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Thread 9317

Thread ID: 9317 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-08-26

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Sertorius [OP]

2003-08-26 23:32 | User Profile

Apparently, the neo-cons are having a problem similar to that of some blacks have in form of trying to decide what they wish to be called, e.g. black, “african-american,” ect. In the case of the neo-cons, they can’t decide if they exist or not. My comments are in red in this ridiculous column. -S

=================================================== Spreading Western values not a 'neo' idea

Paul Mulshine - Star-Ledger Thursday, August 21, 2003 What would Barry do?

Barry Goldwater, I mean. I offer his hallowed memory up to my fellow conservatives as a means of ending this rather silly debate over something called ''neoconservatism.''

The debate has been going on for a year or so. It really picked up after the United States invaded Iraq. A number of people who claim to be ''traditional'' conservatives are attacking the so-called ''neoconservatives'' over the war and the larger question of America's role in the world.

[color=red]Actually, it has been going on a lot longer than that. At least since Mel Bradford got the shaft. “Traditional” conservative is just another way of saying paleoconservative.[/color]

The prefix ''neo,'' of course, means ''new.'' And the theory of the ''traditional'' conservatives is that there's something new about the idea that the United States should spread its values all over the world. There isn't. What's ''neo'' is this squeamishness about confronting dictators.

In a recent column, George F. Will placed himself among the alleged traditional conservatives who have supposedly opposed attempts to spread American values around the world. He criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair's view that Western values are ''the universal values of the human spirit'' and also President Bush's observation that ''if the values are good enough for our people, they ought to be good enough for others.''

[color=red]One has to wonder if Will wrote that column in an attempt to make himself relevant again. After all, the best he can do today is to appear on a third rate show will George Stepanopulous and that has to be a let down from his salad days of the early ’80. More important is what Bush said. I couldn’t care less what Blair believes, as he isn’t president. “ought” and "are" are two different things and despite what Bush may think it there is too much history that proves that western values are something that most third worlders can’t grasp. The “propositional nation” is at best a neo-con fantasy or at worst a deliberate attempt to destroy the west by divide and conquer.[/color]

If that sort of thing makes Bush and Blair neoconservatives, just how would the ''traditional'' conservatives describe Goldwater and his successor, Ronald Reagan? Both of these men believed Americans had a duty to spread our values over all the world. Here's a Goldwater quote from 1963, the year before his unsuccessful run for president: ''The ultimate objective of American foreign policy must be to help establish a world in which there is the largest possible measure of freedom with justice, peace and material prosperity.''

[color=red]Complete garbage. I’d call Goldwater a conservative. Reagan, I think had conservative instincts that unfortunately he allowed to be suppressed by bad and/or corrupt advisers. When it comes to spreading values that was meant to be by example as verses the neo-con version of force of arms. Mulshine, like most neo-cons fails to realize that the Cold War is over. As for Goldwater’s quote I would say he meant that the Soviet Union had to be opposed in places like Western Europe, they, being a hell of a bigger threat than Hussein's broken down army and al-Qaida.[/color]

A lot of people thought Goldwater was off his rocker, but few of them were conservatives. As for the ''neoconservatives,'' that term was coined in the late 1970s by New York intellectual Irving Kristol to describe a group of intellectuals who came over to Goldwater's way of thinking, which by then had been picked up by Reagan. But it was the people who were ''neo,'' not the philosophy.

[color=red]More garbage. People like Irving Kristol never came over to Goldwater’s thinking when it came to the New Deal or state’s rights. The main reason they came over was they were worried that a McGovern type might abandon their beloved Israel.[/color]

During the Reagan era, a lot of people disagreed with that philosophy. But they were liberals. And they at least knew where they stood. The so-called traditional conservatives today are a bit confused. They call themselves conservatives, but they adopt a distinctly liberal viewpoint, multiculturalism. [color=red](!)[/color]

If foreign dictators do not want their subjects to enjoy such Western values as freedom of political thought and freedom of religion, we have to accept that, as Will put it, ''not every society has the prerequisites --- of institutions (political parties, media) and manners (civility, acceptance of pluralism) --- of a free society.''

[color=red]Damn! I have to agree with Will. Maybe there’s hope for him. Another way to make Will’s point is “you mind your business and I’ll mind mine.” Armed neutrality” is another way in this day and time. As far as being accused of being confused it looks more like Mulshine is the confused one here. The multicultural line is the most asinine thing in the column. It’s Mulshine’s boys who want open borders and support suppressing Southern history among other things.[/color]

This is fine as a thought experiment. But in the real world it's a political version of chaos theory, which envisions the possibility that when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, a series of meteorological events can begin that will end with buildings being knocked over in Florida.

That's just a theory. But we've seen what happens when an international extremist movement forces women to wear burqas in Afghanistan. This can cause a political storm that will end with buildings being knocked down in New York City.

[color=red]No, this just another example of neo-con silliness. Whether women wear burkas in Afghanistan is of no concern of mind. That didn’t cause 9/11. Failure to enforce immigration laws and greed on the part of the airlines in regard to security did.[/color]

This is no longer theoretical. Before Sept. 11, most Americans thought that the internal politics of faraway countries could have little effect on life in America. We now know better. Perhaps ''traditional'' conservatives believe we can be safe in the United States while the Saudi Arabians persist in propagating Islamo fascism. In that case, call me a neocon.

[color=red]Okay, I will and worse, because that is exactly what you are. Not only that, but you sound like a Stephen Schwartz type of neo-con as well by using the expression “islamo fascism.” He should take into account as well the meddling that the multinationals and the Israeli lobby do in that region as a cause of why we are so hated.[/color]

And call Goldwater one as well. What would he do? He'd tell every one of these clowns the same thing: Your values are a danger to us. Therefore, you have to change your values. And then, thanks to the wonders of air power, they would have to change their values or find a different planet on which to live.

[color=red]I assume that he means that the arabs would have to change their values, but he being a neo-con I suspect he’d bomb people like me, him being a liar and a little troskyite as well. Goldwater would more likely send this jerk to the devil first.[/color]

Paul Mulshine is a columnist for the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

[color=red]Paul Mushine is either a fool or a knave. Over the years I've read alot of material by these clowns, by this in my opinion is one of the dumbest columns I have ever read. It may be the dumbest in this folder. These are not just lies, but stupid ones at that.

Finally this. He writes of spreading "western values." I would submit the values being spread here are Zionist values!-S[/color]

[url=http://www.ajc.com/print/content/epaper/editions/thursday/opinion_f344c51eb26ee1c61012.html] http://www.ajc.com/print/content/epaper/ed...6ee1c61012.html[/url]

Oklahomaman

2003-08-27 01:31 | User Profile

Thanks Sert. He is strictly a second-rate thinker giving a crash course in Neo-con jackassery.

** That's just a theory. But we've seen what happens when an international extremist movement forces women to wear burqas in Afghanistan. This can cause a political storm that will end with buildings being knocked down in New York City. **

Or when a poisonous international ethnic ideology subverts a nation to further its own insane objectives. This can cause a catastrophic strategic breakdown leading to American troops being gunned down by rag-tag peasants in Bagdad, while the human pig, Sharon, laughs all the way to the oil refinery in Tel-Aviv.

Sertorius

2003-08-27 10:44 | User Profile

You're welcomed, OK.

I suspect that laughter of Sharon's will turn to screams of outrage if after building the pipeline that the Iraqis keep blowing it. It doesn't appear to me that they are going to allow Cheney's cronies to steal the oil without a fight and certainly not the Zionists. I hope they don't make a dime off of it.