Dred Scott Redux: Obama and the Supremes Stand Up for Slavery

[David Floyd]

England declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland, we were the non interventionists. Now you think WWII could have been avoided if only the USA attacked Germany before Sept '39? We could have sat the war out if we weren't attacked.

From 1933-1939, England advocated just the policy you are advocating. They preferred not to support the French, who were ready to march into the Rhineland if Britain would have supported them. Stanley Baldwin repeated refused to rearm, even when it was repeatedly shown to him that the Germans were heavily outspending Britain and France combined. Baldwin guaranteed the British would maintain a minimum of air PARITY, then, when that was exposed as a lie, his rather feeble defense was that the current electoral situation didn't permit increased spending. Neville Chamberlain, when he became PM, preferred to "appease" Hitler, by allowing him his "bloodless conquests", even going so far as to sit down in a room with Hitler to settle the Sudeten crisis, without consulting the Czechs, then ordering them to comply, then going back to the UK with a guarantee of "peace in our time". It goes on, and on, and on.

As for the US "sitting out the war", that's kinda laughable, given that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without a declaration of war, and the Germans declared war after Pearl Harbor. Now, you can certainly argue that the US committed prior acts of war against Germany, by supplying England, aggressively patrolling against U-boats, etc. But surely you can't argue that we provoked Japan, or forced them into war. I invite you to try to make that argument.

And either way, do you really think the world world would be a better place, if in 1944, Germany was controlling all of continental Europe, from the Channel to the Volga, and from the Arctic Circle to Sicily? Britain would be barely hanging on, and the US would end up having to fight a war in 5, 10, 15 years later anyway. Why? Because the Nazis were demonstrably insane.

So some army of 2-3 million is gonna sail over here and successfully invade 300 million heavily armed people backed by nukes?

Nope. Also, an army of 2-3 million isn't gonna sail over here and invade 300 million unarmed people backed with nukes. For that matter, no nation on Earth has the capability to sealift even 1% of your 2-3 million men. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt.

The only "appeasement" advocated by libertarians is pulling our armies out of their countries. The right wing hawks disagree, so dont try to lay terrorism at the feet of isolationists.

I'm pretty sure the history of isolationism speaks for itself. Yeah, unilaterally withdrawing from South Korea might not be TELLING the North Koreans to march in, but the effect would likely be the same, or at least it would have been 30 years ago. Unilaterally withdrawing support of Israel would effectively tell the Arab powers to feel free to take another shot. Had we withdrawn from Europe unilaterally at any point during the Cold War, Europe would have felt so militarily naked that Western Europe would have turned into a Soviet satellite.

Also, I'm not blaming isolationists for terrorism. I blame the terrorists for that. What I do blame the isolationist movement for is a history of supporting policies that empower those hostile to the United States and our interests.

AQ started attacking us after Bush/Clinton refused to withdraw the troops from Saudi Arabia. Thats a fact. AQ said they were attacking us because our troops were there. And AQs spin offs have attacked countries with troops in the ME and stopped those attacks once they left. And please dont tell me AQ attacked us because we are free

Why would we withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia? They're there at the invitation and with the support of the Saudi government. Are you seriously advocating that we take orders from AQ, or other militant Muslim groups? Are you saying that if, say, Germany invites us to host military bases in their territory, but a militant German group of anti-American terrorists is upset about it, we should leave?

The only way we would be able to avoid terrorist attacks would be to completely withdraw from the world, seal our borders, refuse to export our system of government or assist nations who wanted our assistance, and basically bury our heads in the sand.

Oh, wait, actually there is another way to avoid terrorist attacks; specifically, by cracking down on terrorism. How many terrorist attacks have succeeded against the US since 9/11, by the way?

I'm sure you and your family aint slaves, does that mean slavery is okay with you? No, I'm not saying the Patriot Act = slavery. We dont know whats been done under the Patriot Act but you're missing the point, the Patriot Act and similar measures increase the authority of 1 person, and with the powers we're giving that 1 person they could cart yer ass off to jail and never answer to anyone about it. You need that to happen to you or your friends before you get concerned?

No, the PA doesn't give 1 person the authority to cart me off. Y'see, I'm not advocating terror. You can argue the precedent could create a slippery slope, and that's fine, but I can't argue against a doomsday scenario that hasn't happened, and in fact, in similar situations in the past, the opposite has happened.

Again, the history of PA-type laws and their long term effects supports my argument, not your doomsday scenario.

If the Prez can make you disappear legally, thats a dictatorship. I know laws in the past were bad, how does that make your point for you? If Adams had people imprisoned for criticizing him, was that dictatorial? Hell yeah... The authoritarian aholes lose power, they piss people off and get kicked out. We have the Founders to thank for giving us a framework thats hard for dictators to negate, that doesn't mean right wing hawks aren't autocratic. But you'll be the first to admit how weak the Constitution has become, the past doesn't mean a future without dictators.

Sorry, I can't argue against doomsday scenarios, except to point at history.

Also, being a right wing hawk doesn't make one autocratic, any more than being a left wing isolationist makes one autocratic. What we're talking about on the one hand is foreign policy, and on the other about the limits of federal power. I agree that federal power should be limited as far as possible, and that big government is typically bad government. But I also agree that our system doesn't force us into a suicide pact, where we can't effectively respond to terrorism.

Since you're posing hypothetical situations, let me put one to you: What if the only way to stop and/or greatly limit terrorist attacks was the Patriot Act, and the alternative was a 9/11 style attack every couple of years, with airplane hijackings, suicide bombings, and such going on throughout the country every month. Would you support the Patriot Act in that situation?

And yes, it's heavily contrived, unrealistic, and just as impossible to factually support as your scenario. But it is a useful thought experiment, I think.

I said Patriot Act etc, the grab for power doesn't end there. Jose Padilla is a US citizen and now he's insane from years of solitary confinement. Maybe he's guilty, maybe not - who knows without a trial. Are we gonna trust 1 man with the power to decide? A "benevolent" dictatorship is still a dictatorship...

One man didn't all of a sudden decide to imprison Jose Padilla. The evidence, to which we aren't privy, would have implicated Padilla to the point of certainty. We aren't, and shouldn't, be privy to that evidence because that would compromise our ability to gather such evidence. But you aren't going to tell me it's MORE likely that Bush decided, on his own, to manufacture bull**** and single out Padilla for no reason.

[David Floyd]

Darius,

OK, I'll trust you. I like the quote regardless, I'd just heard it (apparently erroneously) attributed to Churchill in the past. It's certainly something he would say.

[David Floyd]

Oh, sorry, missed this gem:

Now you think WWII could have been avoided if only the USA attacked Germany before Sept '39?

No, because the US didn't have the capability to attack Germany.

Britain and France did, and could have done so in 1935. They could have told the Czechs to fight over the Sudetenland in 1938, which would have netted them an additional 35 well armed divisions sitting behind the biggest fortified line in Europe outside the Maginot Line, except that the Sudeten fortifications didn't have a noticeable weak spot.

The point is, NOT intervening is sometimes much worse than preventive war. My point was that WW2 was the quintessential example of such. If you want to seriously deny that, then go ahead. We can go right down the road of pre-WW2 politics and military readiness and such, but it won't go well for you.