The continuing expensive, brutal, illegal and seemingly interminable war in Iraq was the defining issue in the 2006 and portends to be so in 2008 election, as one cause of the fracture of among conservatives, departure of GOP membership in droves, and the cause of the impending November trainwreck. There is another reason for Americans and particularly young people to be concerned. This is not a push-button war fought with unmanned drones and electromechanical technology. This version of Neocon Playstation X demands bodies for its meatgrinder. Do you feel a draft?
It has been pointed out in this forum that neoconservative warmongering is definitely not part of the conservative Republican tradition, and both McCainoids and Obamites scoff and laugh at this notion. There is a a new book supporting this concept. Bill Kauffman, onetime Senate staffer and think tank editor turned essayist and author, who lives in upstate New York has written - Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism. This book is the subject of an excellent review by Doug Bandow. Doug Bandow is a Washington-based political writer and policy analyst and Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign. Some excerpts from the book and review follow.
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"[T]here is a long and honorable (if largely hidden) tradition of antiwar thought and action among the American Right. It stretches from ruffle-shirted Federalists who opposed the War of 1812 and civic-minded mugwump critics of the Spanish-American War on up through the Midwestern isolationists who formed the backbone of the pre-World War II America First Committee and the conservative Republicans who voted against U.S. involvement in NATO, the Korean conflict, and Vietnam. And although they are barely audible amid the belligerent clamor of today's shock-and-awe Right, libertarians and old-fashioned traditionalist conservatives are among the sharpest critics of the Iraq War and the imperial project of the Bush Republicans."
..."In pre-imperial America, conservatives objected to war and empire out of jealous regard for personal liberties, a balanced budget, the free enterprise system, and federalism," explains Kauffman. To them, dissent was "a patriotic imperative." But another commonality was being vilified and worse. He adds: "As the American Firsters discovered, protesting war is a lousy career move. Dissenters are at best calumniated, at worst thrown in jail for standing against foreign wars and the drive thereto."
If today the Right seems a wholly-owned subsidiary of the War Party, the American people are less enthused. Naturally, this worries the elites who believe their role is to initiate wars for other Americans to fight. Observes Kauffman, "Bush Republicans and pro-war Democrats have fretted mightily over recent surveys from the Council on Foreign Relations showing that the American people are reverting to – horrors! – isolationism, which the CFR defines invidiously as a hostility toward foreigners but which I see as a wholesome, pacific, and very American reluctance to intervene in the political and military quarrels of other nations."
Indeed, the essence of nonintervention, however labeled, is that it is not the American purpose to engage in global social engineering. Whether the genesis of that belief is fear of or respect for foreigners really doesn't matter. This reluctance to intervene is the highest form of internationalism. That is, noninterventionists respect other peoples enough to believe that Americans do not have the unilateral right to roam the world killing, maiming, and injuring whoever happens to be Washington's declared enemy of the moment in pursuit of whatever happens to be Washington's declared objective of the moment.
Kauffman appropriately begins with the nation's founders, men whose views on war are dismissed as quaint by most politicians today. For instance, George Mason told the 1788 Virginia convention debating ratification of the U.S. Constitution: "I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army." Notes Kauffman, "His view was not anomalous; militarism was." Imagine that, national politicians opposed to war. But a wariness of military entanglements was a constant of early America. There is, Kauffman observes, George Washington's Farewell Address, which is "as close to an expression of early American political omnifariousness as one might find," a veritable "sacred text among conservative critics of empire." American children typically read it, or parts of it, but how many learn that, as Kauffman writes, "Washington's valedictory amounts to a repudiation of U.S. foreign policy from 1917 to the present"?
Then there was the Mexican-American War (which Thoreau vigourously condemned - r.k.) , a shameless spasm of imperialist war-mongering growing out of a border incident created by the U.S....Kauffman's lauds an obscure Whig politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln who exposed the lies that brought America into the Mexican-American War, as well as a Congregationalist minister, Samuel J. May, who denounced the war from his pulpit....The Spanish-American War and, even worse, the brutal suppression of Filipino freedom fighters – who resisted American imperial rule just like they resisted Spanish imperial rule – moved a step beyond previous conflicts. An estimated 200,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, died. Kauffman cites Felix Morley: "The deeper result was to make Washington for the first time classifiable as a world capital, governing millions of people overseas as subjects rather than as citizens. The private enslavement of Negroes was ended. The control of alien populations had begun."
....If Woodrow Wilson was liberal, his liberalism was symbolized by the jackboot...
Support for nation-building has come to dominate much of the Right. Even liberal Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) receives right-wing accolades because he supports visiting death and destruction along the Euphrates. But Kauffman points to other conservatives – the traditionalist icon Russell Kirk, for instance, who denounced proponents of "American hegemony." ...Current political heroes include Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), the sole antiwar voice in the Republican presidential race, and Rep. John "Jimmy" Duncan (R-Tenn.), an old line conservative who told Kauffman: "I've become convinced that most of these wars have been brought about because of a desire for money and power and prestige." Duncan, ever gracious to those around him, "is a throwback, a Taft Republican in search of a party of peace and frugality," as well as "a glorious anachronism as a representative of a place and a people," enthuses Kauffman.
Most disastrously, writes Kauffman, "the Republicans in the age of George W. Bush have become a War Party, nothing less and certainly nothing more. Dissident GOP voices are rare and unwelcome echoes." Even more tragic is the fact that the so-called Religious Right has joined the War Party. Notes the waggish Kauffman: "The Christian conservatives who have supplied Bush with an indispensable, almost blasphemously enthusiastic following might consider alternative Christian political traditions," such as that of William Jennings Bryan, "Or, if I am not being too much of an originalist, a biblical fundamentalist, that of Jesus Christ."
Conservatism once was an honorable term, associated with "decentralism, liberty, economy in government, religious faith, family-centeredness, parochialism, smallness," notes Kauffman. But he thunders: "The cockeyed militarism of the Bush administration, and the historical ignorance and cowardice of the subsidized Right that has cheered him on, have poisoned the word conservative. For years, if not wars, to come." Today, he complains, the word conservative "reeks of manslaughter and militarism."
Ain't My America is deeply moving, with its eloquent retelling of the largely lost American tradition of conservatives against war. The loss of that tradition has cost Americans much blood and treasure. In closing this fine volume Kauffman echoes George McGovern, calling us all to rediscover our better nature,: "Come home, America. Reject the empire."
In closing this fine volume Kauffman echoes George McGovern, calling us all to rediscover our better nature,: "Come home, America. Reject the empire."
George McGovern? throwing his name around won't help any arguments.
I too reacted with surprise to the presentation of George McGovern. It makes some sense if you dig below the surface. McGovern is an interesting study particularly because of his background. His mother and father were traditional Republican conservatives and he also carried their beliefs as part of his own anti-war doctrine.
This excerpt from the UK Guardian is illustrative of who the neoconservatives are (in part) and how they came to be as a reaction against McGovern:
"...[Henry "Scoop"] Jackson was ... a leading liberal cold warrior and figurehead for what became known as the neoconservative movement. It is common outside America to regard neoconservatism as synonymous with the Republican right. In fact, its roots lie mostly on the left. The original neoconservatives - also nicknamed Socialists for Nixon - were anti-communist leftists and liberals who became alienated from the Democratic party when it endorsed the anti-Vietnam war candidate George McGovern for president in 1972. Appalled by what they saw as the refusal of liberals to defend their values and confront totalitarianism in the guise of Soviet power, the neoconservatives drifted to the right, contributing to a broader political realignment that swept Ronald Reagan to power. Many took jobs in the Reagan administration and found a permanent home in the Republican party in the process. While some embraced the neoconservative label, others rejected it and insisted that they remained liberals. A smattering supported Clinton in 1992, while "Scoop" Jackson himself was a loyal Democrat to the end. To this day the neocons even retain an outpost on the left in the form of Social Democrats USA, one of America's two affiliates to the Socialist International."
This recording from WNYC's 2006 archives finds McGovern poignantly talking about his mother and father as Conservative Republicans (hear it at 35:45 fol.)
TEXT: My mother and father were lifelong conservative Republicans but they weren’t NEO-conservatives, whatever the hell that is. They were conservatives who believed in a balanced budget, they believed in conserving life in this country, not risking it in unwise wars, they were the kind of conservatives that I can respect.
"It has been pointed out in this forum that neoconservative warmongering is definitnot part of the conservative Republican tradition, and both McCainoids and Obamites scoff and laugh at this notion."
Not all "Obamites." I have consistently in these forums pointed out the departure of the neo-cons from traditional conservatism in this regard. Those discussions have inevitably devolved into a listing of Republicans who started wars, as though that was somehow the definition of conservatism. Words and ideas have meaning. Ignoring those meanings only helps the politicans who seek to muddy the waters with their own versions of "Newspeak."
Words and ideas have meaning. Ignoring those meanings only helps the politicans who seek to muddy the waters with their own versions of "Newspeak."
Yes, words and ideas have meaning. But so do actions. If I repeatedly tell my wife that I love her, and if I believe that I love her, but I keep having affairs then maybe I don't really love her? Words, ideas, and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
But let's pretend words and ideas equal reality. Can someone point to the large contingent of conservative thinkers who were writing furiously in protest during the months before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? Could someone direct me to the legions of "real" conservatives who objected, with words and ideas, to the build up of the military during the Cold War? I would love to read the shelves full of conservative books written in protest to the CIA's actions in Latin America during the 1970s, or to our adventures in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
I've looked and looked, yet I can't find these great conservative thinkers. But somehow the "idea" has come across that real Republicans are quiet, tolerant bean counters who seek nothing more than a balanced budget, tolerance of progressive morals, and lots of pee-wee baseball games. Surely, I must just be mis-informed.
Yes, words and ideas have meaning. But so do actions. If I repeatedly tell my wife that I love her, and if I believe that I love her, but I keep having affairs then maybe I don't really love her? Words, ideas, and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
You don't apply the analogy properly. The seamless analogy would be if you do everything above and then you conclude that since you've defined love to mean cheating and destroying trust repeatedly, therefore love sucks and the idea of love is a bad one.
But if love is a completely worthless notion, you just aren't doing it right.
This is the same for most political and economic ideals--if you cannot see any value in conservatism, liberalism, communism or capitalism, you properly aren't considering a reasonable definition of the ideal.
Illegal in what sense? And remember "international law" is not law in any sense of the word.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
But if love is a completely worthless notion, you just aren't doing it right.
Well, if conservatives just aren't doing it right then maybe there is no such thing as conservativism? Maybe it only exists in the mind of those who, until recently, supported almost everything the Bush Administration pulled, but now want to create a distance between their "ideas" and the most unpopular President in American history.
I am still waiting for a list of conservatives who objected to the invasion of the Iraq, or Afghanistan. Still waiting for that shelf full of books that show quite clearly that conservatives are all about isolationism and balanced budgets.
I get the feeling I'll be waiting a long time. In the meantime, it's time to BBQ!
Well, then you'll also be waiting for the list of non-racist sexism mainstream films. Does that mean worthwhile film doesn't exist?
Boon... best place to look for those kind of conservatives are the Libertarian Party. Paul fits their views far more than the GOP platform. (probably why he ran as their presidential candidate in 1988). And just like many Paul supporters the LP claims to have some sort of patent on real conservatism. The popularity of their view shows as they typically lose against *other* 3rd parties and independent candidates. The last LP presidential candidate to not get beat out by other 3rd Party/Independent candidates was Ron Paul, back in 1998... with an astounding half a percentage point.
This whole debate is mostly the same ideological posturing that Democrats face with some of their groups over what a Democrat should or should not be, who's a real one, who's a fake, etc. And the application is very reminscent of the analogy someone brought up earlier, people claiming communism has never really been tried because it wasn't "true communism." Same silliness. The essence of the problem is there isn't a single definitive view of what is or is not conservatism or liberalism or even communism. They've all adapted through the times to the changes in the situation the labels are used in. I don't think there will be any escaping Democrats being accused of being Bush-lite, or McCain being accused of being a Democrat while Lieberman is accused of being a Republican, or that liberalism is just a nickname for socialism, while conservatism is just a nickname for fascism... and whatever other exaggeration, spin, etc can be used to push a political agenda.
Ah, the joys of politics!
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Glock21 Op/Ed
"I am still waiting for a list of conservatives who objected to the invasion of the Iraq, or Afghanistan."
Here's an extensive list from February 12, 2003.
Boon, I'd suggest you look at William Buckley, for one. He certainly objected to the Iraq War. And hell, I'm a pragmatic isolationist and support balanced budgets. Didn't have to look far, did you?
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j
Part-Time Pundit
Still waiting for that shelf full of books that show quite clearly that conservatives are all about isolationism and balanced budgets.
Is this a serious question? I will give you a few starting places and then I will leave it to you to follow out the bibliographic threads according to your continually growing interest in the principles of conservative thinking.
It is always useful in my opinion to try to base a bibliography on a few classic authors. Along that line, I would refer you to the poet (King) David, and give you Psalm 6, Psalm 34, Psalm 37, and Psalm 120. His son Solomon who was quite a master of one-liners and sound-bites had a quite bit to say, not nearly all of which got written down for us, but you can start with Proverbs 12.17-20 and 16.5-8. Of course those guys were prophets but not often considered in that way, but Isaiah who is considered a "major prophet" has some interesting sound bites at 2.1-5 and 9.5-7. None of those fellows provide any bibliography but rather strongly imply the reference material, as does Lao Zi's conservative libertarian classic Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching). Moving on in the time line, check out Jesus at Matthew 5 and Luke 14.30-31. One of the Pauls, not "Dr." but "St." Paul (a.k.a. Saul of Tarsus), has a decent treatment in Galatians 5.13-26. Paul, quite the modern scholarly type, does offer a few references but they tend to be implicit in the text. Some editors and commentators on St. Paul provide footnotes of varying value from much less than Zero to pretty good, caveat emptor.
Thoreau and following him Tolstoy had some interesting thoughts, and each had writings called "Civil Disobedience" which are classics imho.
Russell Kirk "The Conservative Mind" (1953) is probably a classic too even though the title isn't quite an oxymoron. Kirk has other writings and readers too, even a website that he doesn't maintain at http://users.etown.edu/m/mcdonaldw/kirk.html but some of the links work. He apparently wasnt running for any political office so Kirk could drop sound bites like "Not seldom has it seemed as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States.", which some ever-sensitive element in the society was obligated to construe as being "anti-semitic" (what ever that means).
That should be enough to get you started on your quest for Truth. Of course there are a lot of contemporary writings such as Ron Paul's "Revolution" which no doubt you have read several times and highlighted in 2 or 3 fluorescent colours and have circulated copies to your friends as well, so you know all about the reading list in the back pages.
The interesting thing about working with principles is that if there are principles just as in, say, mathematics, then one doesnt have to Invent out of whole cloth the underlying precepts for each application. Engineers dont seem to bother with saying, "well in this case, 2 + 2 was found to be equal to 4..." although that might be a more challenging even politically incorrect statement in other applications and truly astounding in some diversions such as journalism.
Boon, I'd suggest you look at William Buckley, for one. He certainly objected to the Iraq War.
Uh ...
Oh! You must mean he objected to the war after it became clear we were losing.
Does that mean worthwhile film doesn't exist?
No, but if the vast majority of films that are being produced are racist and sexist then how can you look at the small number of non-racist/sexist films and say that they represent the "true" cinema? Isn't the opposite true? That what the majority of filmmakers choose to produce is a better reflection of the true state of cinema, even if there are exceptions to that rule?
Look, I find the "paleo" vs. "neo" conservative discussion entertaining, but even the article Kevin cited explained that you have to go back to the 1930s to find conservative isolationists as a prominent section of the overall movement. The people mentioned in that article represent, at best, a very small subsection of the conservative community. This is hardly the laundry-list of prominent conservatives who came out against the war before it all turned to sh*t.
What's your point, Boon?
"even the article Kevin cited explained that you have to go back to the 1930s to find conservative isolationists as a prominent section of the overall movement."
That's not at all what the article says. You have seriously misunderstood and/or misquoted that section of the article.
"The people mentioned in that article represent, at best, a very small subsection of the conservative community."
Not all that small, and one that is definitely preserving, protecting, and promoting the core values of conservatism, unlike the neo-cons who have no consistent values or ideology other than opportunism for the consolidation and centralization of executive power, a position that is at absolute odds with traditional conservatism. Besides which, you didn't ask for proof that a majority of right-wingers opposed the war. Quit moving the goalposts. Bad form.
"This is hardly the laundry-list of prominent conservatives who came out against the war before it all turned to sh*t."
Not prominent? Pat Buchanan? Brent Scowcroft? Lawrence Eagleburger? Robert Novak? Paul Craig Roberts? The Cato Institute? The Free Congress Foundation? Are you serious? All of these came out before the invasion, loudly and clearly. Not only that, but a large group of prominent Republican fundraisers, mostly captains of industry, collectively took out a full page ad in the New York Times prior to the invasion, begging Bush not to proceed. Your failure to recognize their prominence in the conservative community speaks volumes.
The fact that a majority of Republicans supported the President does not mean there was no significant opposition from within the conservative community. And the fact that the word "conservative" is part of the label "neo-cons" doesn't make them anything at all like traditional conservatives on foreign policy, anymore than the National Socialists were really socialists. The neo-cons cynically use the religious right for cover on social issues, but that is their only nod to historical conservatism.
You asked for a list of prominent conservatives who opposed the war before it begain. I gave you a long list of very famous conservatives that was prepared well before the invasion. In order to play this sort of game, there has to be some reasonable expectation that there is a realistic chance that you will in fact acknowledge when your conditions have been met and your questions answered satisfactorily. I have no such sense from you right now.
Kevin, here's my original challenge:
You responded with a link to an article that included the following quote:
So I am not sure what I am mis-quoting, or misunderstanding. It seems pretty clear that "real" conservatives were more than happy to support the military build ups and, I assume, the covert operations that took place during the Cold War in places like Chile, Cambodia, East Timor, etc. So if we go all the way back to the isolationists who opposed our intervention in World War II during the 1930s, we can find a time when the dominant conservative voices were advocating isolationism.
Ok, the 1930s. Fair enough.
Let's also concede that maybe a dozen of the middle-tier conservative thinkers opposed the war. That is not moving of any goal posts since, as can be read above, my claim is that the conservative movement was almost wholely behind the invasion of Iraq. Ok, so maybe a dozen, or two dozen conservative voices were screaming out that the Iraq War was against all that made conservatives right.
Should I now list the hundreds, if not thousands, of conservatives who gladly supported the invasion? Or, as Kevin's article points out:
Wow. That's a lot of conservatives. Are we really supposed to believe that the list above represents the "lunatic fringe" of the conservative movement, and that most conservatives really just want balanced budgets and our troops back home?
The question is this: what is a conservative? It is a complicated answer, but if I want to know the answer I must look at what most conservatives think, and how most conservatives act. Yes, I can also observe the sliver that act differently. But that is hardly a convincing argument that the sliver are the conservatives and the rest of the pack are just imposters.
Thanks for repeating your question: "Can someone point to the large contingent of conservative thinkers who were writing furiously in protest during the months before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?"
I clearly did. You just as clearly refuse to acknowledge it. Therefore, on this level at least, this is not a valid or true dialogue.
From the article: "Paleocons and libertarians disagree on moral issues such as abortion and drug use, but they both oppose large-scale state social programs and, like the isolationist America First movement of the 1930s, U.S. intervention abroad."
This statement from the article does not say the America First movement was the dominant voice among American conservatives during the 1930s. Quite frankly, I don't know offhand whether it was or not. That is irrelevant to the point of the sentence. Nor does it say that it was the last time any conservatives felt that way. What it says is that the paleocons share this belief "like" this example from the thirties. Nothing more, nothing less.
"When the Right closed ranks during the Cold War, the paleocons muted their isolationism but revived it with the demise of the Soviet bloc."
Muted. Not abandoned. And revived it twenty years ago. So no, we don't have to go all the way back to the thirties to find examples, and I as pointed out above, the article never says we do.
"That is not moving of any goal posts since, as can be read above, my claim is that the conservative movement was almost wholely behind the invasion of Iraq."
Actually, that claim is not contained anywhere in the text of your original question, which as you just reminded us was to "point to the large contingent of conservative thinkers" who objected to Iraq in advance.
"Are we really supposed to believe that the list above represents the "lunatic fringe" of the conservative movement... "
No, because no one is claiming that. The truth is that, in this particular instance, they were not conservatives at all, and didn't even pretend to be. Hence the term "neo-con," which was created solely because their policies were so completely different from traditional conservatism.
"... and that most conservatives really just want balanced budgets and our troops back home?"
Well, yeah, most conservatives want both those things.
"The question is this: what is a conservative? It is a complicated answer, but if I want to know the answer I must look at what most conservatives think, and how most conservatives act. Yes, I can also observe the sliver that act differently. But that is hardly a convincing argument that the sliver are the conservatives and the rest of the pack are just imposters."
If the definition of words can be changed by simply adopting them to mean something else, then words no longer have any real meaning.
For example: Christ taught peace. For finite periods in human history, a majority of those who claimed to be Christians have advocated war, even while very large numbers of Christians continued to advocate peace. What then is the definition of Christianity: the teachings of Christ or the actions of those who claimed the title while ignoring and even subverting or opposing his teachings?
For example: Christ taught peace. For finite periods in human history, a majority of those who claimed to be Christians have advocated war, even while very large numbers of Christians continued to advocate peace. What then is the definition of Christianity: the teachings of Christ or the actions of those who claimed the title while ignoring and even subverting or opposing his teachings?
This statement is excellent.
Isn't the opposite true?
No, for the same reason that Kevin points to. Movements and ideology spring out of some fundamental human need or goal. Those goals don't disappear simply because someone appropriates the ideology for their own nefarious purposes.
We can go even more fundamental if necessary: the human body needs water to survive. If Coca-Cola starts putting Draino in bottles marked "Water" and millions die, does that mean that "water" is no longer good or necessary?
Stalin killed millions with his genocidal dictatorship that happened to call itself by certainly names. Does that mean that anyone who identifies with those titles supports genocide?
What you all are asking us to believe is that conservatives are not people who swell deficits and invade other countries (overtly or covertly) when they gain power. The fact that all of the contemporary conservatives who have been elected to positions of power have done these very things is apparently a mute point. The fact that the vast majority of conservative thinkers have either endorsed or participated in these very things is also apparently a mute point. The fact that most conservatives will support Mr. McCain, who will probably do both of these things is also apparently a mute point.
History be damned! Why read the newspaper? All we need is some scripture, a couple of quotes from Burke and a calculator and we can all figure out what conservativism really means.
I don't buy it. Maybe I've watched the waterhoses being opened up on the high school kids in Birmingham one too many times. Maybe I remember the way Buckley went after Carl Sagan the night after "The Morning After" to explain why we needed more nuclear weapons (40,000 aint enough!), or maybe I just remember the way the Gipper would wink, nod, and drive the deficits up, up and up.
Conservativism doesn't exist in a test tube. It is alive and it has consequences. We've seen quite enough of what it has to offer America, thank you very much. The consequences are that it should die a sad, lonely death in a cardboard box on a street corner, where it has sent so many of our citizens to do the same.
The fact that most conservatives will support Mr. McCain, who will probably do both of these things is also apparently a mute point.
Then they aren't conservatives.
It's not fair to say, "Well, Christians have killed millions of people, so Christ's ideology of non-violence and empathy is bunk." That's crap and you know it.
I don't think you actually have a beef with conservatism. I think you have a massive problem with people calling themselves conservatives and conducting murderous, economically horrendous policy that is hypocritical and in many cases the antithesis of conservatism.
I think you also have a massive problem with people who claim to support actual conservative values, but then drop those principles when it's time to select a candidate to vote for.
Let's be real. If you are a conservative who gives a rat's ass about the country, it'd be real hard to vote for McCain or W. Bush, and if you find yourself doing these things, you probably aren't a conservative.
What is in America's interest? Isn't that the question? No one wants to send their sons and daughters into harms way, but nothing is ever black and white. In the end it is just a balancing test depending upon how you view America's interest. On one side of the scale is the isolationist. On the other side of the scale are those you call war mongers. It is just insane to try to label this in political terms because our national interest depends upon whose thumb is on the scale between isolatist and war monger. So the basic isssue really is, when do you use American troops. Calling it a war is simply to put a label on the action and then to try to fit your thoughts within that label. Fair enough?
1. If essentially the whole world views something as wrong, but is unwilling to do much more than tallk about it, should we put troops in harms way?
2. If the international community resolves that force is necessary to prevent a wrong, and America is part of that resolution, does the resolution empower America to finsih the battle if the intermediate objective has been accomplished?
3. Assuming that there is an agreed causal connection between an event that can disrupt the American or world economy, may American forces be employed to prevent that from happening, even if other countries are unwilling or unable to prevent the action.
4. Does an attack against American justify an even greater attack against the perpetrators of this act?
5. When you have committed American troops and lives, should you try to complete the task if your original action was justified by an act of congress at the urging of the President?
6. Has talking to a terrorist cell ever worked? If so, how often?
7. Is it the job of the President of the Unitied States to do all in his power, as commander in chief, to protect the country's economy and homeland from attack? Should the President err on the side of isolationism or war mongering?
8. What horrendous act did the United States commit before 9/11? (This is different than the trade embargo against Japan in 1939.)
9. Is there a difference between Viet Nam and Iraq? If so what?
10. Since the end result of sending American troops usually will result in some death, is this ever justified except when we are invaded by a foreign country?
Now let me tell you what I believe are not the right questions// statements?
A. Did we find weapons of mass destruction? That may have been one of several justifications, but because we did not find them does not mean they were not there. (Post hoc ergo propter hoc)
B. We were wrong on Viet Nam and we are wrong here. If you start out with the major premise that demands isolatism no matter what, you will always come to the conclusion that anything but isolationism is wrong. All A is bad. This is A. Therefore this is bad.
C. Someone saying that: I was always for the surge or I was always against the war. Both statements are based on speculation without stating the rationale. This is like saying that you are for x because some 25 year old journalist in a NY paper was for it.
I am not saying how I would line up on this argument, but in order to get a rational result, you have to ask rational questions.
On May 25th, 2008 at 11:11 PM, John E. Maloney said: ...nothing is ever black and white...
This, sir, is the first place where we diverge. There has to be some sensitivity to inner truth, Otherwise anything can be rationalized. Reality is preexistent to your opinion. Implicit in reality is the concept of right and wrong. The reality that is conjured by convincing falsehoods, situational ethics, and advertising is a house of cards that will crash around you. Your Rortyian rejection of apodicticity and embrace of a Marx-ish notion of dialectics is a colossal problem for us having any agreement at all and is one of the salient errors leading to "neocon" thinking.
So the basic isssue really is, when do you use American troops. Calling it a war is simply to put a label on the action and then to try to fit your thoughts within that label. Fair enough?
Fair enough my foot. Don't start out by trying to deceive by setting up an argument that it is only labels. Absolutely not agreed. If you use troops it is an act of force and an act of war. Whether you kill and destroy, or are killed and destroyed by those you threaten, it is an act of war. It is an act of war even if not one single round of ammo is expended, and not one single baby or pregnant mother is bayonetted, and not one poor bastard is waterboarded. Since our government is by "we the people" there are certain and well-defined Black and White requirements for going to war. According to our constitution acts of war are carried out by the congress. The commander in chief is not a king who sends troops outside the country at his imperialistic bidding. Because of the historically well recognized immorality of aggressive imperialistic war, our system of government did not set up the President as a king to move troops around the world, but damped out that sort of action by vesting the war authority with the congress.
1. If essentially the whole world views something as wrong, but is unwilling to do much more than tallk about it, should we put troops in harms way? Of course not. We mind our own business.
2. If the international community resolves that force is necessary to prevent a wrong, and America is part of that resolution, does the resolution empower America to finsih the battle if the intermediate objective has been accomplished? We were warned not to get into such entanglements some 200 years ago.
3. Assuming that there is an agreed causal connection between an event that can disrupt the American or world economy, may American forces be employed to prevent that from happening, even if other countries are unwilling or unable to prevent the action. You are talking about preemptive war. No one has any idea just what is going to happen. To the extent possible, our economy needs to be secured within the borders otherwise you run a great risk of war and collapse.
4. Does an attack against American justify an even greater attack against the perpetrators of this act?
5. When you have committed American troops and lives, should you try to complete the task if your original action was justified by an act of congress at the urging of the President? Ha. "Justified by an Unconstitutional Act of Congress." The Act of Congress you suggest was a huge disconnect. In the wave of post 9/11 hysteria and jingoism, this act you are referring to was railroaded through. The problem with this act is that is was attempting to do with legislation what requires a constitutional amendment to do. You dont make the President into a King and suspend the constitution. Any action taken under this act is illegal, unconstitutional, is a violation of the agreement among the people of the various sovereign states. If the neocons could convince the states to agree to amend the constitution, then the section 1 article 8 power to declare war could be transferred to the executive branch.
6. Has talking to a terrorist cell ever worked? If so, how often? If you take the extermination route, you will have to rout and and exterminate every single "terrorist". Other wise they will gain vigour from your persecution.
7. Is it the job of the President of the Unitied States to do all in his power, as commander in chief, to protect the country's economy and homeland from attack? Should the President err on the side of isolationism or war mongering? You point out correctly that it is the United States and the thing that makes them United not Untied is the constitution.
8. What horrendous act did the United States commit before 9/11? (This is different than the trade embargo against Japan in 1939.) Imperialism. Bill Clinton was a horrendous imperialist. I cheered Bush in 2000 because he said he wanted a humble foreign policy. The American imperialists have insinuated themselves into 140 countries around the world. We would be angry too.
9. Is there a difference between Viet Nam and Iraq? If so what? Vietnam didnt seem to have any oil that I recall. Have we sent a lot of trucks to Iraq that we can abandon when we leave? The Vietnamese seem to be making good use of the ones we left there when we bailed out.
10. Since the end result of sending American troops usually will result in some death, is this ever justified except when we are invaded by a foreign country? The prophet told y'all that your policy of Imperialism and Policing the World is too arrogant, and that if you don't stop it, God will crush the source of your power (your money). As I recall, they had MLK shot to shut him up, and eulogized him as a great social crusader to bury his comments on imperialistic warmongering.
It's not fair to say, "Well, Christians have killed millions of people, so Christ's ideology of non-violence and empathy is bunk." That's crap and you know it.
If we applied the rules for what constitutes a "real conservative" to Christians, we would have to declare that most modern and historical Christians are not/were not, in fact, followers of Christ. C.S. Lewis? He supported the allies during WWII. No longer a Christian. Saint Augustine? Created just war theory. Sorry, not a Christian. Almost every Pope who ever lived? Most endorsed killing of some kind. No longer Christians. You, Xian, who support the continued presence of our troops in Iraq to prevent genocide? You're no longer a Christian.
The problem with this whole argument is that everyone wants to pretend that conservativism exists in a test tube, that it has never really been tried before. Kevin wants to point to a small handful of conservative dissenters to the invasion (even Robert Novak, that good-hearted true conservative) as proof that a "large contingent" of conservatives opposed the war. Even when we all know that the vast majority of conservatives breathlessly cheerleaded the coming of the invasion, and called anyone who dissented a traitor. What constitutes a large contingent? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? In this case, it seems that eight will suffice.
And so around and around we go. American history is the story of the struggle between the working classes and the men with capital. Conservatives support the men with capital and they fight against reforms that help the working classes. You don't have to believe me. Just take a close look at any movement that attempted to bring justice to the working people of America, and see who opposed that movement. From last week's GI Bill vote and the anger over the same-sex marriage decision, through Selma's Bloody Sunday and the child labor reforms of the early 20th century, all the way back to the dawn of labor unions in this country and the rise of industrialism, it has been the conservative movement that has consistently attempted to keep the working man in his place. To defeat his attempts to use the government to bring justice to the working classes.
There is no "good conservative" movement. There are good, decent Americans who seem to endorse conservativism, no doubt. But the point of conservativism is to check the power of the organized working classes. I have a very difficult time reading American history any other way.
"If we applied the rules for what constitutes a "real conservative" to Christians, we would have to declare that most modern and historical Christians are not/were not, in fact, followers of Christ."
Wrong. What we would have to declare is that most modern and historical Christians were, by and large, mostly followers of Christ, but that occasionally, and on specific issues, they sometimes strayed from the original values in varying degrees. No one is a perfect Christian all of the time, just as no one is a perfect traditional conservative all of the time. Sometimes, their journeys lead them to different places. And sometimes those places are in opposition.
Stop trying to force people (and movements or ideologies) into absolute regimentation. They don't work that way. They are much more complex than that. That complexity has resulted over the years in some major fragmentation within movements or ideologies. Orthodox vs. Reformed. Protestant vs. Catholic. Sunni vs. Shia. Traditional conservative vs. neo-con.
"The problem with this whole argument is that everyone wants to pretend that conservativism exists in a test tube, that it has never really been tried before."
No one has even come close to saying anything remotely resembling that, except for you. The problem with this whole argument is that you refuse to acknowledge any definition or standard other than your preconceived monolithic notions.
I have made no value judgements at any point in this discussion regarding the relative merits of conservatism, or any of its branches (besides the neo-cons). While I recognize conservatism's appeal for some, and can see singular points of merit, I am still an unabashed progressive liberal, and as a result I frequently come down on the opposite side of the issues from both traditional conservatives and neo-cons.
This does not, however, prevent me from being able to distinguish between the two. There are broad, obvious points of difference there, clearly defined over time, acknowledged by their adherents (as well as by both academics and journalists), and so fundamental that the two camps are diametrically opposed on many issues. That's why the term "neo-con" was created.
"Kevin wants to point to a small handful of conservative dissenters to the invasion (even Robert Novak, that good-hearted true conservative) as proof that a "large contingent" of conservatives opposed the war. Even when we all know that the vast majority of conservatives breathlessly cheerleaded the coming of the invasion, and called anyone who dissented a traitor. What constitutes a large contingent? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? In this case, it seems that eight will suffice."
The Cato Institute and the Free Congress Foundation represent a whole lot more than just eight. I gave you several very famous folks in a single article. If I had the time, I could probably give you fifty without even trying very hard. There's clearly no point to that, though, when it is increasingly obvious that no amount of proof will satisfy you. This is because you obstinately pretend to refuse to understand what it is I am even saying.
It is not my responsibility to educate you, particularly since it is painfully obvious that you have not devoted a passing moment's time to even a cursory academic investigation of the history of conservatism. To quote a well known internet truism, "Google is your friend." Hell, a single Wikipedia article could tell you enough to recognize the truth of what I've said.
Just for the record, though, here it is one last time: there is more than one kind of conservatism. Social conservatism is very different from economic conservatism, which is in turn different from conservatism in foreign policy.
Even within these broad strokes there have been various factions over time. Traditional conservatives (and I have tried to be careful to use this modifier where appropriate) have historically been isolationist, wary of foreign misadventures. They are sometimes called "paleo-cons."
Neo-conservatives, on the other hand, stood this traditional conservative principle on its head, actively promoting pre-emptive interventions, invasions, occupations, and nation building. They have been the loudest voice among conservatives for quite a while now, because they have been in charge of the government.
It's really very simple, and also well established fact. Tarring all conservatives with the neo-con brush is therefore inherently unfair, as well as historically inaccurate.
It's funny cause it's the same argument I see used to destroy anti-racism or feminist movements. People appropriate them and use them incorrect and therefore they must be destroyed.
Sure, if you are not interested in the need and function of the movement. In my opinion, that's the only important question, not how perfectly it has been applied in the past.
Also, I fail to see how my or others presence somewhere constitents anti-Christian sentiment. Point me to a passage that says, "Don't stand around where there's trouble--let injustice flourish without your intervention."
Boon, in your quest for social justice I am surprised and disappointed at how willing you are to reject Christian truth. That is the great vehicle for positive change. The prophet and apostle of civil rights and anti-war philosophy, Martin Luther King Jr was a devout and anointed Christian. It was not the conservatives or the fundamentalists who had MLK rubbed out for opposing the Vietnam war but rather it was the LBJ government that had him executed, and they were neither conservative, fundamentalist, nor Christian.
the fact that the word "conservative" is part of the label "neo-cons" doesn't make them anything at all like traditional conservatives on foreign policy, anymore than the National Socialists were really socialists. The neo-cons cynically use the religious right for cover on social issues, but that is their only nod to historical conservatism.
by the way... this is another excellent comment
Just for the record, though, here it is one last time: there is more than one kind of conservatism. Social conservatism is very different from economic conservatism, which is in turn different from conservatism in foreign policy.
I couldn't agree more. Though I would add that most contemporary conservatives subscribe to all three viewpoints simultaneously.
Traditional conservatives (and I have tried to be careful to use this modifier where appropriate) have historically been isolationist, wary of foreign misadventures.
I couldn't disagree more. This is just not what history shows us. Now I may be reading different history texts than the next guy, but I have to say that I have actually spent quite a bit of my time studying this movement. They are no more isolationist and pacifist than they are economically conservative.
And this is where we get into the "conservatives in a test tube" notion. We cannot judge a movement only on what it says it believes, but also (and more importantly) on how it acts when it gains power. You can cite 50 conservatives who opposed the invasion without breaking a sweat. I could cite 1000 who supported it without breaking a sweat. Who has a larger contingent? And if you must eventually concede that the vast majority of conservatives supported the invasion, then doesn't that at least imply that conservatives, in general, tend to support military adventures around the globe? Or are we supposed to believe that this was an isolated incident, and conveniently forget about all the other military adventures that have been supported by conservatives over the years?
I don't think conservatives are terrible people. But I think the conservative movement has been particularly destructive to the progress of this country, on any number of levels. And I am just not going to sit by passively as they attempt to revise the history of the last eight years because their ideas absolutely sucked. Now we are supposed to believe that it wasn't the ideas, it was just Bush. I'm not buying it and I honestly don't have much more to say about it at this point.
Boon, in your quest for social justice I am surprised and disappointed at how willing you are to reject Christian truth.
On the contrary, I have been a born-again Christian since 1993. And I agree that Christianity is a great force for change and progress in the world. It is just unfortunate that so many conservatives have co-opted the message for their own nefarious purposes.