When asked to tell us what we actually need to do, rather than tell us what we all need to believe, ideologues on the Far Left and Far Right are uncharacteristically silent.
Both Nancy Pelosi and Ron Paul want the U.S. to get out of Iraq. Granted, their reasoning differs. Pelosi, who believes that Iraq is a “situation to be managed,” not an actual war, withholds her support to discredit the Bush Administration and thus help her political party at the ballot box. Paul’s opposition is based on his belief that the Iraq invasion is an unconstitutional exercise of power, in addition to being the wrong policy in the first place.
Both the Paul and Pelosi camps embrace the same four-word prescription we’ve heard over and over to give concrete political meaning to their beliefs: “Get out of Iraq”. When I noted in an earlier essay (“Whose Crazier, the Far Left or the Far Right?”) that the bottom line for the ideological Right and ideological Left is identical regarding the issue of Iraq, I was told that their underlying motivations mattered, and therein lay the difference.
Okay. If the reason why Leftist ideologues want to “Get out of Iraq” is different than the reason why Right-minded ideologues want to “Get out of Iraq” — and this difference indeed matters — then let’s look at the practical policy prescriptions each offers, and the practical political consequences of each path. The proof should be in this pudding; that is, assuming that the pudding actually exists after all is said and done.
But first, let’s examine their respective reasoning and motivations.
First the Uber-Left: Once you cut through all the “Bush Lied People Died” rhetoric and point out that Bill Clinton and most of the top Democrat party leadership held identical beliefs to Bush about the existence of Iraqi WMD and the need for “regime change,” it all comes down to a simple formula. Bush is for it, so I’m against it. Or, in a slightly different version of the same basic motivation, if Bush will benefit from it politically, then I’m opposed to it philosophically.
The Uber-Right is a bit more complicated in its underlying rationale and motivations. To avoid the charge that I’m just goading this discussion by mischaracterizing their views, I’ll concede that these folks have, in their minds, a well-crafted, internally consistent, highly principled reason for wanting to get out of Iraq now.
This now brings us back to the pudding. These motivations — for either the Left or Right — may be important to those who hold these beliefs, but the question on the table isn’t why the U.S. should get out of Iraq, but rather how the U.S. (assuming it should) get out of Iraq?
We’ll leave the should we stay or should we leave question aside for the moment so as not to distract from this debate. For discussion purposes let's assume that the ideological Left and Right have prevailed, and the slogan “get out of Iraq” is now the ultimate policy objective. So, how exactly do we do this? The focus is on how to translate this slogan into actual policy so something tangible can be accomplished. At this point it doesn’t really matter whether we’re doing it because we hate Bush, or because we believe that the Iraq war is unconstitutional. We have over 160,000 American troops in Iraq, plus equipment and support staff. How do we pull them all out “now?”
I first posed this little challenge in my essay of several months ago, “How to Fix a Problem.” Instead of endlessly quoting one’s favorite philosophy or philosopher, how about using that philosophical foundation to guide us through answers to some real world problems? I received one answer in the comment section when I asked for a practical application of the political theory this individual was touting to the situation in Iraq. It bears repeating because it’s a perfect illustration of the centerpiece of this essay. The “practical” policy guidance I was given was, simply, “Get out of Iraq.”
The author of this policy bristled when I pointed out that saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn’t a policy prescription, it’s simply political rhetoric. This prompted the following reply: “Why is saying we need to get out of Iraq not a policy prescription? Because you don’t agree with it? That is exactly what we need to do. Get out.”
Okay — get out . . . when? Tomorrow? In six months? In six years? In 60+ years like the occupation of Germany? What does “get out” mean? Every American soldier and civilian tomorrow, in 6 months, six years, etc.? Do some people stay behind? Who, and how many? What about the Iraqis who supported us? Do we leave them to die? Believe they won’t die and leave them anyway? Take some/all of them with us and give them asylum? And when we leave, do we run, walk, or sneak away to send a signal to our enemies that we’re sorry, determined, or contrite for being there in the first place? And will any or all of this convince our enemies — whether they are pre- or post-Iraq invasion bad guys — not kill any more U.S. citizens, or do we need to do other things in conjunction with “get out?” You know, minor, unimportant details like this.
“Get out” is a slogan, just as “we shouldn’t have gotten in in the first place” is a slogan. Each may be a philosophically-inspired slogan, but neither is a blueprint for making policy except in the most generous sense. It’s like counseling a depressed person to “be happy,” or a poor person to “get rich,” or a person who did X not to do X in the first place. On a high level it may be very sound advice. On a practical level it’s just mindless prattle, unless a prescription to achieve those goals accompanies the high-minded rhetoric. It makes the person uttering the phrase feel good about themselves, and renews that mystical bond with the philosophers of the past. But it doesn’t do a damn thing to make that wish into a reality, or further, deal with the reality that accompanies that wish.
This is the emptiness of much of what passes for intelligent political discourse when the object is to see how many of your favorite philosopher’s adages you can memorize, rather than applying the principles they articulate to identifying and solving contemporary social, economic and political problems. Either the people offering these platitudes as policy are incapable of translating their principles into real world actions, or they are fully aware of how odious some of those actions will be if they let those principles actually dictate policy. Either way they continue to engage in a political debate that can have no actual consequence, therefore no actual conclusion, because every issue they cite, every pronouncement they make, is simply an abstract philosophical point. Since it is not meant to address any tangible issues, it’s just an abstract mental diversion. Whoever has the better reading list or megaphone wins, even if the principles they embrace have no real-world application.
Philosophy can guide an action, but policy based on philosophy requires more than a reference to Aristotle or Rousseau. Saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn't a policy prescription. It’s simply more rhetoric. If philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere.
But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level for fear of exposing what the actual policies arising from this worldview might be. That is, assuming there are any practical lessons to be drawn from their philosophizing in the first place.
I’ll end this essay with a little prediction. Rather than addressing the hows, whys, and wherefores of unilaterally pulling out of Iraq immediately, over time, or only when the combat ceases, those who base their objection to the Iraq war on philosophical grounds will:
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal, or
(B) Define “practical” policy matters as the pursuit of a proper philosophical position, or
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address, or
(D) Refuse to concede that any concrete practical issues need to be addressed at all! “Get out now” is all the practical guidance one needs. The rest (like what happens to the population that supported us, and whether or not our enemies will be emboldened by cutting and running), are just insignificant details not worthy of further discussion.
The “trap” (as this approach has been characterized) of seeing whether the ultra Left or Right’s worldview bears any resemblance to reality has now been laid.
I am waiting (and hoping) to be proven wrong about what I’ve said above, so an actual conversation can begin. I hold out absolutely no hope that the ideologues of the Left will offer anything constructive until Bush is safely out of office, and can be given no credit for any success in Iraq.
As for the ideologues of the Right, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if an actual discussion develops, or we get, once again, some variation of the four options above.
Phil, I can understand your frustration. I have made my position clear on why I supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and why I have now revoked that support (Fighting and Dying for Islam).
I think you would probably agree that the grounds for war have shifted, especially in Iraq?
So what I am now struggling with is this – what are the grounds for staying? As far as I can tell, it is simply to prove we can win. But who pays the price for that?
We have effectively established Islamic states in Iraq and Afghanistan. Young American men and women are dying to preserve those states, but from whom? From Islamists (Muslims), on the whole.
Should it not be incumbent on you, as well, to say why we should sacrifice more young lives to ensure that these newly established Islamic states become successful Islamic states? If we leave today, or in twenty years time, we will still be leaving Islamic states in our wake – the only difference will be the number of lives sacrificed in the interim.
In Nazi Germany, and Japan, we did not install governments reflective of the ideologies which caused the problem in the first place. In Iraq and Afghanistan we have. In my view, there is a great difference.
I’d be interested to have your thoughts on that. I think there still is a case to pursue these conflicts to a final conclusion – I just haven’t heard them articulated – yet! So I'm all ears.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
C'mon, Phil, we all know the Ubers (Lefts or Rights) will refuse to acknowledge any of your points and will continue on with their slogans and philosophies. Why? Because they have the ultimate example of a win in their column. At least by their perspective.
Vietnam.
There they were, the mentors and parents of today's young leftist (or get-out-now rightist), proclaiming at the top of their youthful voices "Hell no, we won't go!" and "Make Love, not War!" In the end, they won, and the US withdrew ignomoniously and abruptly. The anti-war crowd crowed in delight, and turned their attentions to taking over the universities of the nation and perpetually supporting dumb social agendas.
Of course, being the philosophizing moralists kind of people, they ignored what happened in Southeast Asia when we left. It was those people's problems, and aren't we glad we got out when we did?
They ignored, in their slogans and righteous victory, the utter slaughter caused by the communists we were asked to help fight against, that we were succeeding against, in spite of all the anti-war propoganda. The very same type of people we are fighting against in Iraq, just dressed differently and with beards.
But that won't bother the Ubers. After all, as long as their slaogans win, who cares about the consequences?
Joseph:
I'm referring to your comments which you sent to my email because they are temporarily hung-up in the filter. This way when they do appear this comment will be in proximity to yours.
You asked what I would do in Iraq. I've written about that subject previously. The point of this essay was to see if any of the ultra-Right or ultra-Left will actually deal with the substance of the issue. Whether it made sense or not to go into Iraq, or makes sense or not to remain, we are there. This is the present reality we face. If that reality is to be changed by leaving, then there are certain practical matters that must be addressed.
For purposes of this essay I’ve “conceded” that the slogan “get out of Iraq” is the policy objective. Therefore, those who have “won” that debate on a philosophical level are now required to deal with the real-world implications of that slogan. If they can’t, or won’t, then their political commentary is simply empty rhetoric.
The “Empty Suits” refuse to address any contemporary real world issues when they talk about Iraq, immigration, etc.; instead relying on what their favorite philosopher said about war in general, kith and kin, etc.
We’ll just have to see if their slogans have any real-world substance.
Take care, Phil
Having a clear philosophical perspective is important, but unless it manifests in a practical methodology it is only so many words. The author is quite right regarding sloganeering substituting for policy.
It is worth pointing out, however, that the far right is almost irrelevant to the discussion. They have little or no voice, no willing accomplices in the media, and no power to affect policy. The looney left, however, has mucho funding, unlimited access to national media, sympathizers in government at all levels, and control of our public schools and universities.
They have been able to pretend they are something they are not for decades under the guise of "compassion," "tolerance," and "diversity." However, these buzzwords have been unmasked for what they really are. Compassion is actually forcible wealth redistribution. Tolerance is licentiousness. Diversity is keeping track of skin color while simultaneously enforcing ideological lock-step.
Thankfully, this stranglehold on discourse and free exchange of ideas is beginning to loosen. The country is actually much more conservative than it was thought to be, and people have a lot more common sense than what we see dumped onto our living room floors every night via T.V..
So the real debate is not between the Right and the Left. It is between freedom and tyranny.
"the far right is almost irrelevant to the discussion"
MM — yes, I agree on a practical level, as evidenced by Ron Paul's dismal showing in the polls. But the Far Right is our stepchild, and they are vying to influence what constitutes "conservative" thought. On this basis it's important for us to see if there is any "there, there" when they offer their opinions. We'll never be able to counter the insanity of the Left with empty sloganeering of the Right.
I wouldn't call them a stepchild so much as they are like party-crashers who have "hi, my name is…." stickers on their chests that are the wrong color.
As far as the original challenge issued by the author, I forgot to answer that. I was against our entry into this conflict (philosophically), but now that we are there we need to finish the job (practical). Further rehashing of slogans like "illegal war" and the like are moot.
So, Iraq must be stable and self governing. We do not have to completely wipe out the terrorists, we do not have to rebuild the entire country, but we need to make sure that our pull-out does not destabilize Iraq.
My main complaint about the war is our namby-pamby approach. A low-impact war is synomymous with a lost war. We need to get past our leftist proctors and kick butt, do the job, and kill the bad guys. Anything else leads ultimately to failure.
Mountain Man, I agree with you that, thank God, more and more people can, and do, voice their opinions. That is thanks to the internet, and sites like IC.
The silenceed majority has been silenced too long, and is finding a voice. I hope we use it well.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
For anyone who doesn't know, the "Empty Suit" that this is addressed to is me. Wow, I even get capital letters! Phil you are obsessed and comically self referential.
"For anyone who doesn’t know, the 'Empty Suit' that this is addressed to is me."
I guess we need to add Option E: Embrace your own self-proclaimed emptiness and wear it as a badge of honor — all the while never offering a practical policy suggestion to accompany any of your political rhetoric.
Phil:
“But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints.”
Oh, they have answers alright, but not answers you are likely to hear. Those who demand that we “get out of Iraq now” are not interested in any “real-world solutions,” so you are guilty of arguing the issue again (remember, the issue is not the issue). What are they interested in? America’s defeat, plain and simple. How do we know this? Vasko Kohlmayer put it best: “The Left’s pacifism … extends only to the exercise of our [US] military power while our belligerent enemies – be it the expansionistic Soviets or murderous Islamists [read: Saddam Hussein] – invariably get a pass. Contradictions such as this reveal the Left’s true agenda which is not what they say it is, peace in this instance, but our defeat.”
So, they actually do have a policy objective after all.
daverock:
The so-called anti-war demonstrations were not “anti-war”; they were anti-draft. As soon as the draft was abolished, the demonstrations evaporated.
Mountain Man:
“We need to get past our leftist proctors and kick butt, do the job, and kill the bad guys. Anything else leads ultimately to failure.”
This is essentially the conclusion of a good analysis by Col. Snodgrass who has written for IC in the past. His best article on the subject is, “Limited War Doctrine: A Fatal Flaw”
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/01/31/counterinsurgency-and-the-us-military
Sedona: Having suffered through all the vapid pontificating by the Empty Suits (self-identified or just self-evident), I tried to cover your point with this observation — "Either the people offering these platitudes as policy are incapable of translating their principles into real world actions, or they are fully aware of how odious some of those actions will be if they let those principles actually dictate policy."
The reason the Empty Suits won't advise us what to do, instead of simply telling us all what to believe, is that offering a concrete policy prescription would reveal the odious hidden agendas that really underlay their supposed philiosphical principles.
sedonaman, could you at least not conflate the left-wing "empty suits" with the right-wing "empty suits." Their underlying motives are very different.
And damn that "limited war doctrine." Everyone knows that ruthless disregard for civilians and non-combatants is how to win a war. Who cares about a little collateral damage when their are Islamomeanies to kill?
“Everyone knows that ruthless disregard for civilians and non-combatants is how to win a war. Who cares about a little collateral damage when their are Islamomeanies to kill?”
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the self-identified emptiest of empty suits, we have a trifecta!
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal, or
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address, or
(D) Refuse to concede that any concrete practical issues need to be addressed at all! “Get out now” is all the practical guidance one needs.
"And damn that “limited war doctrine.” Everyone knows that ruthless disregard for civilians and non-combatants is how to win a war. Who cares about a little collateral damage when their are Islamomeanies to kill?"
I know man, isn't it, like, totally absurd? These neo-conservo-fascivists think that you, like, have to kill people and stuff to win some ill-conceived damn war. It's just like when they made us lose WWII by, like, blowing up innocent Japanese dudes and stuff. When will they realize that that never works? It's almost like they didn't even notice our towering successes in Korea and Vietnam. Sicko war-mongers.
"sedonaman, could you at least not conflate the left-wing “empty suits” with the right-wing “empty suits.” Their underlying motives are very different.
And damn that “limited war doctrine.” Everyone knows that ruthless disregard for civilians and non-combatants is how to win a war. Who cares about a little collateral damage when their are Islamomeanies to kill? "
And so, in an attempt to show why he is not an empty suit, Dan goes down the list and checks off everything mentioned that indeed makes him an empty suit.
Policy? We don't need no stinking policy!
WolvenBear, what exactly is your policy? Stay until we "win" or "achieve victory?" Or like Huckabee, "We broke it so we have to fix it." The stay the course crowd isn’t exactly full of details either. I wrote an entire article on how the pro-War "cons" need to define victory and how we get there. The David Y/Col Snodgrass answer pretty much amounts to "just kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.” The rest are just platitudes.
I haven’t really ever made an attempt to explain how we are going to withdraw in an orderly way. The situation is a horrible mess. Solomon couldn’t figure it out. But it is a mess of our own creation. We created the chaos. Maybe all the wise guy neocon keyboard warriors babbling about “creative destruction” should have thought about that before we went in and toppled Saddam.
Just “stay the course” until we “achieve victory” isn’t a thoughtful plan either. A legitimate functioning central government that is considered legitimate by the people is never going to happen. Never. It will not happen for the simple reason that it will be viewed as the government we put in. All we can ever do is prolong the inevitable. The only possible way to keep Iraq intact, IMO, would be to install and heavily arm a ruthless dictator. Other than that, it ain’t going to happen. It doesn’t matter how long we stay. It isn’t an entirely foregone conclusion that there will be massive violence if we leave, largely because the country has already divided into three fairly distinct areas. The biggest problem will be where there is a significant mix of Sunni and Shiites such as the areas around Bagdad I believe.
The longer term problem is that the Sunnis will be left in the area that doesn’t have the oil.
So my plan pretty much is “just come home” in a safe and orderly manner. There will be chaos, the breaking apart of Iraq, and some amount of bloodshed whether we leave tomorrow or five years from now or ten years from now. So why prolong the inevitable?
But how to fix this mess isn’t exactly my “thing.” It’s nobody’s thing because it isn’t fixable. Are we all supposed to be experts in everything? My “thing” is bashing the neocon and other pro-war ideologues who blundered us into this mess in the first place. If that makes me an “empty suit,” so be it. I think the empty suits are the pro-war saber rattlers safe in the confines of some Beltway think tank who think it makes them a macho man to scream for war that someone else is going to go fight. Empty suit indeed. But I guess they could argue that fighting and dying isn’t their thing. Running their mouths is.
All “Empty Suiters”:
When SADDAM HUSSEIN invaded Kuwait, the usual excuses for journalists rushed out and polled a lot of other “Empty Suiters” on-the-street. The question most often asked was an asinine, “Should we go to war with SADDAM HUSSEIN or solve the problem diplomatically?” Predictably, everyone responded, “Solve the problem diplomatically.”
But, how many realize that “diplomacy” is not just talk-talk [Winston Churchill notwithstanding] – it is a bargaining process, and when you bargain, you have to give the other side something in exchange for what you want? And that, to be successful, bargaining must involve people of good faith?
Apparently our usual excuses for journalists in the Leftstream Media [LSM] do not. Consequently, they never asked the “Empty Suiters” on-the-street the follow-up questions, “What do you want to come out of diplomatic negotiations over this issue?” and “What are you personally willing to give up to ensure that diplomacy succeeds?”
Do you want:
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to comply with UN Resolution 1441?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to stop bothering his neighbors?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to stop sheltering terrorists?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to promise not to develop WMDs?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to promise not to slip WMDs to terrorists for use against the US?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to stop paying $25,000 to the surviving families of suicide terrorist murderers?
– SADDAM HUSSEIN to [fill in] ______________________________ .
– Some of the above? If so, which ones?
– All the above?
– None of the above [i.e., nothing; let SADDAM HUSSEIN do what he wants; he doesn’t concern us.]
What are you personally willing to give up:
– $10 or [fill in maximum amount here $ ______] for a gallon for gas?
– A nuclear capable SADDAM HUSSEIN, with capability supplied by the US [see North Korea], or any other way?
– Israel wiped off the map? [Few recognize the full consequences of this choice.]
– Buying off SADDAM HUSSEIN with annual payments of [enter your personal pledge here] $___ K, like we tried with the Barbary Pirates?
– Offer half your assets and say, “Now let’s have peace”?
– If THE diplomatic solution to SADDAM HUSSEIN’S despotic ambitions were written on the underside of a rock on the planet Pluto, should the US launch a space mission to retrieve it?
– Other [specify] ______________________________ ?
– Some of the above? If so, which ones?
– All the above?
– Nothing. Let SADDAM HUSSEIN do what he wants; he doesn’t concern us.
Please bear in mind that whatever you choose [even “nothing”] amounts to appeasement which is nothing more than blackmail and that a blackmailer [in this case SADDAM HUSSEIN] is never satisfied and will return for more. In the end, we, the appeasers, will have engaged in amputation one inch at a time and ironically have to go to war anyway, and most assuredly under much less favorable circumstances.
It isn’t just 1939, or 1938, or 1925; some examples of the results of appeasement beginning with Attila the Hun may be reviewed here http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/appeasement-as-war-doctrine.
P.S. If you are wondering why I put SADDAM HUSSEIN in bold caps, it’s to remind you that SADDAM HUSSEIN started the war in the first place. Virtually no one blames him, least of all the LSM. It was all George Bush’s fault that SADDAM HUSSEIN invaded Kuwait.
Especially for Dan Phillips:
As a former military man, I expect that when the US goes to war, it abides strictly by existing international laws and no more, including anyone waging private warfare, i.e., being caught fighting without meeting the four requirements for legitimate combatancy gets treated outside the Law of Armed Conflict.
Dan Philips – the gift that keeps on giving, in a very sad sort of way …
DAN: “I haven’t really ever made an attempt to explain how we are going to withdraw in an orderly way.”
(D) Refuse to concede that any concrete practical issues need to be addressed at all! “Get out now” is all the practical guidance one needs
DAN: “The situation is a horrible mess. Solomon couldn’t figure it out.”
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address
DAN: “But it is a mess of our own creation. We created the chaos. Maybe all the wise guy neocon keyboard warriors babbling about “creative destruction” should have thought about that before we went in and toppled Saddam.”
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal
DAN: “A legitimate functioning central government that is considered legitimate by the people is never going to happen. Never. It will not happen for the simple reason that it will be viewed as the government we put in. All we can ever do is prolong the inevitable.”
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal, or
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address
DAN: “So my plan pretty much is ‘just come home’ in a safe and orderly manner. There will be chaos, the breaking apart of Iraq, and some amount of bloodshed whether we leave tomorrow or five years from now or ten years from now. So why prolong the inevitable?”
(D) Refuse to concede that any concrete practical issues need to be addressed at all! “Get out now” is all the practical guidance one needs. The rest (like what happens to the population that supported us, and whether or not our enemies will be emboldened by cutting and running), are just insignificant details not worthy of further discussion.
DAN: “how to fix this mess isn’t exactly my ‘thing.’”
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address
DAN: “My ‘thing’ is bashing the neocon and other pro-war ideologues who blundered us into this mess in the first place. If that makes me an “empty suit,” so be it.”
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal, or
(B) Define “practical” policy matters as the pursuit of a proper philosophical position, or
(C) Contend that the practical details and consequences of an arbitrary US withdrawal are somebody else’s issue to address
And just for good measure, here’s another passage from the essay I wrote: “Philosophy can guide an action, but policy based on philosophy requires more than a reference to Aristotle or Rousseau. Saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn't a policy prescription. It’s simply more rhetoric. If philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere. But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level for fear of exposing what the actual policies arising from this worldview might be. That is, assuming there are any practical lessons to be drawn from their philosophizing in the first place.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what it means to be a deep thinker as defined by the guy who posed and answered the original question: What the Heck is a Paleoconservative and Why You Should Care?
Complain about issues (but don’t attempt to solve them); keep telling us all about the natural superiority of your position; toss in words every once and a while like “natural hierarchical social order” but absolutely refuse to define them in practical terms so we know what policies they would actually produce, and endlessly cite your reading list as evidence of the superiority of your intellect.
But for God’s sake, don’t EVER offer a real policy option, because that would either make you actually think about the issue in real terms instead of just shooting off your mouth; or worse, the “policies” that you advocate might be really despicable things that would expose the odious hidden agendas nature of your basic assumptions.
I now understand why, after saying that you would offer paleo-inspired policy options to the immigration issue back in September 2007, you now contend, as you did in the comment section to my last article on 12/7 Truthers, that you have no intention of doing this at all.
You won't, because you can't, for all the reasons I cited above.
Dan Phillips:
"But it is a mess of our own creation."
It is NOT "a mess of our own creation."
SADDAM HUSSEIN created it, because (in the immortal words of Madeline Albright) "what happens over there affects us over here."
Actually, Sedonaman, Saddam was the problem to deal with. It is the leftists would created the mess by hamstringing the military from doing what they do best: Kill people and break things.
War, by definition, is a messy business. People die. Things get blown up. Prolonging this process is the real cause of 90% of the bad outcomes over there.
In all fields of endeavor, a quick, smart, decisive fix is almost always preferable to the long, drawn out, over-analysed, second guessed, half hearted attempt at a low impact solution, which is what we have at present.
Too many people want to deal only with extremes. "Pull out completely right now" is one side, while "who cares about collateral damage" is the other, as if nothing was in between. That, however, is a false choice.
We can yet do the job over there, do it decisively, and leave behind a decent future for these people. But it would be wrong to leave abruptly and abandon an entire region to murderous thugs.
Sedona: To answer your questions required Dan to think. Dan doesn't think. He complains.
The hallmark of an Empty Suiter is their eagerness to mouth off their opinions on a subject. But when it comes to thinking about its complexities and/or offering a solution to a problem they complain about, that's beyond their abilities.
"Should we go to war with SADDAM HUSSEIN or solve the problem diplomatically?"
And therein lies your problem sedonaman. When Iraq invaded Kuwait we (America) SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE A DARN THING! Your underlying presumptions are internationalist and globalist, hence liberal.
"When Iraq invaded Kuwait we (America) SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE A DARN THING!"
(A) Focus on why we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq in the first place, without addressing the practical issues regarding a US withdrawal
"Your underlying presumptions are internationalist and globalist, hence liberal."
(B) Define “practical” policy matters as the pursuit of a proper philosophical position
Phil, you expend a whole lot of time, energy and bandwidth nit picking what I say and trying to score silly debating points. To what end, I don't know. Sedonaman was talking about the First Gulf War. What problem with the First Gulf War was I being ask to fix? Surely you don't expect me to offer a "solution" to the Saddam problem in 1990 if I reject the premise that America needed to do anything about it in the first place.
I offered my assessment of the situation in Iraq. The current government is not considered legitimate by many of the people there, and it will fall as soon as we leave. It will fall if we leave in a month. It will fall if we leave in a year. It will fall if we leave in five years. Because we let this Genie out of the bottle and because Iraq was never a natural country. That is why Saddam had to hold it together by intimidation and force. At best, if it does not fall, the government will be weak and ineffectual. Kurdistan was already operating pretty much independently when Saddam was still in charge. After the government falls the country will split into three parts. How bloody this will be is unclear, but it is not a foregone conclusion that it will be a genocidal bloodbath because the natural divisions are pretty clear and have already become increasingly so by all the sectarian violence since we invaded. (Many have already been displace including most of Iraq's Christians. Good job W, the supposed evangelical.) Turkey will not at all be happy with an independent Kurdistan and may end up invading. The Shiite south may well become a client state of Iran.
That is my assessment. You may not like it. You may think it is overly pessimistic. You may think that an indefinite American troop presence there will have them all holding hands and singing Kumbaya. I don't know. But since I believe that will happen whenever we leave, my policy prescription is to get out now. How to do that safely and securely is up to the military. Of course getting the first 50,000 out is much easier than getting the last 50,000 out.
Like I said, I am sure you do not agree, but I am really not sure what else you want me to say. I would wave a magic wand and make them all love each other?
Since I am being asked for my "plan" or else be called an empty suit, what exactly is your plan for "victory"? We can't even train their Army because they continually desert or join the sectarian side to which they belong. How do we prop up their government sufficiently that it will function when we leave?
"That is my assessment. You may not like it. You may think it is overly pessimistic. You may think that an indefinite American troop presence there will have them all holding hands and singing Kumbaya. I don’t know. But since I believe that will happen whenever we leave, my policy prescription is to get out now. "
As much as I sometimes get tired of Phil beating the same proverbial dead horse, I wonder if you realize that you are saying the exact same thing over and over again, all while conforming perfectly to the prescribed stereotype written up for you? If you really don't have anything new to say then why not just let your "position" stand as it is and let it be?
"Since I am being asked for my “plan” or else be called an empty suit, what exactly is your plan for “victory”?"
The question was posed under the hypothetical pretext that victory was impossible and "pulling out now" was the settled upon policy solution. So it was presupposed that your philosophical position was determined to be 100% correct. "Victory" is off the table for the purpose of this mental exercise. Presupposing that your "point" had been entirely proven, how would you execute a plan to accomplish your goal? The question wasn't the "why" but the "how". I don't know what line of work you're in, but I'm a business management student, and this isn't an uncommon scenario to be presented with. Let's look at a business-world example that parallels this debate: Knowing and recognizing that the company is going bankrupt and saying that the company should be dissolved is entirely different from planning for the dissolution of the company and executing the dissolution of the company. Explaining whose fault it is that the company is no longer financially viable, or how the company should have been operating 5 years ago doesn't produce any tangible answers as to how to go about dissolving the company. Understanding the reasons for the company having to shut down is interesting to read about in a trade magazine. It doesn't solve the problem of HOW to go about dissolving the company. It doesn't set timeframes and deadlines, close production plants, schedule layoffs, finance salaries and severances, liquidate assets, arrange debt repayment, arrange future customer support, etc, etc, etc. You can excuse yourself from the responsibility for making those decisions, but it doesn't change the fact that they have to be made, and your pontificating doesn't really help the people who ultimately DO have to make those decisions.
"I am really not sure what else you want me to say"
For two years you've been telling us all that the only True Conservatism is paleoconservatism. And yet, when asked to use this philosophy to give us real guidance as to what to DO, rather than what to BELIEVE, you refuse.
You refuse to give us a philosophically-based policy prescription to deal with the present real-world situation in Iraq. Instead you say “we shouldn’t have gotten in there in the first place,” based on the Paleo view of the world. You’re great at complaining. However, you have nothing of practical value to contribute.
Regarding Iraq, I think the reason you won’t deal with policy is because you can’t. You have absolutely no idea what to do, other than moan and complain about being there in the first place. As a philosophy, your guiding principles are bankrupt and devoid of substance.
Regarding Immigration — another issue you promised to give us all some paleo-inspired policy option — you again refuse to offer any practical guidance. Unlike the war in Iraq, your refusal here isn’t that you don’t know what to do, but rather offering policy would EXPOSE what you really believe.
Paleoconservatism, as you have both defined and practiced it, says that shared values are irrelevant. What matters is a genetic, kith and kin-based “natural hierarchal social order”. I asked you in August 2007, exactly what does this mean for US immigration policy? End it completely? End it for non-Europeans only. Send back all non-Europeans already in the country, etc?
You’re very good at offering slogans, but absolutely refuse to tell us — from a practical policy perspective — just how to put these slogans into effect. And when you are confronted with the charge that “You have no guts to state your case forthrightly,” as I confronted you back in August 2007, you tell me “I am going to write an article on what I think we ought to do about immigration. It is a very long and complicated issue and deserves an in depth treatment.” Comment by Dan Phillips | September 3, 2007
Well, we’ve now entered a brand new year, and you’ve still refused to accept your own challenge to do more than offer empty meaningless slogans. Our last conversation didn’t end on September 3, 2007. It was put on hold awaiting the substantive comments you said you were capable of producing. I’m not going to pretend that the issue isn’t there just to spare your feelings at being caught making a thoroughly stupid comment that there is a kith and kin-based “natural hierarchal social order”.
You consider this “nit picking” to score debating points. I, and others as evidenced by the comments here, see it for what it really is. All you do is shoot off your mouth and sloganeer under the guise of promoting True Conservatism. But your philosophy won’t permit you to actually offer meaningful, real-world solutions to existing, real world problems. Or, to be honest about what you actually believe.
You’re an empty suit pretending to be a deep thinking man of substance. And I have no problem reminding everyone of who and what you really.
As those who have followed our discussions here in the past know, I do not agree with Dan Phillips on Iraq. But Phil's suggestion that Dan has "refuse[d] to give us a philosophically-based policy prescription to deal with the present real-world situation in Iraq," is obviously false. Dan has been nothing if not clear about this. He believes that the collapse of the government we helped set up in Iraq is inevitable and that keeping troops there does nothing to make the United States or Iraq more secure, and that the best policy is to begin withdrawing troops immediately in order to minimize the number them who will die in Iraq, and that the sooner they are all out, the better. He also believes that the historical lesson we should learn from our experience in this war and in other foreign interventions is that, in the future, we should not fight foreign wars except in very specific circumstances, most notably when we are actually attacked. That is a perfectly legitimate, coherent opinion. It addresses "the present real-world situation." Phil may think it is a bad analysis, but an analysis it is, and a policy prescription it is.
If we want to debate the policy, let's debate the policy. But let's not obfuscate the issue by conflating "ill-conceived" with "impractical."
Dan Phillips:
“ ‘Should we go to war with SADDAM HUSSEIN or solve the problem diplomatically?’ … And therein lies your problem sedonaman. When Iraq invaded Kuwait we (America) SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE A DARN THING! Your underlying presumptions are internationalist and globalist, hence liberal.”
May I point out that this is the EXACT course of (in)action we took with the Japanese in the ‘30s? Yes, that is a form of appeasement. Like it or not, the “doing nothing” option sends the message to a despot, “Go ahead. We don’t care so we’ll continue to do nothing to thwart your ambitions.” By the time the Dan Phillipses of the world come around to facing the reality of a big smoking hole somewhere on US territory, there are no solutions left that don’t involve sacrificing 50,000,000 lives. But that’s OK; the Dan Phillipses and other appeasers never have to do any of the fighting and dying [see Neville Chamberlain].
You also said, “The current government is not considered legitimate by many of the people there … SADDAM HUSSEIN had to hold it [Iraq] together by intimidation and force.”
The reason SADDAM HUSSEIN had to hold it together by “intimidation and force” is because he was illegitimate himself: He murdered his way to the top of his dictatorship.
The fact of the matter is that the US exerts a great stabilizing influence on the world. Contrast the consequences of lack of US influence on Europe between World Wars with those of the period after WW-II.
So now our decision becomes, do we abandon our current endeavor and wait until our enemies present a far greater threat that we can’t ignore, or continue the current course and in the process send a different message to other would-be despots? If all we will have accomplished by SADDAM HUSSEIN’S mid-air choreography is to send this message (Do you want to swing?), it will have been worth it.
Sedonaman, there is very little threat of a large "smoking hole" somewhere in US territory. (I assume you mean something other than a terrorist strike on a building or something like that.) That is why the terrorist have to rely on terrorism. Because they do not have the means or ability to wage real war against us here. Talk of smoking holes and 50,000,000 dead is blatant fear mongering. It is not based on reality. The security/military state apologists want everyone afraid. If people are afraid then they are more likely to go along with whatever usurpation is dreamed up next. And you have swallowed it hook-line-and-sinker. Be afraid sedonaman, be very, very afraid. If we don’t kill all those Islamomeanies in far off lands, they will come and get you. BTW, did you see my comment on Phil’s last thread? When I encourage non-intervention I am always told that it is no longer 1920. But then I am constantly reminded that it will always be 1939. Unless we act, death and destruction await. So which is it? Not 1920 or always 1939. Please make up your mind.
Patrick, I think you misunderstand Phil. He does not want me to spell out in technical detail how we go about a phased withdrawal. At least I don’t think he does. I am certainly not asking him to draw me up the troop movements he would use to achieve victory. He wants to know what I would do about the terrorism problem in general and how I would deal with the aftermath of our withdrawal because he does not think bringing the troops home and minding our own business is an adequate answer. Of course, this is really just question begging. Phil presupposes that minding our own business is an inadequate response so when I propose it I’m just an empty suit spouting theory with no real solutions. Phil will not be satisfied until I say something like this, “You’re so right Phil, and I was wrong. You really are one of the smartest men I have ever known. How could I have ever doubted you, my intellectual better? You are so right. We have got to take the fight to the Islamomeanies or else they will kill us all.” If I say that Phil might be satisfied, but not until.
Phil, you are obsessed. I will produce an article on immigration because it is an extremely important topic that needs to be discussed. But I am a busy man, and as I said, it is a complicated subject. I am not sure where I signed up to follow your timetable.
But despite your casual dismissal, theory matters. Paleos and all traditional conservatives believe human nature is rather fixed and not particularly malleable. (This is the traditional Christian understanding as well. You know, that whole Original Sin/sin nature thing.) Based on thousands of years of observation and a basic understanding of human nature we knew that, funny thing, people don’t like to get invaded by outsiders. We also knew that Western Style democracy is a very unique thing in all of human history and requires certain religious, historical, institutional, etc. underpinnings to thrive. Heck, it ain’t even working all that well here in the supposed cradle of it. So we said from this, even though they are not all keen on Saddam, we will not be welcomed with open arms. Those who have a self-interest (there goes that human nature thing rearing its ugly head again) in seeing Saddam removed, the Kurds and Shiites, may well welcome his overthrow, but then they will quickly want us to leave. And being human beings, once the government is gone, the Kurds will want their own government and the Shiites will want theirs. The Shiites might well be happy with a Shiite government that includes Kurds that it lords over, but the Kurds would not be particularly happy about this arrangement. And vice versa. This is EXACTLY how it has played out.
The neocons on the other hand, dismissive of human nature and all of recorded history and convinced of their ideology, told us we would be welcomed with open arms, because “everyone yearns to be free.” And convinced of the superiority of Western style liberal democracy thought it could just easily be imposed since it is so self-evidently superior you know. Once established in Iraq, it would light a fire of freedom that would sweep the Middle East. Hasn’t worked out so well now has it? Why? Because the underlying theory was wrong. Grossly so. Like it or not, theory matters. Do you, like a conservative, base your theory on observable things like history, tradition, nature, etc. Or do you, like the liberal, base your theory on how some wise guy thinks things ought to be.
But if I am supposed to present you some detailed plan or “solution” to “fix” the current problem, why were all the wise guy neocons not expected to come up with a plan for how we might go about planting Western style liberal democracy in a place that had never known it nor wanted it before they rushed in? Why did you then not demand of the neocons what you now expect of me?
Has anyone considered that the Pentagon may already have plans for force reduction in Iraq?
It's real simple. From the get-go, the US military planned to remain in Iraq until the Iraqi military and police force became professional enough to do it on their own. Currently, the US military is transfering operational control to Iraqi units.
How do we get out of Iraq? Continue doing what we're doing.
Of course, we can dicker about how many troops we'll have in Iraq in however months or years, but we've been in Germany and Japan for 63 years, in South Korea in force for 57 years, and in Kosovo for 9. Thus, even when we're 'gone' from Iraq, we still won't be ‘gone’.
Sorry. I feel sheepish interjecting the real world into this metaphysical and ideological discussion.
But LFDF, it is not OK that we have been in Germany and Japan for 63 years, South Korea for 57, and Kosovo for 9. That is what some of us fear will happen in Iraq. And that transfer of operational authority that youi speak of is not going well.
Take everything Dan just wrote, and find one single, contemporary, real-world policy. Actually, let me save you the trouble. You won't.
Once again, the only thing Dan can do is cite philosophy, i.e. “conservatives believe human nature is rather fixed and not particularly malleable.” From this we’re all supposed to intuitively know what to do in 2008 about the real world issues we face. It’s so obvious that Dan can’t even bring himself to state it! For Iraq, it’s simple. What do we do about our 2008 presence in Iraq? “Mind our own business” and don’t go there in the first place. That’s his 2008 policy solution. It’s just as useful a guide to action as telling a person facing bankruptcy not to get into debt in the first place, a depressed person to be happy, a lost person to go home, etc. It’s all meaningless prattle.
As for his article on immigration, Dan says “I will produce an article on immigration because it is an extremely important topic that needs to be discussed. But I am a busy man, and as I said, it is a complicated subject. I am not sure where I signed up to follow your timetable.” This is exactly what he said in September 2007 to end that conversation. Four and a half months later he’s still to busy to give us any practical guidance. He’s not too busy to keep telling us not to get into Iraq in the first place, or to advocate a race-based “natural hierarchical social order”. But as for what to do about the people in the US (or those who want to come here legally) who aren’t part of one's genetic-based kith and kin, Dan won’t spell out that policy. It’s one thing to hint at race as the defining factor in your political judgments. It’s another to actually say it out loud. Dan, if anything, is a careful man.
So let me say again what I said to Dan in September 2007 when he made his first BS pronouncement: “Dan, when you write your article … could you find your way to actually offering a real world policy instead of regurgitating your belief that paleoconservatism is the True Conservatism, that everyone else is acting unconstitutionally, that neocons are unprincipled, that you reject liberal baseline assumptions, and that the natural order demands only one course of action which we should all infer from the above, because you still haven’t gotten around to telling us what we should actually do? Or are we just going to be treated to another long preamble about what you believe philosophically, rather than what the nation ought to do in concrete practical terms?”
Everyone, don’t hold your breath. The last thing Dan wants to do is actually address the real-world implications of his political beliefs. Four months from now we’ll be having this same conversation again.
Re: “despite your casual dismissal, theory matters,” once again here is the Cliff Notes version of the original article.
When asked to tell us what we actually need to do, rather than tell us what we all need to believe, ideologues on the Far Left and Far Right are uncharacteristically silent. …
For discussion purposes let's assume that the ideological Left and Right have prevailed, and the slogan “get out of Iraq” is now the ultimate policy objective. So, how exactly do we do this? The focus is on how to translate this slogan into actual policy so something tangible can be accomplished. … We have over 160,000 American troops in Iraq, plus equipment and support staff. How do we pull them all out “now?”
… Instead of endlessly quoting one’s favorite philosophy or philosopher, how about using that philosophical foundation to guide us through answers to some real world problems. Get out when? Tomorrow? In six months? In six years? In 60+ years like the occupation of Germany? What does “get out” mean? Every American soldier and civilian tomorrow, in 6 months, six years, etc.? Do some people stay behind? Who, and how many? What about the Iraqis who supported us? Do we leave them to die? Believe they won’t die and leave them anyway? Take some/all of them with us and give them asylum? And when we leave, do we run, walk, or sneak away to send a signal to our enemies that we’re sorry, determined, or contrite for being there in the first place? And will any or all of this convince our enemies — whether they are pre- or post-Iraq invasion bad guys — not kill any more U.S. citizens, or do we need to do other things in conjunction with “get out?” You know, minor, unimportant details like this.
“Get out” is a slogan, just as “we shouldn’t have gotten in in the first place” is a slogan. Each may be a philosophically-inspired slogan, but neither is a blueprint for making policy except in the most generous sense.
… Philosophy can guide an action, but policy based on philosophy requires more than a reference to Aristotle or Rousseau. Saying that we need to “get out of Iraq” isn't a policy prescription. It’s simply more rhetoric. If philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere.
But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level for fear of exposing what the actual policies arising from this worldview might be. That is, assuming there are any practical lessons to be drawn from their philosophizing in the first place.
“I feel sheepish interjecting the real world into this metaphysical and ideological discussion.”
Live Free — The challenge was to the Left and Right wing ideologues to attach some substance to their slogans, and use their philosophies to provide real-world policy prescriptions for current-day problems, with Iraq as an example.
You’re not an ideologue in that you’ve consistently tried to relate what you say to real world situations, and not simply fall back on the old canards that the empty suiters use.
The challenge isn’t to folks like you who can actually think. The policy ideas you have may or may not be acceptable to me and others, and thus a legitimate debate occurs about what to do. But it’s quite another to admit that one’s “thing” is just to bash people for getting into Iraq in the first place, and having counseled against the action in the first place, your obligation for any further policy-related discussion about what to do NOW is over. This is just plain sophistry.
People who purport to be guided by a political philosophy that cannot be used to formulate a present day policy are either relying on a worthless political framework in the first place; or, as I suspect is actually the case, they won’t address these details because to do so would expose some of the truly odious underpinnings of that philosophy. They can only maintain an aura of respectability if they keep the discussion on an abstract level. Thus we hear about the importance of “family”, but they refuse to tell us what national policies should be created to protect one genetic group of families (“kith and kin”) from those who are outside their Klan.
Dan Phillips:
OK, so you seem to oppose all foreign entanglements, and the 63-year-long American hegemony. I don’t.
“And that transfer of operational authority that you speak of is not going well.”
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4122
DoD News Briefing with Lt. Gen. Odierno from Iraq
January 17, 2008
Q The — your assessment for when Iraq will take over control for all 18 provinces?
GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. We'll see. I don't know. To me, it's more about sustainable security and their ability to sustain security levels. And so that's what'll determine when they go to provincial Iraqi control.
I think that's more important, because what — you know, when we first started the PIC process, you know, that was before, in my mind, they had — they didn't have as much capacity for Iraqi — for their own security forces. As that increases, the most important piece now is them gaining sustainable security. And it's across the whole country.
So I think the relevance of PIC is not as great as it once was, but we still believe that to the government, obviously it is — to take control of all its provinces, to have the final say in what goes on security-wise. So we'll continue to work towards that goal.
But I don't know — I mean, I think we're pointing towards the end of 2008 to do that. Hopefully we'll be able to do it by then. I think, you know, we look at it every month. We make recommendations. And I think if we continue along the path we are now, we'll be able to do that by the end of 2008.
– End of excerpt –
Read the entire briefing. The sense one gets is that Odierno was generally circumspect. For example, the military plans to reduce the number of operational US brigades from their max of 20 (currently, it’s 19) to 15 by summer, but Odierno refused to speculate on further reductions. Yet, he pretty much stated that Iraqi security forces will be in operational control of all provinces by the end of 2008.
Dare I say it? Our military victory in Iraq is a fait accompli.
Dan Phillips:
“Sedonaman, there is very little threat of a large ‘smoking hole’ somewhere in US territory. (I assume you mean something other than a terrorist strike on a building or something like that.) … Talk of smoking holes and 50,000,000 dead is blatant fear mongering. It is not based on reality.”
Excuse me. What do you base these conclusion on? Has an aggressor ever been stopped by doing nothing? If so, when and where? The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a real event that was a result of a “do nothing” policy. And 50,000,000 dead is not “blatant fear mongering” – it is the real end result of that “do nothing” policy of the inter-war period.
For all your talk of conservatism and its attendant belief that human nature is a constant, I find it amazing that you fail to see the consistency of human nature’s tendency to appease – and the consistency of its outcome. There are those (and I’m one) who believe that the 9/11 events were the result of a long string of “do nothing” responses by the US. I am also amazed at your cavalier dismissal of such terrorist attacks as though they were nothing. This is the classic liberal response, except of course when the bomb falls on the liberal’s toe.
Even though what our response to SADDAM HUSSEIN’S aggression should have been is mostly water under the bridge, the policy of the US should always be based on the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.
Phil:
People who purport to be guided by a political philosophy that cannot be used to formulate a present day policy are either relying on a worthless political framework in the first place; or, as I suspect is actually the case, they won’t address these details because to do so would expose some of the truly odious underpinnings of that philosophy. They can only maintain an aura of respectability if they keep the discussion on an abstract level.
You resume is impressive. http://www.scifi-jackson.com/abouttheauthor.html. Considering your credentials, you know of which you speak.
Or do you? Does this single article identify the reason (ie, they think abstractly) we should dismiss the ideologues of both the right and the left?
My answers to the 2 questions I posed are “Hell, yes!” and “No”.
There is something inherently noble about Lennon’s Imagine and Ayn Rand’s writings — that is, if we assume for the sake of argument that the ethos of the far Left and the far Right is manifest in Lennon’s song and Rand’s writings, a safe assumption, I believe, at this coarse level.
I remember the summer of 1969 driving up PCH between LA and Frisco. I passed thousands of hitchhiking Hippies. Looking back, I’m still amazed at how ruthlessly naïve we were. Excepting possibly the Amish and their ilk, my fellow Hippies created the only utopia in American history.
Rand’s utopia was never created. Still, as I read her, I feel much the same things I did driving 101.
Are utopias of the mind, or of the heart? The latter, I think. Of course, since the single characteristic that separates us humans from the ‘lower’ animals is our singular ability to deceive ourselves, we rationalize utopias. It’s in this sense, Phil, that I think you use ‘abstract’.
Now, let’s get real. I’ve excerpted a scene from the (non-copyrighted) screenplay for Gandhi. I dare anybody to be unmoved reading the excerpt.
http://www.livefreediefree.com/Gandhi.htm
I choke up every time. I also choke up every time hearing Taps or “Ich bin ein Berliner” or “I have a dream”, or seeing pictures of the Holocaust or emaciated and dying African children or a dead American soldier partially buried in the black volcanic sand of Iwo Jima.
You’re impressive, Phil. You need to be the ultimate pragmatist to work for Cassidy and Associates, and the ultimate altruist to work with the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and Easter Seals. Besides being a political operative of some repute, an unrepentant capitalist, and a science fiction author writing about time and Lucifer, you’ve written an awesomely diverse array of articles for Intellectual conservative. When referenced to all your noteworthies, I find this article lacking.
Now, maybe your goal in writing this article was to entice the loons out of the other dimensionality where they muse their febrile imaginings and attrit them intellectually with extreme prejudice. If so, kudos. They need to be so attritted. They forget what it took to get here, and what the basis of the American dream is.
After all, the Declaration of Independence is still the most idealistic (and radical) political document every written with words that soar compared to the subterranean “Imagine no possesions”, and the US Constitution is still the most pragmatic political document ever written.
The Founding Fathers’ coup is that they seamlessly combined maximal idealism and pragmatism, while today’s radical ideologues on both sides rupture idealism from pragmatism.
Damn it! Did I just agree with you?
Sedonaman,
"The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a real event that was a result of a “do nothing” policy."
That is absolutely, unequivocally a false statement. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor BECAUSE FDR was intentionally meddling in order to provoke an attack. The Elites wanted us to go to war to save England's bacon, but the masses were wisely against American involvement in another European war. He goaded the Japanese into attacking us so he could back door us into the war in Europe. This is commonly accepted historical fact. Some neocons even praise FDR for it as an example of his statesmanship leading the reluctant masses into war.
Thanks Katzen for your wise assessment. Phil can't see through his own preconceived biases.
"Phil can’t see through his own preconceived biases."
The guy who talks about a genetic-based “natural hierarchical social order”, and then absolutely refuses to define what this means in practical terms so we know what policies they would actually produce, talks about biases?
Dan Phillips:
Another liberal trait is the belief that history started yesterday, so to speak. You have focused on a too-short time period. Although I did specify the inter-war period, Japanese aggression dates back to the late 19th century:
“The third historical case differs in form from the first two examples of failed appeasement. … the third case is a tale of appeasing the Japanese Empire by ignoring their aggression against Pacific neighbors between 1894 and 1941. Following Japanese victory in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War, Japan forced China to relinquish its dominion over Korea, which Japan sought to include in its imperial empire. But Japan could not exercise a free hand in Korea until they defeated imperial Russia in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War and forced the Russians to acknowledge Japanese dominion in Korea in the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of 1905.
“Korea was formally annexed to Japan by the 1910 Treaty of Annexation, which was universally opposed by the Korean population.* Koreans were forced to live under conditions that amounted to slavery imposed by Japanese rule for the next 35 years. In 1931, Japan set out on its next overt and illegal military conquest, this time in Manchuria. The Japanese Imperial Army expanded its war crime atrocities on the Asian mainland from Korea to Manchuria. In 1937 Japan yet again increased its military aggression by attacking China. Japanese atrocities against the Chinese were well documented and known throughout the world, as with the ‘Rape of Nanking’ in 1937-38, when an estimated 150,000 – 300,000 Chinese were murdered in a six-week period. The Korea, Manchuria, and China aggressions committed over 47 years by the Japanese were simply ignored by the three nations, America, Britain, and Australia, which had the power in the Pacific to do anything about the egregious Japanese conduct.
“This purposeful disregard continued on the part of the U.S. in spite of the fact that the Japanese deliberately killed American citizens in China and sank the U.S. gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in 1937. American, British, and Australian rationalizations for inaction included such classic appeasement excuses as “we should avoid friction because, [the supremely naïve] if we don’t interfere in their business, they won’t brother us,” “it’s not our business because vital national interests are not at stake,” “international markets and trade shouldn’t be interrupted,” “the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere actually benefits Asian nations under Japanese colonization,” “we’re not prepared for war,” and [most supremely naïve of all] “once they get what they want, they’ll stop,” to name some of the more commonly heard appeasement dodges.”
[Does anything sound familiar? – Emphasis added.]
There’s that pesky http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/appeasement-as-war-doctrine again.
FDR “… goaded the Japanese into attacking us so he could back door us into the war in Europe. This is commonly accepted historical fact.”
The problem with this statement is that historians in today’s revisionism fad look upon history as a “perspective” as opposed to a series of historical facts. Couple it with their anti-American bent and you have “a commonly accepted historical fact.”
I notice you haven’t come up with an example of successful appeasement.
* I can personally attest to the animosity felt by Koreans to this day, having spent over a year there while in the military. And, by the way, the Korean people are very thankful and friendly toward Americans.
"appeasing the Japanese Empire by ignoring their aggression against Pacific neighbors between 1894 and 1941"
sedonaman, you just can't rid yourself of your internationalist/globalist bias. If Japan had landed an invasion party in California and we chose to do nothing about it, that would be appeasement. (And there is 0% chance that would have happened. The California natives would have resisted that invasion with hunting rifles and pitchforks if necessary.) Yes Japan was aggressing against its neighbors, and that was a tragic thing, but not something we should have done anything about. It can not possibly be appeasement on our part that we did nothing about Japan attacking Korea. Are we the protectors of Korea? The Pacific? All of Europe? The world?
Ask Dan what practical guidance his political philosophy can give to the Iraq situation in 2008, and you get an extended discussion about WWII.
To cite my article again, if philosophy is to have meaningful substance, it must provide practical guidance for actions based on the principles it embraces. Just citing the principles and walking away from further discussion does nothing except contribute to a genuine man-made global warming crisis by pumping more hot air into the atmosphere.
But you’re not likely to see any real policy options discussed by these proponents, because when the curtain is stripped away these people have no answers, just complaints. They have no policies, just philosophies that must remain at an abstract level for fear of exposing what the actual policies arising from this worldview might be. That is, assuming there are any practical lessons to be drawn from their philosophizing in the first place.
“Damn it! Did I just agree with you?”
Live Free — Yes, I think you did. Your reference to the Declaration of Independence is very appropriate. Had the founding fathers stopped with that, there’d be no country today. Just distant memories of a bunch of people shooting their mouths off.
The DOI was followed by an actual revolution (the ultimate example of a practical policy relating to contemporary events). With independence the founders pursued another policy — confederation — to give substance to their avowed belief in inalienable rights et.al.. That was followed by an even more pragmatic document, the Constitution, incorporating the philosophy of the DOI and the real-world learnings arising from the war and Articles of Confederation.
Significantly, when faced with putting the DOI into practice, the founders didn’t talk endlessly about what Aristotle did when he was alive, the presumed paramount importance of kith and kin, the illegality of Peloponnesian War, or any other pseudo-intellectual dodge. They professed their beliefs abstractly in the DOI, and then through the war and self-governance, used that intellectual and philosophical foundation to create actual policies by which the nation would be governed.
To your point — there’s nothing wrong with dreaming and philosophizing. Both are essential components of creative thought. But if one’s philosophy involves commenting on real world situations, I think it’s a fair question to ask that person to identify an action arising from those policies, instead of endlessly repeating their slogans. And replying to the question “what do we do today?” by saying “don’t do it in the first place” isn’t an answer.
You asked why I wrote the article. For the past two years we’ve been told repeatedly by several empty suits that there is only one brand of conservatism. Everyone else is a Marxist, liberal, neocon dupe, etc. This so-called True Conservatism seems to focus excessively on a shared genetic background, not a shared system of values, to which I’ve asked repeatedly, OK, if there is a “natural hierarchical social order” based on “kith and kin” (i.e. shared genetics), and this is the only “True” basis for governance, exactly what does this mean for present day US immigration policy, as one example? End it completely? End it for non-Europeans only. Send back all non-Europeans already in the country, etc?
The empty suits absolutely refuse to answer, because they know how odious their policies/“solutions” are.
There’s a very unpleasant odor about this kind of “conservatism”, and I’ve made it a practice to keep pointing that out. It’s why most of the empty suits no longer frequent the IC. They moved on to their own websites where they still wax philosophical, but in a bit more candid manner than they do here. They’ll even suggest policies to each other while refusing to do so here. They are not offended by the practical implications of many of their beliefs. Their only purpose is to make sure that others who don’t believe in genetic-based policies don’t get any ammunition to point out their peculiar policy notions. Unfortunately for them, it’s pretty obvious what those implications are when the person espousing the philosophy refuses to discuss them in public.
Iraq is a different side of that same coin. Assuming the correct policy objective (as defined by their philosophy) is to leave, I think it’s fair to ask what do we do in 2008? Get out tomorrow? In six months? In six years? In 60+ years like the occupation of Germany? What does “get out” mean? Every American soldier and civilian tomorrow, in 6 months, six years, etc.? Do some people stay behind? Who, and how many? What about the Iraqis who supported us? Do we leave them to die? Believe they won’t die and leave them anyway? Take some/all of them with us and give them asylum? And when we leave, do we run, walk, or sneak away to send a signal to our enemies that we’re sorry, determined, or contrite for being there in the first place? And will any or all of this convince our enemies — whether they are pre- or post-Iraq invasion bad guys — not kill any more U.S. citizens, or do we need to do other things in conjunction with “get out?”
Here the empty suits won’t answer because they can’t. Their philosophy only works in the abstract. They can tell you what the right course of action is in 1776, but not 2008. Answering any of the above questions will subject them to defending real-world policies. They can’t actually defend their beliefs in a practical way, so they keep the discussion at an abstract level — or mire it in the distant past (ergo Dan’s focus on WWII).
Conservatism is often defined by the media and liberals to be something it is not. I push back against this in my Looney Liberal Chronicles. In a similar way, I refuse to sit back and allow the same distorted view of Conservatism to be promulgated by a bunch of despicable human beings who call themselves “True Conservatives”, and argue that race is more important than values. So not being the shy type, I like to remind everyone peeking in on the IC that these people do not speak for me, or many other good folks who frequent this website.
These people use their philosophy to mask their true intentions. Exposing who and what they are brings those motives out into the open.
Take care, Phil
Hey Sedona, I see that you picked up on Dan’s statement that FDR “… goaded the Japanese into attacking us so he could back door us into the war in Europe. This is commonly accepted historical fact.”
Notice any similarity to my parody on “12/7 Truthers Demand: When Are We Going to Finally Get Hitler?” Here’s the silliness I invented for that spoof:
“Obviously Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ulterior motives for this unprovoked military assault on the peace-loving German people. He deliberately allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor so as to mobilize the country to put his real plan into action: namely, “regime change” in Germany …”
Phil:
Thanks. I think I understand now.
Dan is an empty suit. I read his posts. They’re mostly rhetoric. However, I think I understand why he refuses to offer any concrete plans for an Iraq withdrawal.
In post #22, he said: “When Iraq invaded Kuwait we (America) SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE A DARN THING! Your underlying presumptions are internationalist and globalist, hence liberal.”
It seems Dan flat opposes any foreign intervention. Thus, he feels he doesn’t need to offer solutions to a mess created by an interventionist policy. I’ll buy that.
In post #29, he said: “Paleos and all traditional conservatives believe human nature is rather fixed and not particularly malleable… We also knew that Western Style democracy is a very unique thing in all of human history and requires certain religious, historical, institutional, etc. underpinnings to thrive.”
To paraphrase: Human nature is fixed except when religious, historical, or institutional forces change it.
Dismissing this contradiction for the moment, Dan seems to think that Iraq will never become a functioning political democracy due to “human nature” or societal factors.
Yes, conservatives are cynical about human nature, while liberals are social Lamarckians who believe that changing actions (ie, existence) eventually changes human nature (ie, essence). Needless to say, this nature-nurture debate isn’t going away anytime soon, but the debate over whether or not we are one race is over. The human race is only about 60 or 70 thousand years old. Our genetic diversity is almost negligible. It is not the differences in human nature that impede the establishment of democracy.
To make his case re societal factors, Dan misstates the facts on the ground. Here’s a long excerpt from post #24:
I offered my assessment of the situation in Iraq. The current government is not considered legitimate by many of the people there, and it will fall as soon as we leave. It will fall if we leave in a month. It will fall if we leave in a year. It will fall if we leave in five years. Because we let this Genie out of the bottle and because Iraq was never a natural country. That is why Saddam had to hold it together by intimidation and force. At best, if it does not fall, the government will be weak and ineffectual. Kurdistan was already operating pretty much independently when Saddam was still in charge. After the government falls the country will split into three parts. How bloody this will be is unclear, but it is not a foregone conclusion that it will be a genocidal bloodbath because the natural divisions are pretty clear and have already become increasingly so by all the sectarian violence since we invaded. (Many have already been displace including most of Iraq’s Christians. Good job W, the supposed evangelical.) Turkey will not at all be happy with an independent Kurdistan and may end up invading. The Shiite south may well become a client state of Iran.
He’s wrong in all particulars. The Iraqi gov’t is stable. It recently passed a Sunni reconciliation measure. While the borders of Iraq are arbitrary, so are the borders of dozens of other countries drawn during the height of European colonialism. Still, all post-invasion polls taken within Iraq show that a strong majority of Iraqis do not want a partitioned country. Shias and Kurds favor unity by an overwhelming margin; only the Sunnis favored partitioned. Yes, there was sectarian violence promulgated by both Shias and Sunnis, the former to wreak vengeance on the Sunnis, and the latter to defend against that vengeance. However, due to the surge, the Sunnis in Anbar province unilaterally decided to throw down their arms. In a few months, Sunnis in other provinces did likewise, as did Shias, too. The Iraqi people simply got sick of the violence. Now that the Sunnis are not being savaged by Shia militias, the Sunnis will support a unified Iraq if they have a place at the table. And, they do. The recently-passed reconcilation measure is proof of that. With the return of stability, Christians who fled Iraq are returning, as are hundreds of thousands more. Sure, the Turkish army threatened to invade the Kurdish north, but the threat has passed. Turkey saved face by sending a small number of troops over the border to teach the Kurds their lesson, but they withdrew and the threat has passed. Iranian influence in Iraq is waning as the violence wanes. Finally, coalition and Iraqi forces have defeated Al Qaeda militarily.
Dan tried to say, “See! I told you so!” However, Dan is dead wrong. Generals Petraeus and Odierno speak the truth.
We should thank Saddam. He secularized Iraq. Excepting possibly Lebanon, Iraq has the most educated and modernist citizenry in the Middle East. While it might be very hard to transform, say, North Korea into a democracy, Iraqi democracy is already working. As some wry pundit said, the Iraqi parliament accomplished more in 2007 than the Democratic Congress did.
Sure, the Iraqi gov’t seems fractious and inactive, but, as the Founding Fathers realized, these are signs of health. Political Democracies crawl or limp, while autocracies stride or run.
Iraq is Dan’s worst nightmare. It invalidates his non-real-world theories.
Live Free
Even more to the point. Dan doesn’t really care if Iraq is won or lost. If it was hands-down the most successful military operation in history, he’d still be as dismissive of our actions there as if it was the most miserable failure in history.
Dan’s paleoconservative philosophy advises against any foreign involvement at all, unless authorized by a Declaration of War by the United States Congress. And even then a DOW must be accompanied by the “correct” philosophical motivations: are the people we’re aiding in the war of the correct genetic background (i.e. part of our Northern European “tribe”), etc.?
As an abstract philosophy, we can debate the wisdom, or dare I say morality, of such a world view until the cows come home. Dan believes what he believes because of the motivations and underlying assumptions he holds firm, and nothing is going to persuade him to change his mind. The only value of an abstract philosophical discussion is to allow others to see clearly what all is involved in holding those views, and decide if one side is a little too slimy for them to saddle up with. Otherwise, it’s just a purely academic exercise.
But Dan and his fellow paleos don’t want to stop at abstract philosophical discussions. They use their philosophy to evaluate specific real-world issues: the Iraq war, legal immigration, and so forth.
Since they’ve chosen to enter this concrete discussion, I think it’s only fair to ask them to do more than sloganeer, or advise not to do X ten years ago. Practical politics requires tangible policies to deal with existing conditions. Unless someone is simply spouting off an opinion, or is entirely opportunistic (i.e. devoid of any principles), these solutions are almost always based on a philosophical underpinning that provides overall guidance for the policy details (Reaganomics, FDR Welfare-state big government, lassie faire free market, etc.). These people use their philosophy to advocate or make policy.
But an empty suit will not address practical policy matters. The empty suit has a distinct philosophical world view, but they can’t afford to say specifically what to do about a contemporary problem. To do so would expose the slimy side of what they believe, or illustrate that their abstract principles bear no resemblance to a functioning reality.
Either way they have nothing of substance to offer, other than whining, moaning, and complaining about the things that other people do.
By the way, I’ve surmised from some of your previous writings that you’re probably an older guy like me (I’m 55). Just curious if you care to comment. Your observations seem to be tinged with experience, which is what makes your philosophical point of view relevant and at times compelling. If not, you’re just a very bright younger guy with a good head on your shoulders.
Take care, Phil
"It seems Dan flat opposes any foreign intervention."
Absolutely, because I am a small government conservative non-interventionists. I am not a big government Wilsonian liberal (with Jacobin and Trotskyite leanings) who thinks it is America's job to crusade around the world making it safe for democracy.
I have said many times that I favor repealing the restriction against Americans serving as mercenaries. Then if LFOD or sedonaman or Phil want to go right every foreign wrong you could be my guest. But leave the American military, whose job it is to protect America, out of it.
All that I am saying is conservative philosophy 101. No amount of sophistry or double speak will change that.
Phil, you can stamp your feet that I am am "empty suit" and am offering no "real solutions," but as Katzen pointed out I have. My solution is bring the troops home from Iraq. How soon? I don't know. I'm not a military strategist. As I said, as soon as it is safely possible to do so. That would largely be a military matter, but my instructions to the military would be to get us out as soon as possible. I would hope that means months, certainly not years. Do we leave anyone behind? No, except those that are required to have normal diplomatic relations. That may not be safe for a while. Do we do anything else? Absolutely. We end all foreign aid to the Middle East and every other country for that matter. We remove every American troop (except embassy guards, etc. that are necessary for normal diplomatic relations) from the Middle East and every other foreign country. We take a neutral position on the affairs of the region and let them deal with them. We should quit trying to "broker peace." We should have friendly diplomatic and trade relations with all and of course buy their oil. We should withdraw from NATO and the UN and every other entangling alliance. The "message" we should send is that we want friendly diplomatic and trade relations and we are finished meddling in your affairs. I have said all of this before, and it is implied in the call for principled non-intervention. What could possibly be more concrete than that? If you continue with your "empty suit" "no solutions" rhetoric, you are just playing games.
Again, why were more concrete plans of how to democratize Iraq not demanded of the neocons prior to us blundering in? They get a pass because you agree with them, and paleos don't because you disagree with us?
Phil, sometimes I don't know whether to be irritated by your autistic like repetition of the same objections over and over again, or whether to feel sorry for you. Remember that time you wrote that you had written three papers and your professor criticized you and said you had really written the same paper three times? I get it. I really, really get it.
“but as Katzen pointed out I have”
Here’s the best that Katzen could do to discern any real-world policy prescriptions from your last two years of pronouncements.
“He believes that the collapse of the government we helped set up in Iraq is inevitable and that keeping troops there does nothing to make the United States or Iraq more secure, …”
*** This is a belief, not a “policy action”. It focuses on what we did in the past, and does not address any of the real policy questions that the US government must deal with in 2008.”
“[Katzen continued] “… and that the best policy is to begin withdrawing troops immediately in order to minimize the number them who will die in Iraq, and that the sooner they are all out, the better.”
*** Ah, the first semblance of an actual real-time policy. Unfortunately, what Katzen said you believe isn’t what you yourself said you believe. “… bring the troops home from Iraq. How soon? I don’t know.” You then talk about doing this “safely”, but again don’t really address any of the particulars. You say you can’t because you’re not a “military strategist”. Okay, if you can’t comment on how to deal with the regional and global issues (both positive and negative) created by our presence in Iraq, why should anyone listen to your counsel to “get out?” If you don’t feel competent to engage in that discussion with any real clarity, why should anyone take your initial advice seriously? You’re just sloganeering.
You can’t comment here because, as Katzen pointed out, your focus is the past, not the present.
Katzen again: “He also believes that the historical lesson we should learn from our experience in this war and in other foreign interventions is that, in the future, we should not fight foreign wars except in very specific circumstances, most notably when we are actually attacked. That is a perfectly legitimate, coherent opinion.”
*** Yes, it is an opinion. I like apples but not prunes. That’s an opinion too. Unfortunately, the topic here is philosophically-predicated policy analysis, not personal opinions.
If you were really serious about this issue, instead of ducking it like you have the immigration issue for the last 4 months, you’d actually engage in the following. None of this requires a lifetime of military strategy preparation. What it does require is one to actually put flesh on empty sloganeering.
1. “.. bring the troops home from Iraq … as soon as it is safely possible to do so. That would largely be a military matter, but my instructions to the military would be to get us out as soon as possible. I would hope that means months, certainly not years.”
(a) More is involved in Iraq than the safety of our military. Al Quada has moved in there to maker it a base of operations. They already attacked the US on our own soil several times, beginning in 1993. How does a full-fledged retreat impact what these people do?
(b) How does it affect our allies’ decisions in the region and in Europe, Asia, etc?
(c) What is the impact on the free flow of oil and other natural resources important to our country?
(d) And so on, and so on. You may not like the fact that we depend on the Middle East for oil, and that world perceptions outside the Middle East may impact support for US economic and security issues elsewhere. But this is the actual world we deal with. What are the real-world implications for these issues if we follow your slogan?
2. “Do we leave anyone behind? No, except those that are required to have normal diplomatic relations. That may not be safe for a while.”
*** What about the Iraqis who helped us? Do we leave them to fend for themselves against the terrorists? Exactly what kind of signal does this send to others in the world who might be willing to risk their lives and families lives to help the US?
Again, you can’t simply say as you do “we shouldn’t be there.” We are. Whether the US acted “properly” or not in your view, it acted. And in doing so peoples’ lives have been impacted. What do we do about these people? Cut them loose and let them fend for themselves because they aren’t US citizens or fellow “tribal members”? Is your philosophy so callous that when asked this question, you say “too bad for them” — even though the US government actively inserted themselves into that matter in the first place?
3. “Do we do anything else? Absolutely. We end all foreign aid to the Middle East and every other country for that matter. We remove every American troop (except embassy guards, etc. that are necessary for normal diplomatic relations) from the Middle East and every other foreign country. We take a neutral position on the affairs of the region and let them deal with them. We should quit trying to “broker peace.” We should have friendly diplomatic and trade relations with all and of course buy their oil. We should withdraw from NATO and the UN and every other entangling alliance.”
*** The question was Iraq. It focused on the global consequences of a precipitous US withdrawal from Iraq, and how that would signal our friends and enemies alike, in addition to the impact it has on the lives of the people (Iraqis and Americans) who participated in this endeavor, and the impact to our economy and overall security. Your response it to say get out quickly and as safely to US soldiers as possible, then don’t do the things we’ve done before.
And when you council against any involvement in the world except for embassies and embassy guards, you never once analyze exactly how this would really work to our benefit from a pragmatic stance. We’re all left to conclude that you actually think that all of the US’s enemies hate us because of what we’ve done to them, period. If we just think nice thoughts they’ll leave us all alone. Russia/China will never seek to exert hegemony over the world, hurting us economically. Islamo fascists will be willing to leave all the Infidels in the world alone if we just leave Saudi Arabia. The US can live in peace and security by simply withdrawing from any meaningful relationship with any other country.
This is pure fantasy, and no one with any intelligence can actually believe this. You’re not a dumb guy, so you obviously know the world is infinitely more complicated and inter-related than you sloganeer about. But you won’t deal with the actual reality of the world, because to do so would expose the utter practical vacuity of you “philosophy”, or worse, highlight the things you really believe about people outside your genetic circles.
“Phil, sometimes I don’t know whether to be irritated by your autistic like repetition of the same objections over and over again, or whether to feel sorry for you. Remember that time you wrote that you had written three papers and your professor criticized you and said you had really written the same paper three times? I get it. I really, really get it. “
*** Yeah, I’m sure you do. One was on the Political Economic Cycle from 1800-1980. The second was on the Economics of Middle Eastern oil policies from 1945-1960, and the third was the foundation of my dissertation on the Economic and Political Decisions of the United Mine Workers Union from 1900-1940.
It was a political philosopher who headed the review committee, and thought that it was the “same paper” because all three had the word “economic” in it. It’s a great illustration why people who can’t see past philosophy have no idea what the real world is like.
Particularly one whose philosophy is based on a common gene pool, not a shared system of values.
Dan's post #24: "But since I believe that will happen whenever we leave, my policy prescription is to get out now."
I thought this was pretty unambiguous.
Dan Phillips:
“…you just can't rid yourself of your internationalist/globalist bias.”
Well, it seems that you can’t rid your self of your isolationist bias, including equating isolationism with conservatism by your statement, “because I am a small government conservative non-interventionists. I am not a big government Wilsonian liberal (with Jacobin and Trotskyite leanings) who thinks it is America's job to crusade around the world making it safe for democracy.”
There is another term for this: Manichaean. It’s either we do nothing in the face of despotism or we are the policeman of the whole world, riding on a white charger into every village and town and righting every wrong; there is no third choice somewhere in the middle.
As far as “making the world safe for democracy,” may I point out that if SADDAM HUSSEIN hadn’t have had a fantasy about being a latter-day Nebuchadnezzar, the US would have left him alone to gas all the Kurds he wanted?
“If Japan had landed an invasion party in California and we chose to do nothing about it, that would be appeasement.”
Well, at least we have you drawing a line somewhere. I take this to mean that you think that on Dec. 8, 1941, the US should have done nothing. If I am correct in this assessment, then where would your line be in this particular case? (Obviously it would have to be some dastardly deed between their bombing Pearl Harbor and invading the West Coast.)
“Phil, you can stamp your feet that I am ‘empty suit’ and am offering no ‘real solutions,’ but as Katzen pointed out I have.”
Katzen to the rescue! It would appear not even you believed you had a real solution until Katzen came along as your deus ex machina. (Not that I agree with him.)
I think your approach can be most accurately described as the “most supremely naïve of all”: “once they get what they want, they’ll stop,” that I mentioned in my prior post.
To bring a close to our debate that is going nowhere, let me just say that I also think you are a “non-interventionist” because the bomb has never fallen on your toe.
Phil:
“Notice any similarity to my parody on ‘12/7 Truthers Demand: When Are We Going to Finally Get Hitler?’”
I didn’t pick up on that, but yes, now that you mention it. Good going.