Ron Paul takes the lead in Iowa.

[Zevico]

Quoting from the same Carter speech:

Now, I believe in detente with the Soviet Union. To me it means progress toward peace. But the effects of detente should not be limited to our own two countries alone. We hope to persuade the Soviet Union that one country cannot impose its system of society upon another, either through direct military intervention or through the use of a client state’s military force, as was the case with Cuban intervention in Angola.

Cooperation also implies obligation. We hope that the Soviet Union will join with us and other nations in playing a larger role in aiding the developing world, for common aid efforts will help us build a bridge of mutual confidence in one another.

Put another way: "Can't we all just agree on helping those poor people? I know Communists just love poor people."

Carter's basic policy was that the Communists were reasonable folk who could get along with the United States if the United States were 'reasonable' enough. Kind words, mutual aid, and everyone can get along. It was naivete of a kind that knew no bounds, and it took a war with Afghanistan for him to realise that the Soviet Union was not some amiable fellow giant but a threat to mankind. Never mind that the Soviet Union's policies and intentions were well known decades prior.

By the way, in reference to "shifting"--yes, I used colloquial language. No, nations aren't people who can be buddies, and there is some imprecision involved in describing their relationships as such. But there's no doubt that in foreign policy Carter was simply a naive fool compared to Reagan.

As to Iran, see http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/...ights_dis.html

[giblets]

Quoting from the same Carter speech:

Now, I believe in detente with the Soviet Union. To me it means progress toward peace. But the effects of detente should not be limited to our own two countries alone. We hope to persuade the Soviet Union that one country cannot impose its system of society upon another, either through direct military intervention or through the use of a client state’s military force, as was the case with Cuban intervention in Angola.

Cooperation also implies obligation. We hope that the Soviet Union will join with us and other nations in playing a larger role in aiding the developing world, for common aid efforts will help us build a bridge of mutual confidence in one another.

Put another way: "Can't we all just agree on helping those poor people? I know Communists just love poor people."

Carter's basic policy was that the Communists were reasonable folk who could get along with the United States if the United States were 'reasonable' enough. Kind words, mutual aid, and everyone can get along. It was naivete of a kind that knew no bounds, and it took a war with Afghanistan for him to realise that the Soviet Union was not some amiable fellow giant but a threat to mankind. Never mind that the Soviet Union's policies and intentions were well known decades prior.

By the way, in reference to "shifting"--yes, I used colloquial language. No, nations aren't people who can be buddies, and there is some imprecision involved in describing their relationships as such. But there's no doubt that in foreign policy Carter was simply a naive fool compared to Reagan.

As to Iran, see http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/...ights_dis.html

I'm impressed by how you managed to misinterpret that passage. You're either a liar or an idiot. Carter was obviously saying an armed conflict with the Soviet Union would be futile for both sides and the Soviets should be persuaded of that. And if the Soviets don't want to help poor people then suggesting that the Soviets should help poor people is a fine way of pointing out that they don't even though they claim to be siding with the poor. Damn what a naive fool!

The link you were nice enough to provide never even suggests that it was Carter's intention to have the Shah overthrown which is what "I'll be buddies with the Ayatollah, oops turns out he just held my embassy hostage" would seem to imply. Oh what a naive fool for pressuring an autocratic dictator to abuse human rights less, I'm sure Reagan would never criticize a dictatorship for violating human rights!

[kentonio]

Kentonio, my point is simply this: Democrats and Republicans each draw on rich intellectual, political, and social traditions that underlie their beliefs, principles and policies.

What you're missing is that the positions of Bachmann, Santorum et al, are decidedly not the positions of the Republican party of old. The new TP/GOP are opposing mainstream Republican thought in the most blatent ways. People are not joking when they say that Reagan would be denounced as a RINO by the new breed.

Republicans and Democrats have governed your nation for decades and each have contributed to its success at varying times.

Considering I'm English, I can certainly say that is incorrect, except in the more indirect way.

If you wish to understand what Bachmann et al think and believe I suggest you actually read what they have to say on the issues; look in particular for any sources they cite, or reasons given; research them; and then you will understand them. You may not agree with them all the time but you will recognise, I think, that they are not intellectual lightweights.

You see this is what makes me think you are not practising what you preach. I have read what they have to say, and what they have to say is largely inane, bigotted and often downright stupid. They are intellectual midgets.

In other words, what you're saying is that the Republicans don't have any intelligent leaders, supporters or adherents. This strikes me as akin to the argument of a eugenicist.

The influence of the tea party has led the GOP to purge their moderate voice, fueled by the 2010 elections. They made the fatal error of assuming that moving to the extremes meant electability, and its going to take a crushing defeat to make them see sense again.

As opposed to "we can be buddies with the Communists, oops they invaded Afghanistan" Carter? Or "I'll be buddies with the Ayatollah, oops turns out he just held my embassy hostage" Carter?
I think Carter was an intelligent man, by the way. Don't take me for suggesting he wasn't. You don't get to be President of the US, a democratic nation of 300 million people, without possessing intelligence. But his views on foreign policy amounted to naive Wilsonianism, a doctrine whose lofty goals have achieved precious little over the years.

Carter did not know how to distinguish enemies and allies, at any rate until they drove home the message that they were enemies by capturing American citizens and invading unaligned nations. Reagan understood that subject far better than Carter did.

What people seem to miss is that communism was not some purely evil force. Communism took root the way it did because hundreds of millions of people were living in poverty with no hope, and an ideology that purportedly cares about the working man is 'surprise, surprise' attractive to the working man living in poverty! You know the lesson here? It's not to paint communism as evil, its to take care of the working man and give him opportunity so that he doesn't feel the need to rip the system apart looking for a better future. That's why this recent shift to the hard right is so damn stupid, its just going to lead to normal working people looking for an extreme alternative, and I promise you you won't like that any more than you did communism.

Comparing Republicans to Nazis trivialises the evil of Nazism. It is basically a form of Holocaust denial. Implicitly it suggests that the most evil things the Nazis ever did or intended to do was cut taxes and ban abortion (I'm not aware of them doing either, by the way).

You made a silly comment about heaping scorn on alternate opinions being 'unbecoming' and you deserved to be called on it. Not all opinions are equal, and some opinions deserve opposition, scorn, and sometimes revulsion. When a primary candidate for the highest office in the world wants to institutionalize hatred towards minorities, send millions of Americans plunging into poverty and misery, and send America to war without properly considering alternative action then they deserve to be called insane, bigotted scum.

[kentonio]

The link you were nice enough to provide never even suggests that it was Carter's intention to have the Shah overthrown which is what "I'll be buddies with the Ayatollah, oops turns out he just held my embassy hostage" would seem to imply. Oh what a naive fool for pressuring an autocratic dictator to abuse human rights less, I'm sure Reagan would never criticize a dictatorship for violating human rights!

The same Carter who the year before the revolution said..

'Under the Shah’s brilliant leadership Iran is an island of stability in one of the most troublesome regions of the world. There is no other state figure whom I could appreciate and like more.'

[notyoueither]

What people seem to miss is that communism was not some purely evil force. Communism took root the way it did because hundreds of millions of people were living in poverty with no hope, and an ideology that purportedly cares about the working man is 'surprise, surprise' attractive to the working man living in poverty! You know the lesson here? It's not to paint communism as evil, its to take care of the working man and give him opportunity so that he doesn't feel the need to rip the system apart looking for a better future. That's why this recent shift to the hard right is so damn stupid, its just going to lead to normal working people looking for an extreme alternative, and I promise you you won't like that any more than you did communism.

Very good point. However, I'm afraid that the broken crockery is not going to be confined to the US, nor is it always going to be about a turn to the right.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What you're missing is that the positions of Bachmann, Santorum et al, are decidedly not the positions of the Republican party of old. The new TP/GOP are opposing mainstream Republican thought in the most blatent ways. People are not joking when they say that Reagan would be denounced as a RINO by the new breed.

This is undoubtably true. Bachmann, Santorum, and Perry would not be seen as within the mainstream of the Republican Party in the 1980s. In the 1990s, they'd be seen as too far right. When columnists write with the mindset of the older Republican Party, focused on communities and tradition, a la Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, David Brooks, they are screamed at as being leftists.

[Zevico]

On Communism, you're wrong.
On Iran, perhaps correct. I'll cede for lack of knowledge of the particular events of the time.

[Zevico]

What people seem to miss is that communism was not some purely evil force.

What you seem to miss is that it is. Communism involves:
1) At the outset, the expropriation of property without compensation--legalised theft;
2) The concentration of property, or more accurately, the control and in the hands of the bureaucratic elite at the "vanguard" of the revolution;
3) The imposition of bureacratic and arbitrary controls over most to all of the average citizen's existence;
4) It means the inability of the average citizen to express themselves without risk of death, imprisonment, or torture at the hands of "the vanguard";

Any Marxist-Leninist party is doomed to repeat these basic errors. This explains why the original Marxist-Leninist Party, and its ideological brethren in China, Korea, and Vietnam (to name just a few) wrought tyranny and havoc upon the world.

Communism took root the way it did because hundreds of millions of people were living in poverty with no hope

It took root partly for this reason, yes.

and an ideology that purportedly cares about the working man is 'surprise, surprise' attractive to the working man living in poverty!

A common misconception is that Communism was the work of the "working man." China, Russia, Vietnam, Korea--all of these countries had very few "working men." They had many uneducated peasants. The "working men's" countries mostly escaped Communist depradations because the slogan of "property is theft" did not strike the "average working man" as just, given that it meant an end to the basic and general improvement of the working man's quality of life over the span of decades and centuries. Industrialisation and the advent of the working man spelled the beginning of the end of tyranny as we know it, in that it allowed more and more people to have the time and energy to think about and understand the ideas that made society succeed. It was the participation of the working man in the great democracies which spelled their success. It was the absence of the working man in Russia which spelled the advent of Communism.

You know the lesson here? It's not to paint communism as evil

It is and has been a resounding moral, political and economic failure.

its to take care of the working man

The working man takes care of himself.

and give him opportunity so that he doesn't feel the need to rip the system apart looking for a better future.

No, that's the attitude of the mob and the peasant. Not the attitude of the working man.

That's why this recent shift to the hard right

Once again, you identify the rise of the notional "hard right," but you don't identify what it is about the Tea Party's political positions that differentiates them politically from the philosophy and principles of the Republican party.

is so damn stupid, its just going to lead to normal working people looking for an extreme alternative

I don't have faith in your prognostications, unfortunately.

When a primary candidate for the highest office in the world wants to institutionalize hatred towards minorities

Does he, though? Is that what "Don't ask Don't tell" is about? Institutionalising "hatred"? How does it do that, exactly? Hatred is an emotion, not a policy. It cannot be institutionalised.

send millions of Americans plunging into poverty and misery

By the way, millions of Americans plunged into poverty and misery under Obama, notwithstanding stimulus et al. Does it follow that he is a cause for the extremism of the working man?

and send America to war without properly considering alternative action

Will they? Obama did in Libya. Will Perry? I haven't heard him speak on the subject but he's never called for war with Iran so it is at the very least speculative to assert that he will. As to the others, again, it depends on what they believe in and why. I have low expectations for foreign policy in this field--all I ask is that the candidates identify those groups whose ideologies necessarily conflict with those of the United States and those that do not, and deal with the former as enemies. The basic approach of the United States for the past 4 years has been to treat Iran, (more tentatively) Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood as being in the latter camp (to this day!). It can't even bring itself to say the word "Islamist"; one of its spokespersons, speaking from prepared notes, described the MB as a "mostly secular" group that had "eschewed violence." The fact that the MB's Supreme Guide declared war on the United States in 2010 is treated as irrelevant by this administration; installing it into power in Egypt is treated as desirable. Meanwhile, Turkey's Erdogan spouts off and treats Hamas and company as comrades. All the while the Adminsitration just says "aww shucks, look at those moderate Turkish Islamists." So moderate they openly and explicitly threatened to imprison anyone who possesses a book )the Army of Imams) that even so much as accuses the Turkish police of being infiltrated by Islamists.

then they deserve to be called insane, bigotted scum.

That's where you and I differ. I don't think Rick Perry is bigoted. I don't think the implementation of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" will do much other than preclude gays from openly serving in the Armed Forces. So they'll keep their sexuality private. It's not the wisest policy, but it's certainly not the equivalent of Nazism. "They prevented us from openly serving in the armed forces" is not the same as "they massacred us all" and you do a disservice to yourself in suggesting as much. I certainly don't think Perry's insane. Think of the implications of that statement for a moment. If Perry is insane, is he fit to drive a car? Vote? Express his opinions? Raise children? What do we do to the mentally unfit in our society?

I don't buy into this kind of analysis, wherein we ascribe insanity to those with whom we disagree. Such an approach leads one to ignore and thereby misunderstand the motives underlying their actions, which are usually rational if you accept the premises on which they act. Iran's leaders aren't insane. Nor was Bin Laden, nor was Qaddaffi. Fact is you don't get to the top without being sane. Cunning, ruthless, yes; arbitrary in your dealings-certainly. But arbitrariness is there to entrench fear. Dictatorship is arbitrary; entrenching senselessness is therefore necessary to encourage acquiescence in dictatorship. But if you can't tell what's going on around you, you simply won't last at the top.

[onodera]

Once again, you are talking out of your ass about communism, Zevico. Peasants have never been the backbone of the bolshevik movement, for instance.

[Zevico]

Once again, you are talking out of your ass about communism, Zevico. Peasants have never been the backbone of the bolshevik movement, for instance.

The point I make is that Russia was the least industrialised of the European nations. Working men were relatively few and far between in Russia. That speaks to why the bolshevik moment succeeded in Russia--the absence, not the presence, of the working man, was the difference between it and the West.

[kentonio]

Since when did you get to write off millions of people as 'peasants' incidentally? What exactly do you think a working man is?

The working man takes care of himself.

Why do you think the union systems sprung up across the world? Either a country brings employee protection laws onto the books or the employers end up requiring unions to protect their interests. Why? Because what you said was the opposite of the truth, working people cannot take care of themsevles against large rich corporate organizations.

Obama did in Libya.

Really? How many US boots were needed on the ground in Libya? I know the right loved to scream and shout about how evil it was to start another war, yet I've never heard a convincing argument for how providing air power for an international mission in Libya was comparable to occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

Does he, though? Is that what "Don't ask Don't tell" is about? Institutionalising "hatred"? How does it do that, exactly? Hatred is an emotion, not a policy. It cannot be institutionalised.

When you have a law that says a small minority cannot tell anyone about their sexuality without being fired from their job, then yes thats institutionalized hatred/bigotry. It sends a clear message to the rest of the people that its ok to demand gays should hide away from 'normal' people and that they are different and need kept apart.

So they'll keep their sexuality private. It's not the wisest policy, but it's certainly not the equivalent of Nazism. "They prevented us from openly serving in the armed forces" is not the same as "they massacred us all" and you do a disservice to yourself in suggesting as much.

Except that I didn't suggest that. I used nazism as a rather obvious counter to your suggestion that you should never scorn your countrymens opinions.

I don't buy into this kind of analysis, wherein we ascribe insanity to those with whom we disagree. Such an approach leads one to ignore and thereby misunderstand the motives underlying their actions, which are usually rational if you accept the premises on which they act. Iran's leaders aren't insane. Nor was Bin Laden, nor was Qaddaffi. Fact is you don't get to the top without being sane. Cunning, ruthless, yes; arbitrary in your dealings-certainly. But arbitrariness is there to entrench fear. Dictatorship is arbitrary; entrenching senselessness is therefore necessary to encourage acquiescence in dictatorship. But if you can't tell what's going on around you, you simply won't last at the top.

Theres a lot of different types of mental disorder and very few of them involve people not knowing whats going on around them. psycopaths apparently do very well in big business and are overrepresented there. A number of world leaders have been almost certainly sociopathic. I'm not qualified to talk mental illness so I'll leave that to our resident doctors, but theres a lot of degrees of madness.

[DinoDoc]

I know the right loved to scream and shout about how evil it was to start another war, yet I've never heard a convincing argument for how providing air power for an international mission in Libya was comparable to occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

Let's take the same vague argument used to support the mission "responsibility to protect" and ask ourselves why we aren't attacking Syria atm. The problem I had with the war was that there was never a clear reason given why it was in America's interest to even give a damn about the people of Libya.

[kentonio]

Let's take the same vague argument used to support the mission "responsibility to protect" and ask ourselves why we aren't attacking Syria atm. The problem I had with the war was that there was never a clear reason given why it was in America's interest to even give a damn about the people of Libya.

It probably had more to do with a few hundred Americans getting blown out of the sky over Lockerbie a while back. Unfinished business.

[Felch]

We quashed that beef though.

[Hauldren Collider]

Ron Paul’s quest to undo the party of Lincoln

By Michael Gerson, Published: January 1

Let us count the ways in which the nomination of Ron Paul would be groundbreaking for the GOP.

No other recent candidate hailing from the party of Lincoln has accused Abraham Lincoln of causing a “senseless” war and ruling with an “iron fist.” Or regarded Ronald Reagan’s presidency a “dramatic failure.” Or proposed the legalization of prostitution and heroin use. Or called America the most “aggressive, extended and expansionist” empire in world history. Or promised to abolish the CIA, depart NATO and withdraw military protection from South Korea. Or blamed terrorism on American militarism, since “they’re terrorists because we’re occupiers.” Or accused the American government of a Sept. 11 “coverup” and called for an investigation headed by Dennis Kucinich. Or described the killing of Osama bin Laden as “absolutely not necessary.” Or affirmed that he would not have sent American troops to Europe to end the Holocaust. Or excused Iranian nuclear ambitions as “natural,” while dismissing evidence of those ambitions as “war propaganda.” Or published a newsletter stating that the 1993 World Trade Center attack might have been “a setup by the Israeli Mossad,” and defending former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and criticizing the “evil of forced integration.”

Each of these is a disqualifying scandal. Taken together, a kind of grandeur creeps in. The ambition of Paul and his supporters is breathtaking. They wish to erase 158 years of Republican Party history in a single political season, substituting a platform that is isolationist, libertarian, conspiratorial and tinged with racism. It won’t happen. But some conservatives seem paradoxically drawn to the radicalism of Paul’s project. They prefer their poison pill covered in glass and washed down with battery acid. It proves their ideological manhood.

In many ways, Paul is the ideal carrier of this message. His manner is vague and perplexed rather than angry — as though he is continually searching for lost car keys. Yet those who reject his isolationism are called “warmongers.” The George W. Bush administration, in his view, was filled with “glee” after the Sept. 11 attacks, having found an excuse for war. Paul is just like your grandfather — if your grandfather has a nasty habit of conspiratorial calumny.

Recent criticism of Paul — in reaction to racist rants contained in the Ron Paul Political Report — has focused on the candidate’s view of civil rights. Associates have denied he is a racist, which is both reassuring and not particularly relevant. Whatever his personal views, Paul categorically opposes the legal construct that ended state-sanctioned racism. His libertarianism involves not only the abolition of the Department of Education but also a rejection of the federal role in civil rights from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This is the reason Paul is among the most anti-Lincoln public officials since Jefferson Davis resigned from the United States Senate. According to Paul, Lincoln caused 600,000 Americans to die in order to “get rid of the original intent of the republic.” Likewise, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 diminished individual liberty because the “federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please.” A federal role in civil rights is an attack on a “free society.” According to Paul, it is like the federal government dictating that you can’t “smoke a cigar.”

The comparison of civil rights to the enjoyment of a cigar is a sad symptom of ideological delirium. It also illustrates confusion at the heart of libertarianism. Government can be an enemy of liberty. But the achievement of a free society can also be the result of government action — the protection of individual liberty against corrupt state governments or corrupt business practices or corrupt local laws. In 1957, President Eisenhower sent 1,000 Army paratroopers to Arkansas to forcibly integrate Central High School in Little Rock. This reduced Gov. Orval Faubus’s freedom. It increased the liberty of Carlotta Walls LaNier, who was spat upon while trying to attend school. A choice between freedoms was necessary — and it was not a hard one.

Paul’s conception of liberty is not the same as Lincoln’s — which is not a condemnation of Lincoln. Paul’s view would have freed African Americans from the statism of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act. It would have freed the occupants of concentration camps from their dependency on liberating armies. And it would free the Republican Party from any claim to conscience or power.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ron-pauls-quest-to-undo-the-party-of-lincoln/2011/12/30/gIQAOrlyUP_story.html