"Why My FREEDOM Fries Taste Sweeter Today...."

[KaskadskyjKozak]

The populace in france revolts all the time.

Yeah, they're often revolting to many.

 

What did Zappa say about hell and France? :-))

[KaskadskyjKozak]

KK, you're just still smarting because they were right about the fact that Saddam wasn't a threat to us, he had no WMD's, an invasion in Iraq was not a part of any war on terror, and it might in fact lead to an increase in terrorism.

 

There you go again. "wasn't" "no WMDs" "not a part of any" blah blah

 

Saddam was a threat - perhaps not threat enough, there were WMDs at one point - not when we occupied the country (and Saddam sure acted like he had them), and there are links to terrorism in Iraq. You liberals do no favor to your argument with this overwrought hyperbole.

 

Try using qualifiers like "not enough", "insufficient", "less than" rather than "not", "none", and someone might listen to you other than those that have already partaken of your kool-aid.

[Fairweather]

[Stonehead]

If you look in a dictionary, utopia literally means ‘no place’. But doesn’t the real meaning of utopia refer to the future, not the here and now? In actuality, what is really important is that striving towards that ideal because the attainment of it never comes. If it were to come that would truly be the ‘End of History’. But it’s an asymptotic progression. There’s simply no real culmination.

 

So, what is the matter with this striving? Isn’t that our history? Social experiment after social experiment…

 

Are you saying that class division and its inherent inequalities are permanent? And that one should accept his fate as it is provided for in the ‘system’?

 

The people most afraid are not those at the bottom, they are ignorant, but those at the top that have the most to lose. Because that sense of loss is greater for them and they will go to any lengths to preserve their advantage even if it means progression towards a surveillance state. And, their reassurances will be: “You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.”

 

Remember though, you’ll never be able to stifle the need of some individuals to upset the apple cart. This need to upset the order of things is the oldest story in history.

 

France or the United States are not the answers. They only point towards that ideal which is yet to come. Francis Fukuyama’s End of History is premature.

[JayB]

Very Zen. Very Zen.

 

Those who wish to upset the "apple-cart" can do so by means of the voting booth. Those who wish to use violence in place of the ballot are more or less conceding the fact that both their ideals and the arguments that they've been able to marshall on their behalf are bound to be forever rejected by a permanent majority of the people that they will ostensibly benefit.

[Stonehead]

Let's see...I'm trying to parse an answer right now.

 

Political expendiency.

 

Isn't it true that the vast majority of people have to be led along by the pioneers and other fringe elements? And if the cause were noble, then would the means be irrelevant?

[JayB]

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed.htm

[Stonehead]

Makes me realize how little I know. Yet...

 

"If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise"

--William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

[mattp]

 

Try using qualifiers like "not enough", "insufficient", "less than" rather than "not", "none", and someone might listen to you other than those that have already partaken of your kool-aid.

 

KK: Please list all the mobile biological weapons labs they found. How 'bout nuclear weapons labs or a nuclear weopons program at all? Terrorist training camps? Actual connections between Saddam and al queda?

 

Yes, they were trying to build some intermediate range missiles, but "not" and "none" are a pretty descriptive of the reality that our guys did not find what our president said was there. To say there was in fact "not enough," "insufficient" or "less than" what was broadcast would be an out and out lie.

 

And you complain that those damn lefties like to distort or confuse things?

[Stonehead]

Maybe in reality, an unified and realigned Europe is more a threat to our economic hegemony. Yeah, it's a long shot but this terrorism thing appears at times to be a tool to tighten up the domestic arena in potential response to the precursor of war, increased competition for resources. Just seems that this terrorism thing appear to be swatting at flies. Or, maybe this terrorism really is war by proxy?

[selkirk]

Do we really want to go back to the justifications for the war? At the time they "seemed" palatable to enough people to justify sending troops, barely. In retrospect, every one of the supposed justifications was empty. So now were f-ing stuck. I was against the war from the beginning.

 

But now that were there I think it would be unconscionable to just pull out completely, though realisitically regardless of what we do Iraq isn't going to be a threat to anyone except their immediate neighbors for quite some time.

 

The utter refusal of the administration to admit that it f-ed up, overestimated the reliability of hte intelligence it had, that it likely manufactured a little hype with the verbal pissing match on TV between GW and Saddam, and generally "Sold" the war after the decision had already been made pisses me off. Now not only do I disagree with their politics but I have no respect left for the people in the Executive branch, trust in their motives, or faith in their intelligence. At least prior to the war, I only disagreed with their politics.