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+1
instead of the Boy-Chic who daily disgraces
our WH.
It's starting to smell like Armageddon... or the start of WWIII - which we always knew would spark in the Middle East... and our Clueless Leader would like nothing better than to grab all the guns in the US to ease the transition to Communism/Socialism or whatever he and his Chomsky / Ayers pals would like.
I've been consistent in saying for a long time, I switched pretty much entirely off fossil fuels, I'm down to about 10 gallons a week for my pickup and otherwise completely solar + an EV for my wife... but I can't yet tow the travel trailer to my hunting trips w/ an EV... But not because of some freaky global warming "we must do something now!" syndrome, rather, it's because the only way to stop the terrorists is to cut off their money supply... gut the gas & oil commodity prices, and they go back to living in tents pretty quickly... It's the only way to defeat them once and for all. It's 140 degrees in the shade there, it tends to make people pretty cooky.
We are all here, ostensibly, because we prefer small government that doesn't interfere with the rights of its citizens to engage in commerce, etc., etc.
How are sanctions consistent with that philosophy, and so why do we (seemingly, from the comments) lament their having been eliminated?
Is this a case where we dislike/distrust/etc. a nation-state so much that we carve out little exemptions to our philosophy so we can still have a gov't preventing commerce?
I'm not saying necessarily I want Iran to engage in commerce and grow big and strong and become a pain in our ass, but how do we reconcile our desires to not have that happen with our philosophy that says the gov't shouldn't be able to prevent it from happening?
legitimate purpose. . IMHO. -- j
.
Why sanctions? Because sanctions are better than the alternatives.
But why do "you" think "you" have the right to determine to what extent other nation-states are able to defend themselves?
From whence cometh our superior authority to possess nuclear-weapons such that we can morally deny that right to other nations?
EDIT: (to be clear, I understand your argument, but our moral position -- or at least my own personal moral position -- needs to be consistent, something that I can rationalize rather than just emotionally say "but I think they're dangerous and so they have less rights", because I know that the left, say, might say I'm dangerous and deny me rights .... objective criteria are key for me).
Keeping a weapon out of the hands of a madman who is ready and willing to use it isn't depriving him of defense anymore than keeping matches and a gas can from a known pyromaniac.
This is not self-defense. This is pre-emptive.
"Defending ourselves" would be responding to an attack, or reacting to a credible threat. This is neither of those things. It's rantings and ravings of a crazy person in the middle east with no current capacity to deliver on those ravings, and predictions for years down the road of what might happen. (Likely even, but that's not a current credible threat until that happens).
So again - it fails the litmus test.
EDIT: [Clarified my rantings and ravings phrase]
You couldn't apologize enough, or take comfort in the consistency of your ideological alignment, should hundreds, thousand, or millions of people die because your principles defied reality.
Iran has medium and long range missiles and are being assisted by N. Korea, Russia, and (I believe) Pakistan. As of last week their enriched uranium cache miraculously got larger.
When it comes to nukes any American leader should selfishly err on the side of caution.
And that's what this is, right? An arbitrary carve-out. "This" (whatever this is) skeeves us out and so we casually disregard our principles without even (really) giving it a whole lot of thought or examination.
Even your responses (and I don't fault you, and please don't take this as an attack because it's not intended that way) basically come to down a tone of "why are we even discussing this, of COURSE we have to ignore the principles here".
I've said before, I'm a Constitutional Conservative who admires Rand as a visionary.
typo
I'd settle for obeying the Constitution (oh my would that be a step in the right direction), but the chances of that happening died in 1803 with Marbury, so I might as well wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which gets filled first.
A people as a whole, the USA has . . .
A people as a whole, the USA has . . ."
...the asshole it deserves.
So I stared at my reply in progress and decided to leave it open for someone else to finish.
Asshole works.
So does my fixed partial. Arby onion rings can get really tough when heated up in a microwave.
That's right, sir. You are going to be blown up. Now...what are you going to do about it?
I wonder if mankind will completely destroy itself in my lifetime? Could happen, I think.
And what did America say about that ? Oh wait, they were not there, they had to take a phone call.
But SofS Kerry and the ambassador were both there for the Hamas representative speech.
As always, I remain observant and objective.
“I think the signing of a nuclear disarmament pact with the Soviet Union is at best an act of naivete, and at worst an unsupportable negligence. We've stayed alive because we've built up an arsenal, and we've kept the peace because we've dealt with an enemy who knew we would use that arsenal. And now we're asked to believe that a piece of paper will take the place of missile sites and Polaris submarines, and that an enemy who hasn't honored one solemn treaty in the history of its existence will now, for our convenience, do precisely that. I have strong doubts, gentlemen."
"I'm suggesting, Senator, there hasn't been a single piece of paper written in the history of mankind that could serve as a deterrent to a Pearl Harbor. I sometimes wonder why we haven't learned that lesson by now. Every twenty years or so we have to pick ourselves up off the floor bleeding, and have to pay for that mistake. And I might add, Senator, those mistakes are delivered to us C.O.D. by peace-loving men. And bought and paid for with the lives of other men. Men in uniform.”
“Your course of action in the past year has bordered on criminal negligence. This treaty with the Russians is a violation of any concept of security. You're not a weak sister, Mister President, you're a criminally weak sister. And if you want to talk about your oath of office, I'm here to tell you face-to-face, President Lyman, that you violated that oath when you stripped this country of its muscles, when you deliberately played upon the fear and fatigue of the people, and told them they could remove that fear by the stroke of a pen. A year and nine months from now, I don't think there will be an electorate, let alone an election. I think we'll be sitting in our own rubble, a minimum of one hundred million dead. And on the gravestone we can carve, “They Died For President Lyman's Concept Of Peace”.”
What the UN put in place helped the Jews. If the UN allows Iran to have nuclear weapons, maybe that doesnt help them, although I really doubt Iran is going to nuke Israel and poison the whole of the middle east for many, many years like chernobyl.
Imagine if Obama carved up your house and moved in some syrian refugees into half of it. How would you feel about that. I suspect you would want them to leave ASAP, and you would hate Obama for what he did.
Below is a link on the subject..It should be noted (before you say its pro-israeli) that Bernard Lewis, an acclaimed and noted Historian, speaks of some of these facts in the books I've read from him.
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~peters/d...
Only why does he still look as if he's begging? He should annex Judea and Samaria and have done with it. Enough fooling around.
Greater Judea along with Greater Kurdistan.
What if Ragnar Danneskjöld, instead of contenting himself with capturing a decommissioned aircraft carrier (or whatever that ship was that he had), he had recruited a much larger mercenary force to invade and conquer Gaza, then signed a friendship treaty with the State of Israel?