe that they are paying for "A" grades. They--liberal and conservative alike--have to be persuaded that what they are paying for is an education. And there is a huge difference between grades and test scores and an education.

As a teacher, my job is far more encompassing than it was when I was a lecturer at the University. I must not only teach science, rather I must instill the discipline and values that will allow my students to go on in whatever field they choose.

And yes, there is alot of BS that comes out of schools of education. There is also a lot of solid training in how to plan and present material so that kids will learn not only the subject, but also how to apply it in other classes and other situations. It takes a lot of time and practice to become good at planning and implementing curriculum. It also takes meetings and sharing ideas in departments and school-wide to successfully implement a good curriculum. This is why the successful charter school still has teachers and administrators. Parents do not run the school.

Elisheva

Elisheva:

What is your opinion of parents volunteering in the schools? My community is trying to encourage parents and others to share their expertise and talents with the schools so that we might change a negative mind-set about education that thrives here (rural, low-income, and geographically isolated).

We have alot of neglected kids, and we're hoping that the presence of parents in the schools might influence those families to take better care of said children. We're talking food, clean clothing, discipline.
The disrict administrators have not been too positive. Teachers are waiting and watching, but they do admit that their ability to teach is hampered by disruptive students.

Any thoughts?

Hi!

On 2002-03-01 17:16, elilevin wrote:


Personally, I see myself as a values conservative and yet progressive about fiscal issues. I am not enamored with multinationals and yet I would not call all business people ignorant and greedy. I guess I don't belong to either the "red" or "blue" zone.

Very few people could be entirely classified as Red or Blue, once you get beyond purely geographical data points. They do tend, in elections, to gravitate more or less reluctantly toward one or the other, either because they like it a little better, or hate and/or fear the other a little more.

Both "red" and "blue" contain huge varities of opinion.

I can also tell you that even at private schools allowing parents to run the school is a recipe for disaster. Parents always agree in principle with high standards--until their darling needs an exception. Private school parents can be some of the worst because they believe that they are paying for "A" grades. They--liberal and conservative alike--have to be persuaded that what they are paying for is an education.

I am all too well aware of that. As I said in my debates, I consider most of the attempted reforms of the system doubtful, but I see no better options at hand.

I don't advocate that parents run the schools on day to day basis. My complaint was that too many (not all, as I said earlier) administrators and some teachers regard their role as being primary instructors, with the parents allowed to have a say in the raising of their children as long as they mind their place.

On 2002-03-01 18:21, jds1958xg wrote:

On 2002-03-01 17:16, elilevin wrote:


Seriously, although interesting points have been made in this debate, there are also quite a few "strawman" statements. What I mean, is that both Eric and the Cynic have set the other up as a strawman just to knock him down.

Ma'am, it seems to me like, all too often, they not only set each other up as strawmen, but themselves, as well, with their extreme positions. Positions that remind me of why both extreme camps give me toxic shock. As I said once, maybe here, maybe somewhere else, I have one foot in the Red Zone, and one in the Blue, and yes, I consider myself to be reasonably well educated (BA History).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jds1958xg on 2002-03-01 18:22 ]</font>

Actually, I'm closer to your location than I probably seem from my endless semi-futile exchanges with Eric. When I debate with him, I usually have to give only the hard core of my view of things, since the posts run so long already I don't have time to give any shadings.

On 2002-03-01 14:45, Stonewall Patton wrote:
Eric & HC:

After searching the archives back to 1984 for the beginning of this thread,
I finally opted to order it in bound volumes from Time-Life books.

:lol: :lol:

Eric, you asked me to respond so here is a start. But I still have a long way to go to get through this Encyclopedia Britannica you have written:

Eric writes:

Anyone with good sense of any class can see that vouchers destroy public education. I'm glad to stand with anyone who sees through red zone propaganda.

And vouchers will destroy private education as well. As soon as federal money begins to flow, federal strings soon follow and multiply rapidly until the federal government acquires total effective control of the recipient.

That is, in fact, one reason that I'm less than wholehearted about vouchers myself. I want to see the system shaken up, and nothing seems to make a dent. Ideally, I don't see much role for the Federal authority in education, anyway. Politically, though, it's explosive.

Eric wrote:

There's no freedom at all in the "right to bear arms."

There is no freedom in the absence of the right to bear arms. However freedom is no longer guaranteed by our Second Amendment since the people hold rifles and shotguns and the government holds weapons of mass destruction. Freedom is only guaranteed when the people hold a favorable balance of fire with the government and ours has long since vanished.

Does this mean that we should just go ahead and ignore the Second Amendment on grounds of its obsolescence? No. Survival is the primary goal of the human species and the right to self-defense logically trumps all others since it is identical to the fundamental right to life from which all other rights logically flow. However I think gun activists are fooling themselves if they think that the Second Amendment still guarantees our freedom from tyranny, given such an unfavorable balance of fire today. The issue serves as a rather effective hobgoblin by providing concerned citizens with the illusion that they might still avert slavery when in fact they are already enslaved with no hope of escape by force of their radically inferior arms. Where arms are rendered obsolete, defense of life and limb is impossible. The battle must then necessarily become one of souls because that is all that remains. And logically that is where we are at right now.

In fact, many of us are pretty well aware of the imbalance problem. I can see possible ways around it, but they would be almost impossible to even explain, given the current climate, without setting off hysterical mania.

I do think, even today, that an armed populace acts as just one more small element in a network that even yet has not entirely collapsed, that restrains authority to a semi-limited role.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-01 20:53 ]</font>

On 2002-03-01 20:43, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-03-01 18:21, jds1958xg wrote:

On 2002-03-01 17:16, elilevin wrote:


Seriously, although interesting points have been made in this debate, there are also quite a few "strawman" statements. What I mean, is that both Eric and the Cynic have set the other up as a strawman just to knock him down.

Ma'am, it seems to me like, all too often, they not only set each other up as strawmen, but themselves, as well, with their extreme positions. Positions that remind me of why both extreme camps give me toxic shock. As I said once, maybe here, maybe somewhere else, I have one foot in the Red Zone, and one in the Blue, and yes, I consider myself to be reasonably well educated (BA History).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jds1958xg on 2002-03-01 18:22 ]</font>

Actually, I'm closer to your location than I probably seem from my endless semi-futile exchanges with Eric. When I debate with him, I usually have to give only the hard core of my view of things, since the posts run so long already I don't have time to give any shadings.

I can see how that can happen, when the irresistable force collides with the immovable object. The expected results can be very frustrating, to say the least. Suffice it to say that neither of you can ever hope to convert the other.

On 2002-03-01 08:29, Bob Butler 54 wrote:



Cynic, I have gone over much of the above ground before with Eric, and have discovered Eric's incredible ability to not hear what people attempt to say if the facts conflict with his world view. He went so far as to quote a philosophy that facts are less important than theory, and that facts should be discarded if they conflict with a theory. Eric saw the above quotes once before in the old forum's gun control debate. His response was to disavow the founding fathers as antiquated, totally ignorant of the realities of today. He seems to have forgotten their opinions since. He fogets much when he finds it convenient.

You might do better tilting at windmills than debating with Eric.

:lol:

Clearly, if he thinks Alger Hiss was framed!

True, but when he posts this stuff, I feel this irresistable compulsion to counter it with a little reality. I could always just post a 'whatever' to it, but this is more satisfying, if no more effective.

And, too, lots of people read these forums who never post. (Such as I myself, until fairly recently).

If my posts inspire someone to look up the history of recent years for themselves, to see whether or not Eric or I or both are full of it, then that much good is done.

The news media generally portrays a world view pretty close to that of Eric, so it might do a little good to get the other side out as well, when the chance comes along.

I mean, if you solely went by the TV news, you'd think that the whole story of the eighties was an S&L crash and the mean nasty U.S. military and government finally crushed those noble idealistic social engineers in the Worker's Paradise.

And, of course, that American soldiers, sailors and airmen are sitting around morosely waiting for another chance to drop evil napalm and defoliants on innocent third world natives living in peace with nature.

(That's sarcasm, Eric.) :smile:

On 2002-03-01 20:51, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

I do think, even today, that an armed populace acts as just one more small element in a network that even yet has not entirely collapsed, that restrains authority to a semi-limited role.

I hope you are right, HC, and I believed this as well up until very recently. But I just cannot see it anymore.

On 2002-03-01 02:29, Eric A Meece wrote:

Wrong. The Congress of Vienna set up an international system that worked very well for 33 years and fairly well even after that. It prevented major war for a century. It was international affairs by committee.

There was peace in Europe, Eric, because the big powers were content, for the time being, with the arrangement, and no one had the power to budge them just then, and probably also because they were in a Generational lull, the long period between 4T eruptions.

Note that pressure built steadily during this long peace, as Germany unified and grew militarily strong and began to assert itself, disrupting the balance between the UK, France, and Russia.

In terms of relative military power, Europe is weaker in 2002 than it was in the aftermath of World War I.

I doubt this, but it doesn't matter. They have the ability to raise armies and equip them.

The ability, yes, but not the will (at least right now). Further, that ability exists only in collective form, not individually to each nation today.

In the aftermath of WW I, Britain still had her empire, a very large, well equipped, and well trained Navy, and was refining and improving her officer corps after the debacles of the First World War.

France still had her empire as well, and even the smaller European powers could still claim to be individual 'players'.

Not today.

We could have gone the route of Europe; indeed should have. Reagan's militarism did not end the Cold War; that is a myth.
Gorbachev decided to end it for the good of his country; he did it unlaterally. That's all there is to it. It would have happened had Carter won re-election.

Eric, this is sheer fantasy. Gorbachev did not end Communism for the good of Russia or anyone else. His primary goal was to save Communism.

I didn't say he wanted to end Communism, though he wanted to reform it almost beyond recognition (his ideal was Sweden). He did end the Cold War, by simply throwing in the towel. That was Reagan's good luck, and that was ALL!

Where did you get the idea that he wanted to duplicate Sweden?

And no, had Carter been reelected, odds are the USSR would still exist. It's true that Communism tends to run out of steam, and it was stagnating, but that's not enough! There are several ways it could extend its life, the simplest being by sucking in resources from outside by force.

Its career in Afghanistan proved that it could not do that.

They had been doing it for decades quite successfully in eastern Europe, and to a lesser degree in Africa and Latin America and Asia.

There used be a joke in eastern Europe: "The Soviets have produced crossed a giraffe with a cow to produce a marvelous animal! It feeds in Budapest and is milked in Moscow!"

At the time, he was derided for this, by 'experts' who 'knew' that the USSR was strong and was not going to be defeated by this cowboy from California. When he called the USSR an 'Evil Empire' the cautious diplomats at State and many in the media almost had heart palpitations, even though it was just a simple description of reality.

Your theory is just based on the same false reading of history. Our buildup had nothing to do with the Russian decision to back out of the Cold War. Gorbachev decided this for the good of his nation. It's interesting that the "evil side" had the courage and good will to end the Cold War, while the "good side" did not. I bet if we had ended it, the Soviets would have disarmed too.

Not only would you have lost that bet, if it had been taken up by America back then, but so would I, and the whole planet Earth.

Gorbachev was forced to the policies of glasnost and perestroika by the reality that the USSR was out of money and available resources, and had no practical way to match the continuing US build up. Gorbachev hoped that by loosening the system just a little, he could make it flexible enough to survive.

His reforms were more than "a little." It was fundamental reform. Even in 1990 before the coup Gorbachev was democratizing his system.

True, driven by the pressure of the West's advancing military and economic power, and the policy of confrontation in Washington and London.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-01 21:19 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-01 21:21 ]</font>

On 2002-03-01 03:45, Eric A Meece wrote:

These are the people who make up fantasies about how 'ecologically aware' the Native Americans were and are, and ignore the fact that they were responsible for several small and medium scale ecological disasters in North and South America before Europeans even arrived.

My goodness; several small disasters? I'm shocked. Of course Native Americans are concerned for the earth. They mostly take care of it; it is the invaders who destroyed the land. You deny this?

The common vision of the Earth-sensitive Native American the Hollywood and Madison Avenue portray is mostly a myth, yes. Some tribes took some actions that helped preserve soil quality and the like, while others were indifferent.

That famous speech by Chief Seattle: odds are it was written by an adman.

There is reason to believe that there were ecological failures with roots in human activity in the Southwest, in Navajo and Anasazi territory. It is also suspected that the Moche may have overfarmed and overgrazed their lands in South America and brought about a local collapse.

Ecological concern on a major scale is almost entirely a product of the West, very few other cultures paid it more than local attention, if that.

These are the people who think that the Nuclear Freeze Movement toppled the USSR (I have actually come across people who make this literal argument The Nation magazine, a bastion of the modern Left, tried to make the case for that a year or two ago!)

The freeze helped convince Reagan to back off his militant stance. If you think though that all the intelligencia as you define it, thinks the Freeze toppled the USSR, which you are saying, you are mistaken, Mr. Cynic. You are throwing wild charges.

I didn't make the claim, The Nation did.

These are the people who used to maintain that Alger Hiss was an innocent victim of a vast right wing conspiracy.

He was framed by Nixon, yes, ...

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yes, you can respect the law, without regarding it as possessing automatic legitimacy. The law itself can at times become the enemy of civilization, just as even a legal government can nevertheless be illegitimate morally.

What happened to your universal moral authority you want us to believe in?

Universal moral law does not derive from the authority of the state, Eric. It is when the state conflicts with the universal more law that the state loses legitimacy. As stated, BTW, in the Declaration of Independence.

The well-regulated part merely means that the militia refers to civilized, decent men, not outlaws.

But in fact the USA had no standing army at that time. You are seriously proposing that the framers provided for militias to oppose the power of the government? That I would call treason, which the constitution provides penalities for. The purpose for which you want people to be armed, is for the purpose of breaking the law. By your own definition, it fails.

If you read the Federalist Papers you'll find that the Founders had a rather different view than yours.

No, simply resisting the law under extreme circumstances does not, in itself, constitute treason, which is rather narrowly defined directly in the U.S. Constitution.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-01 21:37 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-01 21:43 ]</font>

On 2002-03-01 01:25, Eric A Meece wrote:
Back for more, eh? I thought you had given up the ghost. You are a glutten for punishment! :smile:

Eric, the GOP controlled the Senate from 2001-2002. That's it. The Democrats controlled the Senate from 2003-1994. The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives throughout the Reagan years. To say that the GOP controlled Congress in Reagan's time is nonsense.

Wrong. Republicans controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987.

OK, I checked, and we're both right. The GOP held the Senate from 1981 to 1987, as you said, the Dems held the House throughout that time, so the parties were more even than I was thinking.

However, the GOP never held the house with a sufficient majority (requires 60) to invoke cloture, so in fact the Democrats controlled the house and neither party truly controlled the Senate, so the Dems had the edge in Congress throughout the period, just not as much of one as I erroneously was thinking.