Funny. Justin carries the hot potato with Spank here, and I go around talking about cataphracts and WWI tanks.

I did think it was a joke primarily because I am used to spank’s hyperbole and bombastic rhetoric. It’s overkill.

None of the quotes you offered contain, you know, an argument.

Neither does Spank’s comments, so it’s like, it takes one to know one, ya know? Or maybe not cliched.

Desperate? I’m sorry to dissapoint, Justin, but the word “desperate” is a little extreme to apply to the comment thread of a blog.

got a better word. Eager. An eager attack dog puppy, ready to tear kittens apart.

Sorry Justin. Try cleaning this up, and making it a little more coherent and a little less….homless person crazy ranting…and maybe I can respond?

It’s weird, but whenever Spank directs his comments to me, the vitriole goes up past the redline mark, but whenever I read his comments to other people, it seems toned down. Must be a psychotropic effect. It’s not that toned down of course, but he will ask Justin questions like “mabbe I can respond”. He always talks about playing games and credibility taxes to me.

What are you talking about?

You defended what? You defended my quotes? You defended against them? What?

I picked up what Justin was saying, even without remembering the rest of this thread. Spank doesn’t want to engage in logic and reason with me, and I return the favor, but it surprises me Spank has a lot of IQ but not the structured formal ability to use it to decipher what Justin is talking about. What’s the point to being smart if you can’t get the truth from only a few facts and words?

Spank has my problem, to be honest. The problem is not that he is funny to me, when he talks to other people, and annoying when he talks to me. No, the thing is I tend to overreact emotionally when people write short shorts. I input my words where they left it out, instead of asking for clarification. I noticed this flaw, and I put efforts to correcting it. I think Spank went the other direction.

Justin, one way to prevent being run around the ringer, is to have 3 personalities. That way, you can always deny that you got confused.

I think we need a good nuclear holocaust; humanity is far too pathetic to deserve existence.

You defended what? You defended my quotes? You defended against them? What?

Ah yes, Justin. Please, excuse and defend eliminationist rhetoric. Vile is a good look for you.

Okay, I’m into immunology, not neurobiology (and in fact haven’t had any courses on neurobiology), so there isn’t much I can do for you; I suggest you go to an expert and get tested for the full battery of memory degrading ailments immediately.

What? Are you high?

No, but your memory (or lack thereof) makes me think you’ve had a few too many joints in your life.

What? Two faulty assumptions, out of two…what, assumptions?

Yes… Okay, okay, I get it, now. You got me good. All this time I thought you just had 60 IQ (at best), when you’ve been toying with me the whole time, pretending to have no idea what I’m talking about to force me to make post after repetitive post attempting to teach you the process of linear thought. I concede; your cunning ran circles around me.

What are you talking about?

You defended what? You defended my quotes? You defended against them? What?

“indeed, the ones that come to mind first of all; at least if you - you - didn’t have a vested interest in giving them another meaning”

What? Are you high?

“You’re particularly laughable in the part about excusing things said as being jokes when my politics coincide with theirs.”

Ok, this isn’t incoherent. It’s just a really, really awful sentence.

“Two faulty assumptions, there (out of two)”

What? Two faulty assumptions, out of two…what, assumptions?

Oh, is that what 2+2 equals? I made it to Calc 3, but I forgot most of that. Integrals and derivatives were never really my cup of tea.

Meh. You’re still a douche. Apparently, a mostly incoherent douche.

I shouldn’t expect anymore from the spittle-flecked, hysterical right.

I’m sorry, I apologize. I guess I take for granted being able to get jokes before the person even finishes saying them, even when the joke involves things said several weeks ago, or one or two levels of pun indirection. Allow me to spell it out for you, since you seem to have an unusually poor ability to make inferences that aren’t illogical.

I defended the first two because the most common meanings (indeed, the ones that come to mind first of all; at least if you - you - didn’t have a vested interest in giving them another meaning). The third I had no desire or need to defend, because the most obvious meaning was indeed the way you interpreted. My issue is with reason, not who said what; frankly, I rarely read who gave what quote until after I read it, for the obvious reason that I prefer not to leave any possibility of contaminating my opinion.

You’re particularly laughable in the part about excusing things said as being jokes when my politics coincide with theirs. Two faulty assumptions, there (out of two): I don’t agree with their politics, and I didn’t even care that Coulter said the quote was a joke. You do seem to love saying things you can’t back up.

2 + 2 = 4, in my world. Let me know when you decide to move in; I’ll give you a welcoming present of Peeps.

I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about. I made an argument that can be “disproven” in 30 seconds, but I’m not quite sure what argument that’s supposed to be. None of the quotes you offered contain, you know, an argument.

Maybe you could tell me, what was going through your head when you saw I replied to two of those quotes but not the third? Were you honestly not able to put two and two together (critical thinking: it does a brain good!), or were you thinking something along the lines of “well crap, I don’t have any other argument, so I might as well throw out an allegation and hope he sucks at math”?

Sucks at math? Two quotes but not the third? Is this supposed to be coherent?

“you’re pretty desperate”

Desperate? I’m sorry to dissapoint, Justin, but the word “desperate” is a little extreme to apply to the comment thread of a blog. Maybe blog comment threads are a major part of your life and so they can get a little extreme or out of hand for you, but…I can’t really imagine a situation in which I’d get “desperate”.

Sorry Justin. Try cleaning this up, and making it a little more coherent and a little less….homless person crazy ranting…and maybe I can respond?

I’m sure, Justin, that the slightest hint of anything even remotely like this from a liberal sends you into paroxysms of hysterical, indignant, righteous rage. But when a conservative says it, well, he meant something else! It was a joke!

Bwahaha. At this point I must point and laugh at you. Again. You’ve gone and made an argument that can be disproven in less than 30 seconds. AGAIN.

Maybe you could tell me, what was going through your head when you saw I replied to two of those quotes but not the third? Were you honestly not able to put two and two together (critical thinking: it does a brain good!), or were you thinking something along the lines of “well crap, I don’t have any other argument, so I might as well throw out an allegation and hope he sucks at math”?

Though I guess your feverish knee-jerk reaction (how’s that for mixed metaphors?) to the (two) quotes alone shows you’re pretty desperate, and willing to settle for whatever you can get. Either that or you just picked the first quotes that could possibly be misinterpreted in your favor, and thought we were too dumb to notice; I resent that.

Well done! You’re floating like a butterfly, buddy — they haven’t laid a glove on you.

At 108 comments and counting, I don’t know if this thread has much left for legs. (I’m exhausted just reading the thread; I haven’t yet read the EM document, so I won’t presume to comment.) But keep fighting the good fight, Spankster. Hope to be seeing you around.

tequilamockingbird

I agree that Euston would have been more effective if it had followed the formulation of “let’s work together to solve the problem” rather than “all opposed are in effect supporting terrorism.” However, if such a formulation were to have any meaning, both sides would have to start from somewhere other than their usual “stick it out until the bitter end” or “bug out as soon as we can get away with it” positions. If we didn’t, then no matter how good our reasoning and evidence appeared, we’d always end up accusing each other of merely defending the pro- or anti-war stance rather than trying to come up with practical solutions. (Sort of like we’re doing now…)

I would question the Spankmeister’s statement that there are “like five people in the country” who fit in the Ward Churchill category. Ever been to, oh, just about any kind of protest you can think of here in DC? The radicals exist in numbers, they are organized, and when they’re on the march they receive the media’s undivided attention. Extreme behavior and extreme rhetoric get the press these days, while moderate voices are ignored. I submit that we have, in effect, been trained by the media to believe that the radical elements are typical of both parties.

A recipe for paranoia…

My problem is, whether it’s the media’s fault or mine, that I perceive the Spankmeister and Cindy Sheehan as allies. I feel that the adoption by our government of Spankorino’s reasoned arguments for withdrawal from Iraq - assuming for the moment that they do represent the most practical solution - would somehow validate the beliefs and behavior of the old nutball and her allies. I have no problem being proven wrong by reasoned argument or harsh experience. I do have a problem with anything that increases the social and political capital of people like Sheehan.

Oh, well - maybe it’s just a case of “love me, love my dog.” Strange bedfellows and all that. Politics sucks.

But at that point, what does the value of Euston become? What is the value of a statement of truisms? Tyranny bad, freedom good. Sign? Sure! But to what end? What good does it do if everyone agrees that freedom is good? I was under the impression that there was already a concensus on that.

Next, we’ll have the Euston Sky Manifesto: “We, the undersigned, agree that the sky is often blue, with white fluffy clouds, and that sunshine is nice. Also, if you think we should withdraw from Iraq, you support genocide and hate freedom.”

We, the supporters of the Spanky Manifesto, support the following things:

America, freedom, liberty, democracy, cake, America, grandma, puppies, kittens, ducklings, America, capitalism, America, baseball, flowers, rainbows, America, good cell phone reception, high speed internet access, America, and all that is good.

We oppose: tyranny, fascism, oppression, Osama bin Laden, communism, fascism, grouches, grease stains, stuffy noses, burnt toast, jihadism, and paper cuts.

Plus, by signing this, you agree to admit that you were wrong about everything because you are stupid, crazy, or both, and that your opposition to our policies indicate that you love Osama bin Laden and want to make out with Saddam Hussein.

Sincerely, Spanky and the Gang.

Remember, if you don’t sign, you hate America.

I suggest to sally to stop talking to Spank.

The key here is that this group is every group. Left, Right, everyone. Extremism and looniness are a problem for everyone. But you don’t care about that.

Euston’s authors are a very small set of the Left: those who supported the war in Iraq and believe that criticism of the war is, in essense, putting oneself on the side of the terrorists. They are, in essence, attacking everyone else on the Left, loony or not.

What you are doing is taking this small subset of Leftists who agree with you, calling them rational, and then accusing anyone who doesn’t agree with them of being irrational.

Let me sum this up for you: the “subset” of Leftists Euston is attacking is not the fringe minority - Moore and Churchill and whomever - but rather most Leftists.

If Euston had said something like “lots of us disagreed over Iraq, but we’re there now, so let’s figure out what the best solution to our problem is, whatever that may be, irrespective of ideology or ego.”

Euston instead said “lots of us disagreed over Iraq, but let’s move past that and realize that if you want us to leave, then you’re a terrorist-lover.”

The key is this passage:

“This opposes us not only to those on the Left who have actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Baathist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance, but also to others who manage to find a way of situating themselves between such forces and those trying to bring a new democratic life to the country. We have no truck, either, with the tendency to pay lip service to these ends, while devoting most of one’s energy to criticism of political opponents at home (supposedly responsible for every difficulty in Iraq), and observing a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi “insurgency”. The many left opponents of regime change in Iraq who have been unable to understand the considerations that led others on the Left to support it, dishing out anathema and excommunication, more lately demanding apology or repentance, betray the democratic values they profess.”

Euston is attacking a strawman. There are people on the Left (if you can call them people) who have actively spoken in support of the insurgency. There are probably about five of these people in the country. That’s fine, speak out against them all you want. They deserve whatever you have to say about them.

But Euston doesn’t stop there. Euston goes on to criticise those who “situate themselves” between the good guys and the bad guys. Who would this be? I thought we already covered the extremist fringe. Someone else, then? Some group of people on the Left who aren’t on our side, but somewhere in between? These are people who “pay lip service” to positive ends.

Ah, and here’s the crux of it: those who “pay lip service” are, by Euston’s definition, actually speaking out against terrorism and jihadis. They’re just not doing it loudly enough, or in an ideologically pure enough, or often enough way to satisfy Euston. Apparently Euston has a monopoly on the appropriate way of condemning murder, and anyone who phrases it a different way? Euston sees into their hearts and knows that they don’t really believe what they say.

What I figure is this: Euston’s authors supported the war, and had lots of fun making fun of other leftists who opposed it. Then, when things started to go wrong and those Lefties said “told you so, you were wrong,” Euston’s authors couldn’t stand it. Those Lefties were being mean. So Euston establishes an ideoligical purity test: you love freedom? Hate tyranny? Freedom lover says withdrawalfromiraqmeansyourontheotherside. What? Oh, nothing.

Ooooh, I’m frothy.

For the few people (other than Spanky) still reading this thread, let me just try one more time to clarify a topic that Spanky is working hard to muddy: the authors of the Euston Manifesto are themselves leftists, as I’ve frequently pointed out, so it would hardly make sense for them to accuse the left “of being crazy idiots who hate America”, or for me to think that they’re saying that. Their target — and mine, here — is instead a subset of the left for whom “sense” is a suspect, potentially dangerous concept. This is a subset that Spanky, for example, despite his efforts at appearing even-handed, perfectly illustrates with the nonsensical quote above, and with the froth that preceded it.

You’re right, people like Moore are an embarassment. He’s a liability. The Minuteman comment? Every time he opens his mouth he damages the efforts of real, actual progressives. Every time he opens his mouth it becomes harder for anyone else to take us seriously. I have no idea whether he really believes that or if he has decided that his commercial position requires him to be as extreme as possible. Maybe like Coulter? Who knows. I do know that so long as Coulter is a guest at GOP pac meetings and gets covers on Time Magazine, she’s as much an issue for people on the Right as Moore is for the Left.

But I didn’t bring her up to accuse you for being on the Right and being associated with Coulter. I don’t feel any more associated with Moore than you do with O’Reilly or Coulter. At what point do people like us become responsible for them? And what could we even do?

Sally will probably never believe this. She seems a little set in her ways. I could probably point to a hundred, a thousand examples of the same sort of excesses on the Right as on the Left. But those on the Right Sally will explain away - it was a joke! ha ha ha - or excuse away - these people are marginal! Pay no attention to Cheney on Limbaugh’s show last week - or just outright deny it.

This isn’t at tit-for-tat thing, Sally. This isn’t “the Right is bad too so therefore we’re not bad.” It’s “both sides have a problem that needs to be dealt with, and it’s the same problem for both sides, and denying that doesn’t help the situation.”

But you’ll never agree with that, because of this:

“the left in particular needs a way of distinguishing more clearly between rational and irrational, decent and indecent.”

When you accuse your opponent of not being able to distinguish the ration and decent from the irrational and indecent, your opponent thinks you’re an asshole and won’t take your ideas seriously.

Let’s try it! Sally, you’re insane. You’re stupid. You have trouble distinguising reality from fantasy, like a crazy person. You probably have poor personal hygiene. You love evil. You hate good. Now why won’t you take my ideas seriously?

So Euston is, according to you, basically the authors accusing the Left of being crazy idiots who hate America. And you wonder why we don’t like it?

Fine.

But that’s not the point of the Euston Manifesto. It’s not a matter of making funny remarks, however offensive, or off-hand cracks, however tasteless. And it’s not about particular personalities, and whether or not you find them entertaining. Michael Moore says some funny if politically offensive things, for example, and no one bothers about it — so does Jon Stewart or Bill Mahr. It’s what Moore and his like say when their dead serious that is the source of concern. And it’s not just a few high-profile moon-bats that we’re talking about, it’s the pervasiveness of this sort of seriously disturbed world-view throughout the activist portions of the contemporary left — the proliferation of paranoid-level conspiracy theories, for example, or the deep-seated, generalized sense of cultural guilt, or the swollen level of self-righteousness, all of which and more underlie the particular symptoms outlined in the Euston Manifesto.

Anybody can always find someone on both their right and their left with whom they disagree, and maybe whom they can’t stand. But it’s important to understand that this Manifesto is pointing to a phenomenon that goes beyond this sort of personal and perennial judgment — it’s saying that the left in particular needs a way of distinguishing more clearly between rational and irrational, decent and indecent. The natural tendency to want to balance blame in this case is just a way of avoiding an important issue.

Here’s the full quote: “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”

It was an ill-advised joke, an unfunny joke, but nonetheless a joke, definitely tongue in cheek & labeled as such. Hardly a serious call for the mass murder of liberals. O’Reilly’s quote was stupid, but it wasn’t exactly a call for murder, either. Likewise the Limbaugh quote, part of a mawkish & clumsy attempt to be ironic, was absolutely idiotic but not proposing murder. I’ll take your word about Oricnus.

On the other hand, although the quotes were not a call for murder, what was said was bad enough to make your point for me. I will concede that these 3 have a following on the right & that is not a good thing for the right – but you need to realize that people like Moore & Sheehan are just as damaging to the left.

I never liked O’Reilly. He’s a ratings scientist that’s found a sizeable niche working assorted hot button issues. An ex-employee took him for a bundle because of some sordid phone trash he talked to her. The enterprising lady had the foresight to record the calls. First they let him make a fool of himself by denying everything, then produced the tapes, which Ol’ Bill hurriedly paid a pretty price for. Limbaugh is a master of character assassination & his favorite method is implication. He’s arrogant & accusing but very careful to avoid saying outright anything he could be sued for. Coulter is sometimes entertaining & does manage some witticisms in her lighter moments, but frequently lapses into a kind of hysterical shrillness, as your quotes illustrate.

Yes, there’s too much hyperbole on both sides.

perhaps we can all agree to answer him as dryly as is possible. He seems to get off on the jousting…

Oh, wait, now he’s going to call me juvenile for using the ‘juvenile’ line on him.

oh, well…

And of course it doesn’t surprise me that you’d want to deny there’s a particular problem with the ideology you hold dear — that’s exactly the point of selection bias. But it’s not just me, and it’s not just the right, and it’s not just the center — it’s well-known liberals and leftists themselves that are finally admitting to that particular problem, and are trying to do something to correct it. Merely asserting that that’s “clearly false” isn’t going to make it so.

Why this problem exists, asymmetrically, on the left is another matter and a longer story — and likely one that would be more interesting and more profitable to pursue than just continuing with repetitious denials.

That’s why a lot of Revolutions go down into chaos and the Revolutionaries lose power to another elite. I.E. Bolshevik Revolution and the French Revolution.

The most violent transfigurations occur when the beaten upon acquires the power to beat upon their tormentors. You will never imagine anything like it until you see it for yourself.

Since Justin and Sally aren’t making an effort to explain O’Reilly’s comments, I will. Just for the record, of course.

When San Francisco becomes another nation, then they do not benefit from the US military’s protection, and thus it would be as if Mexico had a suicide bombing. We’re not going to do anything about it, because it is neither in our jurisdiction nor should we, given that Mexico has its own government to deal with problems like that.

O’Reilly’s reasoning is of course, not very clear to the unreasonable. So I guess people should give them a break or two.

The point is: you asserted that the Left’s fringe somehow represents the Left, while the Right’s fringe is properly marginalized. This is clearly false. The Right has the same problem as the Left.

Seriously: if Moore had said what O’Reilly said, or if he had called for the murder of a Supreme Court Justice over his political views, you’d be throwing a tantrum and shouting that this proved your point, that the Left is unhinged and etc. Except Leftists didn’t say this.

Am I quoting out of context? No, this seems pretty clear to me. Of course it doesn’t surprise me that you’d try to explain or excuse away this sort of thing when it’s your team saying these things, but that’s the point of selection bias, right?

It’s true that if you pore over the texts of people on the left or right looking for quotations that can be made to look bad out of context, you can always find them. So this becomes an obvious exercise for those lefties, like Spanky, in denial over the atrocious state of a significant segment of their own political wing — “Oh yeah? Well you’re another!” is their feeble attempt at a comeback. But it’s really just kicking dust in the hope that something like the Euston Manifesto will be obscured and forgotten. That document is an open acknowledgement on the part of a number of people on the left that the problem is not an occasional crack, but rather an entire mindset, a mindset that betrays the values underpinning rational politics on any wing, left as well as right.

Of course there is more than one way to interpret every statement. You’re such a good little postmodernist. Think of all the different “voices” that form the “text”! Ah, a breath of fresh air in a stale room.

I’m sure, Justin, that the slightest hint of anything even remotely like this from a liberal sends you into paroxysms of hysterical, indignant, righteous rage. But when a conservative says it, well, he meant something else! It was a joke!

Imagine if Moore had said “And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

You’d by in a tizzy, I imagine. But a liberal didn’t say it, O’Reilly with his 2 million conservative viewers and listeners said it. But that’s ok, because he’s one of you, right?

O’REILLY: Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I’m not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I’m the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, “Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you’re not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead.”

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is indeed saying that al Qaeda should attack San Francisco. I mean, just how the UN has called for massacre after massacre by not sending in its troops to stop it.

I know many people want Dan Rather to fly the coop, but I don’t. I’m seriously thinking of the campaign called “Don’t Dump Dan.” It’s actually a two-pronged campaign to save Dan. The first is: “Don’t Dump Dan.” The second prong of the campaign would be a PSA. I have a script here, a public service announcement to help find the fall guy for Dan so that Dan doesn’t take the heat. I’m not coming out in four square defense of Dan Rather. I am coming out — I’m seriously thinking about this — in defense of Dan Rather keeping his job. Now, I know — if Mr. Snerdley’s face is any example — many of you out there scratching your heads, shouting at your radios and saying, “Why?” My friends, as I’ve always said here since the earliest days of the EIB Network, “We don’t want to get rid of all liberals. I want to keep a couple, for example, on every major U.S. college campus so that we never forget who these people are.” I mean you need an opponent out there. It heaps keep you sharp. We need liberals being who they are. We need liberals doing what they do. It helps create more non-liberals. It just does. We want to be able to remind future generations just who liberals were and are, how they think, what liberals do — and I was thinking about this last night.

Right, again. Because telling people to go out and kill most liberals is not just one of, not just the most probable, but the indisputably correct interpretation of all the possibilities for that passage.

“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183006,00.html

Haha, she joked about murdering a Supreme Court Justice. Hahahahaha.

Other choice quotes:

“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too.”

Ehhhhh I’ll find cites later but I’m tired now.

Check out Oricnus - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com for lots of eliminationist rhetoric on the right - so and so is vermin and should be killed, liberal hunting permits for sale, etc.

Point is: Crazy Lefty says crazy thing. Crazy Righty says crazy thing. Bot should be condemned.

Sally says: your crazies are special; you are in love with them and want to have their babies. Michael Moore! He gets red carpet treatment! Everything he says is the gospel truth of the Left!

Oh, our crazies have called for murder and terrorism? Well, they are a) just joking or b) totally marginalized.

How convenient!

Look, I’m not responsible for Moore and I don’t read Kos. I don’t care! Coulter, O’Reilly, Limbaugh…these people have big followings on the Right. Cheney was just on Limbaugh’s show last week. Moore went to the convention as a guest of a president who has been retired for decades. Limbaugh got to make kissy-kissy with the sitting Vice President.

Sally, own up to the fact that the problem is just as bad for the Right as it is for the Left.

Or, continue denying reality. Either way, ehhhh, you smell bad.

“We don’t want to get rid of all liberals. I want to keep a couple, for example, on every major U.S. college campus so that we never forget who these people are.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential3/x.guest.html

Bill O’Reilly on San Francisco:

“And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

You can listen to the audio clip of O’Reilly saying this.

I’m not a fan of any of the media folks named above, especially Limbaugh, who is slyly slanderous. Coulter’s specialty is ironic exaggeration for comic effect & O’Reilly is frequently disappointing, so I’m not one to defend them but calling for terrorist attacks? Murder of liberals en mass? Sorry, Spanky, but I’m going to have to see some reliable sources for such charges to be believable.

Cheers, Sally.

Yeah, sure. The ‘state’ in the US is already playing a major role. Much research here is government-funded. But yeah, maybe the government could do more to wean the US off oil. I suspect you & I could find many areas of agreement on various issues. I have a liberal viewpoint on most domestic issues. But all that is small potatoes compared to the religious war the West finds itself in. Wake up & see what they are doing & what is coming unless people like you wise up.

For what it’s worth, I’ll just note that the topic of the post that initiated this increasingly bizarre exchange was the Euston Manifesto, a document put out by liberals and leftists, which I’ve been at some pains all along to say I found rationally debatable.

First it was: Michael Moore is crazy and he represents the Left because the Left is crazy too! You’re crazy for being on the Left!

Now it’s: I was only calling some people crazy. Why do you think I’m calling you crazy? Talk about projection!

By the way, for the record, I don’t actually think all liberals are monsters — I actually diverge just a fraction from Ann Coulter in that regard. Spanky obviously finds some comfort in extending his peculiar brand of political neurosis to include everyone who simply shares that end of the spectrum — but that’s his delusion, not mine, as the Euston Manifesto makes evident.

Limousine-liberals?

Hollywood?

Radical-chic?

Anti-Americanism?

What sort of dressing would you like for your cliche salad?

Unfortunately, Sally will very likely never, ever believe that liberals - you know, about half the country - are anything but monsters.

It will probably never matter that Bill O’Reilly called for San Francisco to be attacked by terrorists, or that Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have both called for liberals and democrats to be murdered en masse.

You see, these don’t represent Sally. No. Those are fringe elements. However, those crazy people over there? They embody everything I believe. They represent me in every way.

Because, you see, Sally has a problem with reason and unreason. She’s always mixing them up.

So, Yammer, we overthrew Saddam’s genocidal regime because…?

In the beginning, the Sunnis thought that their organization, experience, and militarism could get them back into power if they just caused enough casualties and problems for America to pull a Mogadishu Mile on them.

Obviously, this was before we trained an Iraqi National Army and a Police force made predominantly out of Shiites. As the native Iraqis get more experienced and combat hardened, the Sunni insurgency sees more and more rewards in the political process. When they targeted the police lines and Iraqi civilians over US casualties, it was their admission that they could no longer force AMerica out. That they could perhaps intimidate the Shiites into making a better deal. With the 2 votes, that didn’t work either.

The Shiites have always believed Americans were too soft on the insurgency. So they always believed that if we left, the Shiites could take care of things. This contradicted with their belief that Iran and Syria were a national danger without the Americans, of course.

Now with an American trained Iraqi force that is superior to the iranians, syrians, and Saudis combined, the Shiites are arguing from a position of strength.

If we left, the Shiites would strike first at the Sunnis, because they could not be given any guarantees that the Sunnis would not strike first. The Americans are serving as a trust broker, we are the middle man. We are trusted by Kurds, Shia, and Sunni because we belong to none of their tribes, and we hold no particular loyalties to one or another of their enemies or allies.

In tribal politics, this matters a lot.

The fake liberals are stuck on this idea that if you are threatened with destruction, then you will unite. You saw this during Roosevelt’s President for Life reign, and you saw some of it as criticism leveled at Bush for being a divider not a uniter.

Here again, you see spank espouse the same narrow minded idea.

To apply it more accurately than spank did, Americans leaving would unite Shiites in a Shiite dominated government that would be united in the pursuit of the destruction of all their enemies, whether Sunni or no sunni. Thus the civil war of Lebanon would commence once again.

Without US assurances of protection against the Shiites, the Sunnis would unify and fight the Shia. It would be the best civil war the Left could engender in generations I am sure it will prove very entertaining to Hollywood as well.

By the way, it’s touching to see poor Spanky’s appreciation for your pat on the head — but, by his own reaction to the Euston document, and his quick descent into name-calling, it’s pretty clear which side of that divide he’s really on.

Nick B, you wrote:

“One of the chief weaknesses of Islam is that it does exactly that — encourages one to destroy one’s enemy at the cost of one’s own life.”

I’m very curious about this - you obviously must know a lot about Islam to know one of its chief weaknesses.

So tell me: what is Islam?

While you’re at it, maybe you can answer the exact same question, phrased differently: what is Christianity?

You see, I wrote “Shi’ite parties in power would suddenly have a very good reason to make those comprimises: if they don’t, they will be destroyed when the US leaves.”

In the latter sentence, the word “they” refers back to the subject of the first sentence, “Shi’ite parties in power.” This pronoun represents, or takes the place of, a noun.

Instead, you seem to believe that, while I wrote “Shi’ite parties in power,” that “they” referred instead to “all Shi’a in Iraq.”

Not quite sure where you came up with that, but it was nice of you to make up an argument and then call me silly and rediculous for it.

The Shi’ite parties in power - the Iraqi government, in essence - are, in fact, in great danger of being destroyed by the insurgency if the US withdraws its protection. Isn’t that what all of you we-must-stay-or-else-evil-wins folks talking about all the time? The Iraqi government isn’t strong or stable enough to survive on its own.

While we’re keeping the government alive, we’re also helping to ensure that the insurgency will continue indefinitely, and that we’ll need to stay in order to protect them indefinitely.

So long as we’re there protecting the government, the Shi’ite parties have no incentive to cooperate with the Sunni minority. If they were actually threatened with actual distruction - that is, if we were to offer a withdrawal date - the government would suddenly have a very good reason to comprimise with the Sunnis.

So long as the Sunnis feel the government won’t serve their interests, they will continue fighting the government. So long as the Shi’ites monopolize power, the Sunnis will feel the government won’t serve their interests. The Shi’ites don’t want to share power at all, and they have no reason to - we’re propping them up. If we were to threaten to leave unless the Shi’ites comprimised with the Sunnis, then they might actually do that - most of the power is better than none of the power.

There are examples of successful counterinsurgencies in history. Most of these involve putting lots of people in concentration camps (ie, the British in South Africa, Kenya, and Malaya) or genocide (ie, the Germans in Poland). We tend not to like doing those things, and so we’re going to have to try to find another way of ending the insurgency.

This means threatening the Shi’ites so that they will finally be forced into doing what they can do to end the insurgency.

I can understand how Spanky and others feel about being tarred as evil anti-American lefties. It seems like there’s a perception problem - not their fault, but it’s there nevertheless.

Specifically, it appears to many people that “ordinary” liberals have made common cause with genuinely radical, anti-American leftists due to a mutual dislike of George Bush and his policies. Looking at it from the other side, this is exactly the same as believing that the Republicans have made common cause with born-again religious fanatics led by Jerry Falwell. There may be a small kernel of truth behind each perception, but it fails to describe “average” liberals and conservatives justly and accurately.

I don’t want a theocracy in America, and I don’t believe George Bush is likely to start one. Similarly, I assume Spanky doesn’t want a Soviet-style collective in America, and he doesn’t believe John Kerry (or whoever) is going to start one. But this is exactly the kind of crap we hear from the further reaches of our political spectrum.

Unfortunately, the media consider this nonsense to be exciting news. Pat Robertson’s latest foot-in-mouth attack is more interesting than a boring policy statement by some Republican bigwig. Cindy Sheehan’s latest rant is more tasty than some Democrat party functionary droning on about education.

I think that both sides of the debate, by giving the nut-cases a pass just because they agree on broader issues, are doing themselves and their opponents a great disservice. We cannot count on the party politicians to distance themselves from these extremists - they’re afraid of losing votes. So we have to depend on ourselves to make our positions clear to each other through blogs and other public fora.

I guess what this amounts to is: Spanky, when you think of me, try to keep Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson out of your head. For my part, when I think of you I’ll try to ignore Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan.

And I don’t know where the Manifesto fits in, truly. For one thing, “average” voters don’t go around signing manifestos. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like a publicity stunt.

This is blatantly silly. Ridiculous, even. Clearly FALSE.

The Shi’ites are the largest group IN Iraq. How the hell do you think they would be wiped out by the Sunnis? The Kurds are probably the best set for any internecine strife, but aren’t likely to intercede on behalf of the Sunnis, since the Shi’ites probably could NOT wipe them out.

What needs to happen in Iraq is that the three parties need to get a grip on the idea that mutually-shared unhappiness is better than a fight.

Compromise is better than using a gun to try to get your own way.

It’s a critical aspect of the democratic model — because, once someone decides that blowing their enemy’s head off is more important to them than the risk to life, limb, and family which the alternative represents, there is no hope of any kind towards compromise. One of the chief weaknesses of Islam is that it does exactly that — encourages one to destroy one’s enemy at the cost of one’s own life.

This principle has some value in one-to-one tribal conflicts, but when you’re pissing off an enemy with far more nukes than you have, it’s a recipe for self-genocide (if they don’t get that result from the West, I will utterly guarantee you China won’t hesitate to apply it)

oi! why you try debating with what i said not with you think ‘early communists’ said. Do you think the state has a role in developing new technologies. I do.